On 2 Mar 2009, at 22:04, Tim Hastings wrote:
> Hi friends,
> I have a friend who is a software developer and is planning to set
> himself up as a freelancer doing .Net development work. He uses Cruise
> Control, NUnit, SQL Server, MySQL and has lots of other commercial
> experience. Also, he has been using Amazon web services like EC2, S3
> for over 18 months and also knows his way around the Mono framework
> for deploying .Net on Linux.
> Could anybody share their experiences and offer any advice on landing
> a first gig?
> Any advice would be gratefully received.
1) Try and hit the ground running.
2) The customer is not always right. They are, in many cases wrong.
2a) The customer is rarely right. Often they're very wrong.
2b) The customer is never right. They are always wrong.
3) There are approximately 9 usable business hours in a day. Any
more, and you'll kill yourself.
3a) Those a 9 business hours. Not necessarily 9 hours coding. Some
days, you will do bugger all coding.
3b) That is an average. There may be the occassional "oh shit" race
condition which means that there becomes 26 business hours in a day.
Remember to balance it out.
3c) If you're working less than nine hours a day, make sure the money
is still coming into the pot.
3d) As Paul Robinson has observed, GeekUp, open-source projects and
community are often "business". Remember to factor that in.
4) Try not to bite off more than you can chew.
4a) You are a developer, not a designer. If you need designs, hire a
designer.
4b) You are a developer, not a network engineer. If you need network
support, hire a monkey.
4c) You are a developer, not a 24-hour on-call support service[1]. If
you need a 24-hour on-call support service, hire a minion.
4d) You are a developer, not a one-man army of God. You are not going
to single-handedly end poverty, restore world peace and produce cool
music[2]. As such, if the project looks like it needs an army,
consider hiring an army.
As for landing a gig:
1) Community. Work passes around here and the GeekUp job board quite
regularly.
1a) Community. "You're friend" needs to get his ass on here.
2) Job boards. FreelanceSwitch has a list of useful freelance job
boards. I've landed one gig that way.
3) *hisses through teeth* agencies. They can be occassionaly useful
at getting a contract, rather than a freelancing gig. Some contracts
run like freelancing gigs though if you pick the right ones.
Kian Ryan
Mobile: +44 (0) 798 333 43 24
E-mail: k...@bcs.org
Web: http://www.kianryan.co.uk/
[1] Unless you're stupid enough to sign up for that.
[2] Unless you're Bono.[3]
[3] Or me.
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