Hi all!

This is a new essay I wrote today, as a way to brainstorm an idea I'm having.
It's written from my personal perspective but has implications for many tech
workers. Please read it if you have the time and nerve. Flame away!

Regards,

Shlomi Fish

=============================

It used to be commonly accepted that one has to find a permanent full-time
(or possibly half-time) job where he works for a salary. Yet, recently I came
to know many people who are already freelancers and work as consultants or
contractors. In this essay I'm trying to brainstorm with myself about whether
I should become one too, but of course, other people may wish to consider it.

-----------

Carla Schroder has written an excellent essay encouraging female programmers
to
become freelancers:

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/47357/index.html

Despite the fact that it is directed towards females, it makes a good read
by men too, and what she says there is pretty much gender-neutral. Another
factor that caused me to need to reconsider working as a salaried employee is
Paul Graham's recent "Startup"-themed articles:

http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html
http://www.paulgraham.com/opensource.html
http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html

Now in one of them Graham says that running a startup is hard, and one of
the students that took it said something like "I imagined it would be hard,
but I didn't think it would be that hard.". And here's the problem - I cannot
handle pressure too well:

http://mirror.hamakor.org.il/archives/discussions/06-2006/3376.html
(link in Hebrew).

So I'd rather not start a startup. But often what Paul Graham says is just
negative aspects of working as a regular employee, rather than
supporting starting your own startup.

This got me thinking that maybe I should try to make my living as a
consultant, contractor and/or trainer or private teacher rather than work as
a full time employee.

Here are some good and bad points (in no particular order) about such a
change:

1. I'll have to do my own accounting, taxes, etc.
-------------------------------------------------

Being a salaried employee has an advantage of not having to worry about taxes,
because the company has an accountant that takes care of that. Being
a freelancer means one will have to manage his own taxes, by reporting to
an external accountant.

I find taking a care of my finances a bit intimidating at the moment (most
probably due to the reputation it got in the media), but I guess I can learn
how to do it. Many people are doing it, some of them not very intelligent,
and there's always GnuCash for help.

2. I can do what I choose
-------------------------

Being a full time employee means that I have to work on one certain project
that doesn't seem to end, day after day. As someone once told me this "causes
the mind to run in circles.". Naturally, I still have after hours and the
weekend to do things I prefer to do (like working on open source software,
essays, my web sites, etc.)

However, it's still not too much, and I often feel guilty for not working on
the work's project more. While I'm very happy with my current workplace (see
http://shlomif.livejournal.com/9563.html for instance), I find that I dislike
monotonous work.

I used to like working between the times I was a high school student and the
time I started studying in the Technion. However, back then, I was much less
experienced and as a result constantly learnt many new things. During and
after the Technion I became heavily interested and involved in the Free
and Open Source Software world, which also proved to be very exciting. At most
days, I used to do a lot of different things, while still being able to
get a lot done.

Thus, right now a permanent job seems a bit like some kind of slavery. Yes,
it is interesting, but I feel that I'd rather not commit to doing the same
thing every day for 8 hours.

Being a freelancer has the advantage of working on several different things,
and often on areas that I'm interested on in general and in the moment. I can
set up a good price, choose only projects that I know will not take too long,
work on different things as time goes by. I can also say "No." if something
does not interest me or I have a bad feeling about the company.

3. I would need good contacts and publicity
-------------------------------------------

Audrey Tang, a very famous Perl hacker (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audrey_Tang ) who now makes her living as
a consultant, told me on IRC that as a consultant "The first year is always
tough.". Before I joined my current workplace, my parents supported me (and
I'm still living there - [Footnote: LiveAtHome]), and I also made some money
off some programming gigs. Not enough to support myself without my parents,
but I still made some.

I advertised my availability as a person for hire:

http://www.shlomifish.org/work/hire-me/

And received some interest, but nothing final. I received some interest also
after I started working.

I already have some reputation among several Israeli and International
circles, and with some work I can build more and become more well known.
It is possible my web-site and other online resources currently have some
usability or SEO problems that prevent me from being noticed. (For once,
most of my site is in English, including the hire me page).

I guess everyone can get contacts, especially in today's Internetworked
world. If I commit to be a freelancer for a long time (which I didn't so
far, just was looking for a job), I might get lucky.

4. More time to do the things I like:
-------------------------------------

There are many things I like to do in my free time. See my homepage for
a tentative list - http://www.shlomifish.org/ . Working as a freelancer will
enable me to have more time to do the things I like.

In fact, while working on voluntary or independent projects is a burden when
working as a full-time employee, it is a big advantage as a freelancer. That's
because that way one gains newer insights about programming and the world,
and also makes one gain some reputation.

Another point are various ideas I have for projects, that are both
open-source, and have a good commercial value. After a full day or week
of work, I'm too tired to do anything remotely commercial, but if I'm on my
own, I believe I'll be more willing to try. And I also have a selfish interest
in developing such solutions, because they may mean more revenue, and also
may bring more consulting opportunities for me.

5. I can see the world:
-----------------------

A final note is that being a consultant, contractor and trainer means that
I have greater opportunities to see the world: from conferences to
offers abroad. A freelancer I know often has to travel abroad (on the
expense of his clients) to give training courses, because his clients
cannot find a better one.

I'd really like to visit different places, at least sometimes. I often feel
that staying in one place is too boring. I also would like to go to
conferences, even such that are not directly related to my specific job.

Conclusion:
-----------

After I finished writing it, it seems that the advantages outweigh the
disadvantages, which are very small. Obviously, I may be missing some things.
Some people who read it are probably already freelancers, and most others
probably interacted with them, and so may know things second hand.

Some people think that it may sometimes be too immature for someone to become
a freelancer. But it's hard for me to tell whether this is the case for me.

Thoughts, anyone?

----------

[LiveAtHome] - Note to American and other international readers: in Israel
there is much less a taboo against children living in their parents' house
even after graduation from college. I am not the only one in my age that
lives in his parents' house.


--

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish shlomif@...
Homepage: http://www.shlomifish.org/

Chuck Norris wrote a complete Perl 6 implementation in a day but then
destroyed all evidence with his bare hands, so no one will know his secrets.