Being a developer today means working with trendsetting technologies and being a part of an exciting team remotely, in-house or self-employed.
Many workers from home need company and suffer without teamwork and live discussions, as well as office workers, are bored of office rules, schedules, common areas, people and lack of personal space.
One news is always good. There are plenty of jobs for freelancers as well as for employees, starting with a lab report writing service and up to blogging.
However, how to make the correct decision?
It is more personal than a standard-issue where, like in any other question, it is reasonable to consider the pros and cons.
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Freelancer vs Full-Time Developer:
What are the Risks?
In spite of thinking about contract vs. full-time, consider the risks you might have.
As a programmer, you sign a contract no matter be it an office job or a freelance job.
With a remote job, there is always a risk to have nothing. With office work, you can get bored of people, tasks, schedule, transport, routine, and not be able to travel as much as you would love to.
Pros and Cons of being Freelancer
Each student can become a freelancer. Shift your homework and start earning real money instead. Average freelance web developer makes around 5k USD per month according to payscale.com.
In the beginning, if you are struggling as a freelancing developer, you can start the blog by sharing your coding skills. Your blog can turn into the money-making machine.
It means that salary can be considered neither as an advantage nor as a privilege. It is a personal question which depends on the level of skills, number of clients, workload, and rates.
Let’s take a look at other formalities. They can be divided into two groups: environment and work itself.
Freelance Environment
The environmental questions should be as follows:
- Where is my separated working place?
- What time I start and finish my job?
- Where can I have live contact with other people?
- How can I stay fit at least one hour a day?
The important thing every remote employee has to consider is an office. On the one hand, this is a good idea to stay at home the whole day long, but on the contrary freelance programming of high quality can’t be made in the kitchen regularly.
The best option is a separate room. The best choice for those people, who don’t want to work in the office but want to be a part of a community, is a coworking space.
Time Schedule
It is crucial to make deadlines and follow them.
Many beginners consider working at night as a normal schedule for every programmer freelance job. The health problems of a night-worker is a matter of time.
For that reason, the best option is to work no more than 8 hours per day during the daytime when the efficiency is high.
Sport and Talk
Each person needs other people and motion. Socialization is an important part of psychological health, as well as motion, which is a key to physical health.
Together these two components will provide you with high efficiency and strong health. By combining sport with socialization, it is possible to find a hobby that can become a life passion.
Freelance Work itself
These are the following questions every non-office worker have to ask himself:
- Who will communicate with clients and when?
- Do I need a team to shift tasks?
- Who will be my financial manager and pay all the taxes?
- How to combine communication with work?
If you are new in the field and have no freelancer.com or Upwork advanced account you are obligated to save enough money and patience, approximately for 4-5 months.
During this time you may have many meetings and chats.
Meanwhile, to keep your journey going, you can find various other ways of making money online.
Can you communicate with a client?
You should be ready for 2-6 hours of meeting and long argumentative discussions where you have to prove not only your methods but also your rates. This must also be considered as working hours.
Will you manage to do everything alone?
At some point, it is necessary to hire developers on a permanent basis.
Not only to have the work done on time but also to have enough time for qualitative communication and to discuss all the details.
You may also want to have a backup for tasks that you won’t be able to finish till the due date.
Consider hiring a community and financial manager. Some freelancers gather in groups and hire a community manager who will handle the communicative process while you are doing your job.
This is also applicable to a financial manager who will make all the necessary bureaucracy and pay taxes.
How different is Office Job?
With the office job, you don’t have to find solutions to all the previously stated questions. Most of the companies include sports into a social packet. Although you must understand that there are other issues to answer like:
- What if I got bored with a routine?
- What if I want to travel with hot deals?
- How can I avoid unproductive conversations, office rules, and demotivating meetings?
- How can I earn more?
To be updated with the current opportunities for developer jobs, you should have future programming predictions.
Office workers are provided with everything they need. It is a convenient environment where a person can successfully develop professional skills without thinking about money, communications, deadlines, bureaucracy and other challenges.
The final note from Freelancer vs Full-Time developer: Be it a freelance job or office; the more important thing is the project you are working on. The other issues a person can get used to. In any case, this decision depends on personal preferences.
This article is written by Helen Birk and edited by Aniruddha Chaudhari.