Good bye freelancing

It’s been now 3 months since I have been officialy hired, 3 months that I’m no longer a freelancer. In a way, it’s kinda funny that the exact same things that really thrilled me, are also those that just bored me, at the same time. First of all was project switching. I’m talking about working for bigger companies using legacy PHP 4 code one month, and a few days later for startups using cutting edge technologies. Within 6 years I designed and built brand new pretty apps from scratch and been dropped in the middle of some systems I would have never built this way if I could, and had no choice but to deal with it. I did some server administration stuff, testing, HTML/CSS integration, Javascript, Angular, Rails. I worked with CMS like Wordpress, Joomla, E-Commerce with Prestashop… and finally ended up completely exhausted.

In the end, I really think that if you want to enjoy freelancing, not only do you have not to be an expert, but you must not be an expert, in anything. It’s actually obvious: the more things you can do (I said “do”, not masterize), the more likely you’ll get a chance to meet some client that may pay you to get these things done. Like it or not, it’s just the way it is.

One more thing that was getting more and more difficult to bear was loneliness, too. I think I do need a buddy to say me things like “dude, you’re gonna be in serious trouble if you do it this way”, or “hey! Well done, this polymorphic tree was a neat idea”. Ho, sure, there’s always the (priceless) client feedback, but you can’t compare any client to a colleague. And when you’re stuck in the middle of a hairy problem, that’s simply not the client’s problem, that’s your very own problem.

This end is a happy end, though, because I’m hired by one of my oldest client that got bigger and bigger, years after years. It’s just that we’re now on the same boat.

I learned tons of things as a freelancer, far behind just the technical stuff (human relationships, business…) now it’s time to head in a more consistent and unique direction.

Good bye Freelancing. It’s been a real pleasure. Who knows, maybe we’ll meet again soon or later. But for now: Good bye.