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The beginning of my freelancing time. I was so naive. Didn't even used contracts...
This one client wanted a website with 2 specific features until a certain time. It should look nice, but only the features functionality was defined. All seemed reasonable at first.
I delivered 2 weeks before the deadline. The client was furious, as it didn't look like they imagined. They wrote me 8 lengthy emails with very fractioned feedback. It was becoming unreasonable.
But hey, I'm a newbie in this business. I have to make myself a name, I thought.
Oh was I naive....
This whole project went on for 2 more months. The client was unhappy with every change and 2-5 emails a day with new demands were coming in. I was changing things they wanted done 2 days ago, because they changed their mind.
Then they started to get personal. They were insulting me and even my family. My self-confidence dropped to an all-time low.
In the end I just sent them all the code for free and went to therapy.
BTW: this was also my most important experience, as things went up hill from then on. As Yoda once said: The greatest teacher, failure is.7 -
I used to do some freelancing and one of the main clients I worked with had a project they hired me for that used Drupal. I fucking hated it. I thought it was bloated (and slow as fuck), unnecessarily complex, and just all around a horror to work with.
Even though that was many years ago, from other devs I've met, it seems like Drupal never really got much better. One devops guy who worked at the previous company I was at told me about some benchmarks he had done on Drupal in his previous work. The performance results he got were an absolute joke - awful concurrent performance and just a brutally slow CMS.
Needless to say, since that freelance project, I've never used Drupal again and never will.17 -
Was scared to take up freelance work because i was scared of bad clients.
Finally took one today, client is not a total arse and knows exactly what she wants me to do, down to details.
MFW.
5 -
This is a true story
I am a freelance developer, i recently had this conversation with my client:
Client: Add multi language option to my website
Me: Ok, I need for it 3-5 days
Client: Why?
Me: I need to create multi language system, this
website is built from scratch without using any
framework
Client: No need to built it, Just enabled it i need it fast
Me: Sir there is no such thing to enable features that
does not exit
Client: Listen me, I need this feature today, enable it
and we are done.
Me: Thats not how it works..
Client: I know how it works, i have hacking certificate18 -
I designed a logo for a family member's business with the expectation that I would receive payment once the work was completed. I wasn't expecting a lot, I only really do freelance work for software but I know my way around Illustrator. I'm not one to charge family anywhere near full price and I felt no contract was needed. We were back and fourth for a little bit, getting the logo to his liking. Silly me during all of this didn't watermark any of the images I was sending (didn't think I'd have to, you know... Family) and a little while later he's gone and ordered shirts with the logo on it without paying or even contacting me. When I confronted him about it, he pulls out the whole "No contract was made" bullshit. It's ridiculous how arrogant people can be, I was asking for $50. I put a good 15 hours into it with all the alterations he wanted. 15 hours I could have spent on actual clients.
TLDR; Designed a logo for a family member without a contract, he decided not to pay.19 -
To all young freelancers in low-income countries: I want to share my experience, of 6 years working for a piss-poor country, and 6 years working in freelance, and then emigrating. Here's what you should watch out for, and what to expect:
My first salary was barely 1.5$ per hour. I lived in a piss-poor country that taught me a lot (like why it's piss-poor).
The main thing to note when you're a developer in such a country, is that you're being fucked. Your employer might scream at you and tell you how bad you are, while barely paying you. That is you ... being ... fucked. Gain some confidence with the help of friends and family, and a great effort from yourself, look at what freelance gigs you can find, and ditch anything related to jobs in your country.
Being a somewhat able developer, but with modest experience, I started my freelance gigs for 5$ per hour. Because I was lazy, and freelance gigs weren't exactly being thrown at me, I was making 100$ per week, AFTER the companies I worked for appreciated what I did and offered themselves to up my pay to 12$ per hour. Yep. I was lazy. You will likely get lazy in freelance too, so be prepared for this.
