Below are my skills,
Official: I got 5 years of experience in various fields,
1 year as manual tester for a Mainframe/JSP based application.
2 years as an automation test engineer, which is a fancy way of writing scripts to do automatic tests.
2 years as a tools developer for an automation framework, work involves writing java/Oracle based tools to do a specific task.
Non Official: . 2 years learning to code and worked on basic android applications. . 2 years on iOS ranging from games to apps.
Side Projects:
Android:
Personal Finance Calculator (http://bit.ly/STAJ8n) helps you to calculate Loan Interest rate.
Baby Names (http://bit.ly/STAJ8n)Provides List of Baby names and their meaning
Mobile Number Tracker(http://bit.ly/STAIkI) provides caller info based on the mobile number (Only India).
Mobile Number Tracker US (http://bit.ly/PGakKz)
iOS Game:
Juicy Fun (http://bit.ly/Ub7IRv) physics game
Atom Ace (http://bit.ly/UxZ6F9) a different kind of puzzle.
iOS App:
London Tube Map (http://bit.ly/QqAXo7) shows london tube statues.
Movie Theaters (http://bit.ly/SwedyD) shows info about latest movies and movie theaters which plays them.
I am not sure what will I be able to charge clients as I don’t have professional development experience, and also living in India doesn’t help things I guess.
My big question is, will I be a fool to try freelancing at this stage and with my experience?
edit: formatting
Instead, they'll say 'I want a website to do X' or 'I want an application to do Y'.
A lot of the time, they didn't even care what you use or how you do it.
Your set of published apps in the relatively hot mobile space puts you in a good situation in this regard.
The first step would be to build a portfolio of your work.
No, at least not based on the tech experience - you've done a hell of a lot more than some people I've sub-contracted work out to.
The bigger issue will be your attitude and approach. Treat 'freelancing' as professionally as any other engagement and you'll be fine.
You have an application with more than a million downloads in the Android market. And your Juicy Fun game looks very nice. I'd say you have a fairly solid portfolio.
Do you write all these applications all by yourself?
you'll never know for sure if you don't try it.
Are you creating patch files and manually merging them (like Linux used to do)?
Or are you just using a shared FTP and keeping a spreadsheet of who is using which file at any particular point?
The amount of discipline and organisation required to use either of these methods would appear to be far higher than that required to sit down for a few hours to learn a basic VCS like Subversion using a graphical tool.
The next thing I do is explain that I will be spending more time for coding upfront because I will introduce testing into the project.
These are not negotiable.
I have listed all the positive benefits of version control in detail to my clients and still have the idea rejected due to it being an "unnecessary complication"...
I set up SVN the first day.
No I'm not joking, and yes I know how unbelievably terrible this is, but it does happen.
Mostly because most of the code is owned by a single guy and he does not see the problem with that.
Note the 'ed' at the end of 'work'.
To save anyone else having to do the math.
Also, yes, your rates are still very low, Mr. Hollis, although I suppose it depends on how many days you worked on billable projects. I would expect to see more like £40k for six months given your CV.
†Not like "won IOI" top, but I imagine Google/Microsoft/FB etc. has a graduate starting salary around that.
Not a standard salary path I admit, but it is possible to play the market if you are a good technical and business person.
Edit: All salaries are in £ (pounds). Edit: I am based in London: Edit: I am not in banking.
I was earning just less than £35k two years after graduating with a 2.1 ( not sure what the equivalent is in American university terms ). And at that point was earning considerably more than anyone else I knew who graduated at the same time.
As for the jobs advertised on sites like jobserve. Most of these require you to work on site as a contractor which right now isn't something I want to do. Freelancing for me is a lifestyle choice, not necessarily a financial one.
Again this might change in a few years, I'm getting older and want to start a family, and so this lifestyle might not work for me then.
I just hope that my time spent freelancing is seen as a positive on my CV in future, if indeed I do need to make that jump back into full time employment.
How do you find freelancing vs ordinary job? Do you have savings for harder times?
The other big difference is that a salaried job means a regular paycheck, no matter how busy you might be in any given month. But there can be a lot of downtime between billable hours freelancing so that's another potential dent in your income.
Personally I prefer to bid a fixed price instead of an hourly rate for a project. This makes it that much more important to consider your initial estimate carefully but it also eliminates a lot of micro-accounting and haggling over how much a single hour is worth.
You also have to be careful not to take on more work than you can handle. Unlike a regular job there's no hard ceiling on how much you can make in a month but it's easy to get in over your head this way.
So far I'm really enjoying the freedom and variety of freelancing but I think a regular job is easier in a lot of ways.
You're very right about the other things though - pension contributions, paid sick leave etc. which freelancing doesn't cover, so it's important to compare them carefully.
In terms of the lifestyle, I love it. I honest don't feel like I've "worked" in the conventional sense since I've been back.
There are a lot of things you have to deal with which are unexpected. Finishing a project and realising you might not see the people you've worked with again ( especially if they've been great people to work with) is depressing.
There are times when it can also be lonely. I'm fairly lucky in that I'm currently living with my parents and so there's normally someone around.
In the periods between finding work ( where technically you're unemployed ) it is easy to get depressed and wonder whether you're doing the right thing. Having something else to focus on at the same time, be it a side project, or indeed finding more work is a must.
The biggest benefit is the freedom. Yes I might have work to do, but I can ( for most clients ) do it from where ever I want to do it. If I need a break from the parents, no problem I move my office to the girlfriends for a week. If I want a change of scenery, no problem I just pack my laptop up and I'm good to go!
The second benefit is the amount you learn. I now a much greater understanding of business. Tax, VAT, National insurance, invoices, marketing, chasing payments and how companies operate.
Not to mention the technical benefits of freelancing. I've taught myself backbone.js worked with node.js. Played with Symfony, Silex entered ( and come second in ) coding competitions, taught myself some AWS basics. All things I probably wouldn't have had the ability to do if I was working for someone else.
All in all the last six months have definitely been a positive experience in my life!
"If I need a break from the parents"
Make sure your rate is high enough to provide you with independence too.
For example when I have looked at freelance web programming jobs, especially for smaller companies who don't have an in house team they seem to also expect you to do the design work.
Do you have other freelancers that you sub-contract out to, do some yourself or stick to strictly scoped (programming only) projects?
The biggest non programming skill I have, and something that I appear to be okay at, is in face to face meetings. I've not yet walked out of one meeting where I haven't then got a job.
There's probably a few things that have helped here.
1. It's easy to demonstrate my knowledge face to face.
2. I repeat in my head "be confident" throughout the entire meeting.
3. I dress smartly.
I ask mainly because of recent patio11 posts about emphasizing value in terms like "I can increase sign ups by x% by doing Y". This would seem to require a lot of experience and analytical/stats knowledge that a programmer might not necessarily possess however.
At the moment I've got my friends alpha testing it, and have got some good feedback. Hopefully I'll be confident enough to post a SHOW HN soon.
(Sorry if the question seems stupid, I haven't heard the term before and it seems a little too general to return meaningful results in Google)
Edit: Thank you benjaminwootton!
They often have more design and campaign work than development, so they will regularly bring on freelance developers to help with projects.
