Any freelance programmers out there???

Are you practising freelance programming?? If so, i wish to get some advice from you cos i wish to become one too. Perhaps you can tell me about your experiences and advice. Thanks!

I was a freelance programmer. I would give you this advice. Do not become freelancer too soon. Make sure you have some solid industry experience and understand the essence of our profession before going independent.

I've seen results of people going independent after a year of coding thinking:"I can do everything now!", and it aint a pretty site. :-)

Much too often I pick up code written by self taught freelancers who never had the guidance of a true professional.

Just yesterday I picked up ASP code running the multiuser internet community application on Access database. Primary keys are CHAR(50) and are generated inside ASP scripts by executing SELECT MAX(lastid) FROM ... and adding one without taking consideration for concurrent access. Field names are a mosaic of different programming styles, the author never heard about load balancing, constrains, referential integrity...

I think the best time to go freelance is when you are so good that you can truly contribute to the project decisively. Many start ups have small teams of incompetent people and when they enter first serious problems as a result of their chaotic process - there lies your opportunity to join the project as a team lead and consultant.

And another thing. If you want to be professional then you should not seek for a position that requires maintainance for the next 10 years...

Sincerely,
Tomaz

I agree completely about too many freelance "wanna-be's". I'm currently a freelance programmer now, but have worked "TO GET TO THIS POINT". Meaning, I had to play second fiddle while learning anything and everything before going out on my own.

The main reason is quite simplistic. When you're working for somebody, you always have them as support for questions, backup if you need help, etc. When you're on your own, there is nobody else.

The worst thing that can happen when you're working for yourself is to ask such things as "I'm trying to program it this way, what do you think??".

The companies or busineses that are going to hire you are not going to hire you simply to program. They're going to hire you AND KEEP YOU because of your experience, knowledge, and talent.

One of our clients hired a "Consultant" who used to work for AT&T until he was laid off. This person when on to freelance, assuming of course that he would still be doing exactly what he was doing, except on his own.

Within several short months, the client expressed some concern because he "wasn't acting/working like a consultant.".

This person who used to work for a company, ASSUMED that it was exactly the same being out on his own.

Both himself, and the client, are/have been burned by this experience (or lack of experience).

The main thing to remember, is to focus on a particular type of business (i.e. Retail, Distribution, etc.) and learn as much as you can from the Non-programming point of view (How the users & employees work currently). Once you have the business experience, you'll be taken much more seriously in the freelance community.

Harry Rathsam

Harry, I completely agree with you. To simplify:
Your customer hires you as a freelancer to *solve problems*, not to create problems! Meaning that you have to adopt the language. In a coding environment when you have a problem you communicate with your environment in technical terms. In business environment your customer is expecting to communicate with you in terms of his environment. Many times it is management that you are dealing with. And this means not only that they will communicate with you in business terms but they will communicate in terms of their objectives and omit the details. Depends on management style, of course.
The worst thing you can do is to ask the manager about some details. He will feel uncomfortable with this because he does not know the details. He knows that he has 1mio$ budget to increase the sales for 10% by expanding to e-market. He can't give you an answer. But he will usually answer something vogue. The biggest mistake that technical person will do is to ask the same question again because the answer was not clear enough...C, c, c... Major mistake. :-)

Regards,
Tomaz