My luck changed when one of my clients became a full-time employer, at 15$ per hour, with a well organized team where I actually worked for 40 hours per week (I had already amassed 8 years of experience...). For people in first world countries that will seem laughable, but in my country I was king of the hill, getting paid more than government CEOs that ended up in the news as the "most well paid".
That was the top of the pyramid for international indie freelance, as I would later find out.
I didn't do stuff that was very difficult. In fact, I felt like my abilities were rotting while I worked there. I had to change something. So I started looking for better offers. I contacted many companies that were looking for a senior developer, and the interviews went well, and all was fine, except for my salary demands. I was asking for 25$ per hour. Nobody was willing to pay more than 15$ per hour. That's because of my competition - tons of developers in cheap-to-live countries that had the same, or more to offer, for the same rates. Globalization.
So I moved to Germany. As soon as I was legally able to work, I was hunted down by everybody. I was told that it takes a month to pass the whole hiring process in Germany. My experience demonstrated that 2-5 days is enough to get a signed contract with "Please start ASAP".
There is freelance in Germany as well. And in the US. And everywhere else. A "special" kind of freelance, where you have to reside locally. The rates that this freelance goes for is much, much higher than international freelance. I'd say that 100€ per hour is ok-ish. Some people (newbies, or foreigners who don't speak the language well) get less, around 60 or so. Smart experienced locals get around 150-200 or even more.
It's all there. Companies want good developers to solve their business problems with IT solutions, and they'll beg you to take their money if you can deliver that.
So code!
Learn!
Accummulate experience!
Screw the scumbags that screw you for 1-2$ per hour!
Anyone able to write something more than "Hello World!" deserves more.
Do the climb! There's literally room for everybody up there! There is so much to do, that I feel like there will never be too many developers.
Thank you for bearing with my long story. I hope it will help you make it shorter and more pleasant for you.14 -
An intern I was supposed to lead (as an intern) and work with. Which sounded kinda crazy to me, but also fun so I rolled with it. But when I met her I quickly found out she didn't even have a coding editor installed and when I advised one she was "scared of virusses". She had Microsoft Edge in her toolbar, and some picture of a cat as a background. We were given some project by our boss, and a freelance programmer helped us set it up on Trello. Great, lets start! Oke maybe first some R&D, she had to reaeach how to use the Twilio API. After catching her on WhatsApp a few times I realised this wasnt gonna go anywere. After a few weeks of coding and posting a initial project to git I asked her if she could show me the code of the API she made so far..
She told me she was using the quickstart guide (the last 3 FUCKING weeks) which contained some test project with specific use cases.
The one that I did 3 weeks ago that same fucking morning.
AND SHE WAS STILL NOT DONE...
A few days later I asked her about the progress (strangly, I wasn't allowed ti give her another task bcs the freelanc already did) and guess what... She got fking pissed at me
Her: "I will come to you when im done, ok?"
Me: "I just want to see how it is going so far and if you are running into any problems!"
Her: "I dont want to show you right now"
She then goes to my fucking boss to tell him I am bothering her.
And omg... Please dear god please kill me now...
Instead of him saying the she probably didn't do shit. He says to me that the girl thinks im looking down on her and she needs a stress free environment to work in. She will show me when its done. ITS A FUCKING QUICKSTART GUIDE YOU DUMB BITCH.
He then procceeded to whine to me about the email template (another project I do at the same time) which didn't look perfect in all of his clients.
Dont they understand that I am not a frontend developer? Can you stop please? I know nothing about email templates, I told you this!!!
