Lol so we had a meeting where basically the entire dev team got shat on for everything always taking too long... Now, I know a .lot of us suck at estimates but if it's all the time then do you think maybe we're not getting the best quality info to wok from?

Then they revised the WFH policy to 3 days a week in office. AND got pissy about the hours.

so I ask you all what are you hours?

I'm a freelance dev as of now. 😎 I work wherever and whenever I want

@SidTheITGuy nice. How's it compare? How's the money? Where and how do you find clients?

Well one thing I always tell my team and manager to do is to over-estimate. If we give an estimation, you should always add some extra time to that (and I already try to pick the higher end for my estimated)

It's better to deliver sooner than expected than to not deliver in time

secondly, I also moved to work as a small business instead of being employed. The upside is that I'm technically speaking free to work whenever and wherever I want. Though realistically speaking I should be online when my team is online if I want to be productive or helpful :D. I don't really look for clients yet, I'm working with my original company, just as an outside contractor. They pay is much better, about 1k more a month (net) than I made before

Though over the years I did acquire good connections so I could get additional projects if I wanted to, but I like free time

the downside is that I have to do all my own paperwork, invoicing and taxes, but for a small business this is mostly trivial.

@Hazarth Nice! I gotta say I do despise paperwork. I have one freelance client where all I have to do is write up an invoice with the hours (I come in under the tax threshold) and somehow even just that is still a pain

@TheBeardedOne Yeah, I made my own invoicing system just to deal with that noise xD. So now it's mostly just a couple of button clicks instead of copying and rewriting an old document and checking everything. I had to remake my old invoice into a HTML template first, but now I can fill in the stuff using a decent frontend, and then generate a new invoice for any of my clients just by creating a new invoice in my system, fixing up the dates if necessary (but most are set correctly by default) and then generate a PDF out of it.

It's a bit more fun this way at least, and I got to make something cool for myself... There's some open source invoicing software online too, but mostly for the US if you want it to also help with taxing (which I want eventually!)

@Hazarth Nice. Building tools that make my own life is easier is honestly the only part of dev work that excites me anymore. Ideal thing for me would getting a client from the Us, because of exchange rates lol

@Hazarth I love this type of self employment content. Gonna subscribe to you

Estimating software is a near impossible task. You shouldn't do it.

Even from a business perspective, of they have it in 8 weeks or 12 and it adds 500k of value its the same difference. If it doesn't add that much value management shouldn't prioritize it. And when it does they don't need an estimate.

As for me, I WFH. I work 6am to 8am, 9am to 4pm, and 8pm to 9 or 10. Not always, and lots of breaks.

8:30 - 12:00

12:30 - 17:00

(fridays only until 15:00)

No home office but I like my office and I only live a 5 min bike away so its all good

@ojt-rant And you strictly take the full 30 min break?

after years of corporate bullshit, when I learned to always overestimate and try to uphold my vote in planning poker meetings, I quit to freelance, so I can overestimate even more thanks to "a day is a day" principle.

So my hours are:

start: dailyStatusMeetingTime - .5h,

finish: dailyStatusMeetingTime + 4..6h,

billableHrs: 8..9 // by definition AND only IF the customer has enough T&M budget

Anyway, poes

@retoor thank you. I needed that

I draw them the iron triangle and ask them to pick only two from: Fast, cheap, good.

Talking to VPs or clients about technical constraints seldom works. But if you use business lingo you might just have a better chance at getting a different reaction.

If it is a simple process, and even though my team will assure me that they can get something done in a day, I would usually tell them to add a week and a half, but provide a month of estimation. The end result still looks like magic and thus far no one has been spoiled.

No, our projects are not always extremely big. So there is that.

@AleCx04 yea my boss... Idk... It almost seems like he cares but there's all the usual signs that it's just for show. Of course now I'm blanking on examples

@Hazarth @lungdart where I work it’s super corporate. Underestimation is the norm, because we’re implicitly pressured into doing so. I always want to overestimate - that’s the way we worked in previous company and even management was fine with it. But where I work now I’m literally scoffed at during poker planning sessions because I prefer being cautious with my estimates. So after a while you end up giving low estimates even though you know it probably costs more, just to avoid being the party pooper when everybody else says it’ll be quick and easy

@black-kite do you work at my company? Lol

@TheBeardedOne save for a few minutes here and there, yes. If I take a longer lunch I just stay a little longer after 5.

I'm also allowed flexi-time. Provided I'm in generally 9 - 3, I can start/end earlier/later. Handy during summer when I want to get out on my bike, I just start early and finish early.