Not a rant but sort of a rant.

Getting REAL fucking tired of the corporate rat race.

Thought Bubble ...

{If I quit this stupid job I could do freelance sites}

Then I realized that I have no idea what skill set it takes to be a freelance developer. I only know my one little corner. Once I commit my code it goes off down the assembly line for others to worry about testing, deployment, hosting, security and other things I have no idea about.

So tell me freelancers, is the grass greener? What additonal skills do you have to have the us enterprise folks would have no idea about?

Or are you making huge bucks where you overcharge for Wix sites that do not suck?

Freelance doesn't pay well (unless you're already contacted by some good paying firms)

There's zero reliability (quite obvious) and growth per se.

The work's frustrating. People are surprisingly below your manager's threshold of intelligence. Requirements and models change last second and you need to be able to quickly work that shit. (Again if you don't sign with a good firm)

There's no loyalty. You need to always be detached from what they're doing. You don't want to overthink about a 2 month contract after it has ended.

Said that, you don't get fucked over by others' faults. You can switch to different domains. Your arsenal expands if you ever want to re-enter the jobs scene.

Starts to be impossible. Css and preprocessor becoming a language itself, svg animation and d3 takes a time to master, javascript is javascript. React is a discusting like Facebook, angular is too large to to touch it, vue seem useless and not enough, Node can go only on vps - time, time, time, every provider different ways, pain... Php-just ahh... Mysql seems better but mongo is cool to use. I miss the old ways.

How do you see it as a rat race? Honestly unless u can make big buck freelance, corporate is pretty good.

At least, you know how much you will make and you get paid whether theres actually work or not.

Top notch patience, selling skills and portfolio with never ending description.
I came to freelance without these characteristics and utterly failed. Oh, and be prepared to annoy sleeping client so that they don't forget to look at your work and press that green button!

@F1973

Thank you exactly what I need.

Freelancing means, that you are not only a dev but also have to do marketing, bookkeeping, and project management. You have to manage short-term risks yourself.

But depending on your current situation, you may get more freedom and maybe even more money.

I tried freelancing. But i am bad at the non-coding parts of it and hate doing quick and dirty work - wich normaly is, what customers pay you for.

I would never work as a solo freelancer doing complete web projects.

The bottom of the market (plumber wants their own page + contact form) is completely taken care off by no-code stuff.

Anything larger than that, is just too much bullshit to worry about. Like @blindXfish said, every layer takes its own expertise these days.

Working as a freelancer for a larger studio, doing JUST one role within a larger team -- possible.

But that's just corporate without the benefits, so be sure the financials work out. If your client/employer says: "You're a freelancer, I'm not paying your pension, travel or lunch", you have to make sure that's covered by your higher fee.

Don't worry too much about titles or ratracing. My title still says "backend dev", even though in practice I am a DB admin & Team lead. Make sure you demand fair pay according to what your skills are worth.

And make sure you believe in the company, the product they push really makes you think: "This improves the world".

If you're into webdev, I would also really advise you to NOT work for "generic webdev studio" for too long.

Pooping out marketing campaign landing pages for Twix flavored pudding or deodorant for poodles is pretty soulcrushing.

Find some platform to work on, it's much more satisfying to build long term on a product.

Whether it's a trading marketplace for used sex dolls, an online collaboration whiteboard for dimwitted managers who believe in the power of digitizing their post-it walls, or a social media app for frustrated ranting developers -- whatever you believe is a great addition to the cesspool of the internet.

But: Don't join startups which haven't started up yet -- unless they pay you in advance.

Freelance would require to know and manage much more stuff which is good and bad.
And the financial safety is much more problematic when freelancing.