Really... the whole fucking internship the only thing the girl did was ask people if they want more tea. Then she starts cleaning the windows, talk to people for an hour, or clean everyone's dask.
all this while I already made 50% of the fucking product and she just finished the quickstart tutorial 😭. Truly 2 months wasted, and the worse thing is I didn't get any apprication. They constantly blamed me and whined at me. Sometimes for being 3 minutes late, the other for smoking too much, or because I drink to much coffee, or that I dont eat healthy. They even forced me to play Ping Pong. While im just trying to do my job. One of the worst things they got mad at me for if when my laptop got hacked bcs it was infected with some virus. He had remote access and bought 5 iPhones 6's with my paypal while I was on break. I had to go home and quickly reset all my passwords and make sure the iPhones wouldnt get delivered. strange this was, this laptop I only used at the company. So it must have been software I had to download there. Probably phpstorm (torrent). Bcs nobody would give me a license. And the freelancer said I * have to *.
the monday after I still had to reinstall windows so I called them and said I would be late. when I came they were so disrepectfull and didn't understand anything. It went a little like this:
Boss: why u late?
Me: had to reinstall my laptop, sorry.
Boss: why didnt you do this in your own time?
Me: well, I didn't have any time.
Boss: cant you do this in the weekend or something? Because now we have to pay you several hours bcs you downloaded something at home.
Me: I am only using this laptop for work so thats not possible.
Boss: how can that even be possible? You are not doing anything at home with your laptop? Is that why you never do anything at home?
Me: uhm, I have desktop computer you know. Its much faster. And I also need to rest sometimes. Areeb (freelancer) told me to torrent the software. He gave me the link. 2 days later this happends
Boss: Ahh okeee I see.. Well dont let it happen again.
After that nobody at the compamy trusted me with anything computer related. Yes it was my own fault I downloaded a virus but it can happen to anyone. After that I never used Windows again btw, also no more auto login apps.8 -
I have a client (a friend of a friend of a friend) who came to me to build them a "simple" booking solution for their home cleaning business. Easy enough, I first thought.
Having taken a deposit based on my initial quote and contracts all signed, roll on exactly 8 months to where I find myself today.
It turns out, there is no cleaning business as the business will be totally reliant on the website. The original goalposts have now been moved to a completely different fucking country. The (now) required functionality has STILL yet to be finalised (I told client I'm not writing another line of code until EVERYTHING has been mapped out and made crystal clear), as every single face-to-face meeting / back and forth email turns into the client requesting hundreds more brilliant, essential features that make absolutely ZERO fucking sense. And now, to top it all off and push me into writing my first ever rant on here, I've just received an email from the client this morning saying "what I would like to have is like an online restaurant live booking system". WTF?!?!?
I work from home and have only my dog for company today, so please don't judge me. Just needed to let it all out.12 -
I worked as a freelancer, with no formal jobs, from 2009 through 2016. But my situation wasn't the best one, I had to accept some underpaid jobs and was on the verge of going crazy with some pretty nasty clients too. Also, PHP was tiring. :(
Then I found out about a headhunting website and decided to give it a try. Filled some forms, did some tests and built a profile and a small CV, then kept doing my jobs.
Of course, since I didn't have formal training (I've a BA in advertising, not coder at all :P) I wasn't expecting much. Also, I'm self taught, and I feel I'm kinda mediocre at coding.
Despite that, in less than 2 weeks, I receive an e-mail calling for an interview. I asked for the interview to be as soon as possible, which was the NEXT day.
They also told me that, if possible, I should fork a repo and do a test that involved consuming JSON and building an application using Node/Bower/Angular.
Up to this point I only used node a tiny bit, but I've NEVER EVER used Angular and Bower, and kinda almost freaked out. I spent the whole night reading tutorials, documentation and building the application, checking almost all details I could from the JSON file and building it as detailed as I could, then went for the interview.
Turns out both intervewers were pretty nice and cool, and checked my GitHub, some work I did and told me that my application passed the test (and I even did a but further than they asked me to). I was also told that I was the only intervewee that did NOT have formal training in computer science or something related to it, which kinda made me feel a bit worried.
I was asked to wait for some time until they decided on the results.
2 weeks later I was told that 2 people, among 30, were chosen and I was one of them! I was also told that they liked how my GitHub was well-documented and organized, and the range of projects that I had.
I worked there for only 4 months until a new CEO entered and change things a bit (cost cutting and all that yadda yadda), and I was laid off. Although a bit short, I was happy that I ended my work there on good terms with everyone on the team! Also, I'm still working with the people I met there on some freelance projects! ;D
I'm really honored to have met, worked and to still be working with the guys from there. They were all better than me in different things and it was an eye-opening experience, which most certainly made me a better dev today.
Also, working with them and learning from them renewed all the passion for coding I've lost from previous jobs, so I'm more than thankful for this. :D
P.s.: sorry for the long text and bad writing, I kinda didn't sleep because of some work-related issues :P11 -
Long Story time!
Tl;dr just because he's a teacher doesnt mean he's right
So a little bit of background on me, before I started walking the path of dev I worked freelance in another branche for 3 years, when I decided it was time to go back2skool
Halfway through the year we got a new teach, only 2 years older than me and man (I'm 23) and man was be full of himself. Let's call him Mr Bob. Mr Bob started his class with the classic "I'm not your run-of-the-mill teacher" (oh yeah we've never heard the before Mr original) "and for this class we're gonna simulate a real working environment where I'm the client and you're a freelancer". Alright. Sounds decent let's do this.
Mr Bob seemed to have actually done his part pretty well and gave us stylesheets, technical details, deadline, everything seemed pretty alright. It wasn't anything special some PHP database connections, some jQuery and a bit of CSS, it didn't have to be mobile ready either, just full screen desktop.
Fast forward a couple of classes. I'm done with the assignment and go to turn it in, where it turns out Mr Bob is quite a bit of a toothless knob gobbler..
I turned in the assignment webpage and he's reviewing it for feedback, some remarks of things I could improve later he says
"oke that looks alright, now I want the top navigation bar to scroll with the page, and I want it to be reactive and mobile ready"
Me: "Sorry sir but the scope only included a static bar on the top, and it said it just had to be desktop ready, without a need for mobile support"
Him: "well I'm the client so I expect you to do this now"
Me: "well sir that is outside of the agreed upon scope, you'll have to pay extra for that to widen the scope of the project, for which I need to plan in extra hours"
Him: "if you keep having such a bad attitude I'll fail you this class"
Me:"but sir it was your idea to pretend we're a real client and freelancer, those work with scopes and paid hours, you can't just demand free extras"
Him:"What do you know about work, I've had a company for 2 years and I spent hours in the night adding features for clients"
Me:"Well maybe you should've agreed on a set scope beforehand, and not accepted extra work for free"
Him:"with such a shitty attitude you'll never make it in the business world"
Me:"Well I've been a successful freelancer for 3 years before I wanted an extra education, and I never worked for free. So I think I'll be alright. Besides if you were so successful what's the name of the company and why are you a teacher now?"
Him:"I don't accept such disrespectful speech from students, you're expelled from class"
Seem to have hit quite the sensitive nerved when I asked about his company.
To his credit he did play his role as the douche bag client that wants everything free well.
There's more to the story that happened the following class I'll post later of you like.
Got to hop off the train now and find myself some new transport because some idiot called in a bomb on Rotterdam Central station..8 -
So, I'm going freelance in a couple of weeks. A bit nervous about it but sometimes you just have to make a leap of faith.
Bonus is that I'm going to be freelancing myself back to the company that I'm leaving for 2 days a week, working out at only £100 a month less than what I've been paid working full time!
That's garunteed until the end of this year - so at least I know that I can pay the bills while I spend the other 3 days building up clients.
Wish me luck!9 -
Fuck yeah I love Thursdays! Deployments went well in the office, freelance clients are satisfied as well and I am drunk with my wife... what more can a dev(ranter) ask for?!2
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Got the job, starting tomorrow as a front end developer once again! 😆✨
Finally gonna be able to feel good about development again, focus on a single project, without the pressure from clients and money piling up!
No more accepting jobs just because "money", at least for a while! 😊
Now I just hope my last freelance clients will pay this week, so I can at least have something in my wallet.
🤪5 -
When I was in college in 1996, one of my roommates had a “Web 101” class. At that same time, the office of a government agency I was working for had asked me to publish a website to let the public know what they were doing. Prior to that I had bought an HTML 1.0 reference and had been fiddling around with some things. I got excited about it all when I realized that just within 2 weeks of using the book I had passed up the entire class my roommate was taking and apparently knew more at that point than the professor. I published the agency site, then went on to build sites for the Uni and freelance clients, and then to apply to teach a more advanced class in the Continuing Education courses the Uni offered to adults in the community. All of that got me a job at a startup which led to the rest of my career. That was pretty dang exciting to me.1
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So woke up this morning and Paypal had just banned my account with no reason whatsoever. I only receive funds from 3 clients who I have been working with for a few years now. My account is already verified with my ID and utilities bill. Am a freelance so I depend on it. So it's a case of ' hey, we think you did something wrong, we are not going to tell you what but are banning you permanently and keeping your money for 6 months'. F piss of shit of a company.
25 -
New clients and impostor syndrome.
As a self-taught freelance web developer-designer with minimum experience and an introvert it's hard to find new clients. Also the impostor syndrome-experience (call it as you want) doesn't help at all :/8 -
Being railroaded by a colleague and accused of project sabotage, then having to submit to a 2 hour interrogation where I was literally sat in a corner and read a riot act. I had done nothing of which I was being accused. I sic'ed HR on them in a followup meeting but all HR did was sit and listen and then find in their favor despite the written evidence because my manager outranked the HR manager. That was when I learned that employees are always wrong when the manager wants them to be. I freelance now. No manager, and I can fire my clients.
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I hate SQL Server so much, don't matter how Microsoft say they improve themselves at SQL Server.
There's a lot of fucking bloat, messes your system and your services, adds tons of crap in your system registry, while more advanced SQL engines such MariaDB/PostgreSQL are more contained, and its very small.
Why SQL Server has to mess with Windows' ACL and his own privilege systems?.
Uninstall it and a lot of components remain hidden and tons of registry entries, not even TotalUninstaller or CCleaner can help.
I hate it since my technical high school and my goddamn college is forcing us to use SQL Sever for EVERYTHING, instead of good alternatives, messed my computer entirely requiring to format.
I try always to convince my freelance clients to use open-source alternatives, and say how SQL Server is so crap, (i had variant degrees of success).14 -
Most of us can and have gotten freelance work before, but I've only met a couple of alleged full time freelancers, and the idea has always fascinated me. For those of you who actually are able to pull it off, what's a typical day like, and how do you maintain a steady stream of clients?6
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If your client doesn't know what the fuck he wants to see on his website even with all text and images included - don't take this fucking job.
They will let you choose a template and you end up switching it 5 times. "Oh we don't like it. What else do you have? Oh, this looks better." Next day "We don't like this theme anymore. We want to switch to what we had before."
If people can't draw their home page on a paper I tell them go fuck yourself straight in a face. I always put these people on my reference list so my future clients know I'm straightforward, not lazy, not low skilled, but honest with dumbasses like some of my previous clients.
You are asking for a basic website with 5 pages, you have a shitty budget and then I have to customize the entire theme and tweak every fucking possible element in CSS, HTML and PHP. Go fuck yourself. All you get for your money is WordPress with 15 min consultation how to copy paste your shit and save it. Never do fixed budgets, never work on projects like this if it's under $500-1000. Meet with the client to understand him/her better and see if he is a jackass-perfectionist or a chill person who won't be picky.
That's my memories of being a freelancer, trying to get any job for any budget just to build my portfolio. Never going back to this, at least not for small businesses with less than $5,000 budget. Reading people before you start working with them is a good thing.2 -
I got my first appointment with my first freelance client today as I'm trying to earn some money on the side. She contacted me after the guy before me hasn't delivered in more than 2 months.
Her: So how much do you think its gonna cost me.
Me: Well the minimum rate for a site like this is like €1000. But since you are my first client, I'm willing to do it for €700.
Her: The guy before you only charged €250...
Me: I'm sorry I can't do that. I might get to 500 if I cut some corners, but I can't make any promises.
Inner me: Look where you're 250 has got you... You haven't seen anything in return...
Her: Proceeds to whine about how it's still waaay to much ... And how she will get me more clients etc. (Yeah right...)3 -
Dear, developers
For any freelance project you want to embrace, you should have a written agreement by both parties signed ( clients and you ).
Some client's forget almost anything ....
I'm talking from experience, please be guided....11 -
My first freelance project - happened to be with the worst client. They didnt wanna pay more than $500 and also had no clue what they want, so each time i present something they request additional features or changing the ones implemented. In the end i kept the half downpayment for my time and bailed without deploying or anything. I introduced them to another freelancer to take the project and never went near them again.
To clarify, it was not my first project/ just my first time dealing with clients for projects instead of doing them at work. Ever since then i have a strict no dealing with clients directly policy.3 -
I have 2.
1. Accepting to do a freelance project without pay because the client was my bosses friend.
2. Getting tired of the project 3 months in, and not wanting to do it anymore, but not having the courage to end the project proffessionally. So after 5 months of being unproductive, I simply abandoned the project and stopped replying to the clients emails. He would continue to try and contact me for another 4 months before he concluded I wasnt coming back.1 -
So a few weeks back guy I used to work with contacts me for some dev work on a UK project he is working on, it's the Thursday and they need the thing the coming Monday. I tell him it's totally impossible, and it was so he asks what can done and how much, as well as how much for the entire project.
I stipulate exactly what can be done, with exclusions and say 7.5k and them mail over a detailed quote for 30k for everything.
I get told it's all fine, I must go ahead. I get through a bit more than expected by the Monday, but they still needed something to demo and I set I can get enough for demo in place by Thursday.
They demo to business and money and all that and everyone is happy and tell me to finish up along with some changes, and I don't even adjust the price as it was more work they wanted outside of the original spec.
Get to probably 80% done and they say we need to pause they need to look over other feedback.
Next thing, the PM come back, no they were never actually happy with the quote and they found some other guy willing to do the entire thing for 7.5k and they willing to only give me that for the code I have written so far. Cunts.
Anyway, he tries to take some blame for it, even though I know it's BS and says he will pay in another 7.5k from his share if I am willing and we call it quits.
This people, is why I don't freelance.
I feel sorry for this new kid, he clearly under quoted, and yes I am expensive, but with decades experience having worked on international projects for one of the largest digital asset management firms, my countries leading fintech dev house and now the lead developer for my countries largest insurance software dev house, you damn fucking strait my free time comes at a premium, as you are getting top fucking quality, 100% tested, high performing code.
They can go fuck an entire flock of ducks when they come back after this half ling fucks up the diamond I coded up for them.
Even funnier, they a UK based company, so for them this was a 1.5k project. Cheap cunts.3 -
Freelance client calls freaking out because she needed the website changes done by yesterday morning because she had some huge meeting with potential investors....
I feel bad but I don't, she never told me anything about needing it done by Sunday morning.
This is exactly why I hate freelance work. Lack of communication and then they blame you5 -
Client contacts our company that his site is down, we do some investigating and the only way we can access the site is on a mobile phone. From the office computers the site never loads and times out. Since we don't host the site and I've never logged into it before I don't have a lot of details so I suggest they contact whoever hosts their site. This is where things get weird.
Client tells me that the site is hosted on someone's home server. I tell him that this is quite strange in 2018 and rather unlikely and ask if he was ever given access to the site to log in or if he has access to his domain registration, GoDaddy.
He says he doesn't understand any of this and would rather I just contact his current developer and figure it out with him. We agree that he needs to get access to his site so we are going to migrate it once I get access to it.
I email his current developer letting him know the client has put me in contact with him to troubleshoot the issues with the site. I ask him some standard questions like: where is the site hosted? Can you access it from a computer? Do you have some security measures in place to block certain IP ranges? Can you give me from access to get the files? Will you send me a backup of the site for me to load up on my server?
*2days pass*
Other dev: Tell me the account number and I'll transfer the domain.
Me: I'll have to get back to you on that once I talk to the client and set up his GoDaddy account since we believe the business owner should own their domain, not their developers. In the meantime you didn't answer any of the questions I asked. Transferring the domain won't get the site on my server so I still need the files.
*3 days pass*
OD: You are trying the wrong domain. The correct domain is [redacted].com I'll have my daughter send you the files when she gets in town. We will transfer the domain to you, the client will forget to pay and the site will go down and it'll be your fault.
Me: I appreciate your advice, but the client will own their domain. I'm trying to get the site online and you have no answered any of my questions. It's been a week now and you have not transferred the domain, you have not provided a copy of the site, you have not told me where the site is hosted. The client and I are both getting impatient at this point when will we receive a backup of the site and the transfer of the domain?
OD: Go fuck yourself, tell the client they can sue me.
If the client is that terrible, wouldn't you want to hand them off to anyone willing to take them? I have never understood why developers and agencies try to hold clients hostage by keeping their domain or website and refusing access. From what I can tell this is a freelance developer without a real company so a legal battle likely isn't going to go well since the domain is worthless to him as the copyright to the name is owned by the client. This isn't the first time we've had to help clients through this sort of thing.4 -
This remote work is really saving me a lot of money and makes me even more conscious about my spending.
I miss the time when I didn't work for several months minus the days I'm glued to the sofa getting double penetrated by anti-anxiety and anti-depression medication. I would just wake up, write something, publish an article, work on my personal projects and portfolio, play video games, learn something new, do some citizen science bullshit, and all that. Not all in the same day, of course.
The only thing that kept me from enjoying those simple days is the knowledge that my money will run out in a few months and that I have to get a job soon. Knowing that I have no family to help me if I fuck up makes me feel more responsible than it makes me sad. It puts me into that survival mode (corny, the cringe). The fact that this project is stressing me out just adds more fuel to that.
Now I'm learning a bunch of new tools and working on personal projects that I used to think were all lame. Plus, I met another developer on Bumble. No, I did not fuck him or even attempted to. We talked about development and found other common hobbies - snorkeling and scuba diving. We talked about freelance and how freelancing websites aren't so helpful, being saturated with people from poor countries who offer cheap labor. You can argue about the quality but that's a different topic.
Then he mentioned a Couchsurfing event he attended with other divers and how he thinks the best way to snag decent clients is through relationships. I remember the times I was in the beach and some business man would have a "bright new idea" when I mention I'm a developer. Of course, we all know the all too common stories about such bright ideas but in a way, that developer from Bumble makes sense.
When I was in College, I was referred by my professor to a pretty big client in the transportation industry. We talked, they were legit, but I was too lazy and had low self-esteem back then.
When I took my phone to the repair shop, this woman came up to the technician and asked if he "makes bots". Of course, the snobby little shit that I am did not bother.
When I was still with my ex, he had a laundromat client with several branches in the country. The developers he worked with were amateurs, like "username and password is in the script" level. I could have nuked the whole thing for fun but thankfully, I didn't care enough to do such damage. And yet they managed to get this project through connection.
Last month, I met a dive master who moved from the city to that small town island paradise. She mentioned how much the house and lot costs and it's 1/4 the price of my tiny condo. Just gonna get me a few milking cows, my own products, and I'll be fucking off to the deep sea. Maybe code a few hours a day or some days, start an aquaponics farm, finally continue learning electronics, and go fishing for food like a true nigga.4 -
I don't have anything to say about getting a dev job in some company. But I can give some tips on attracting clients for your freelance work.
* Have a few projects of your own hosted on Github to show off your quality code.
* Contribute to others' open source projects if possible.
* Get yourself a nice website and showcase all your work.
* Ask your current clients to write testimonials on your work and post it in your website.
* Be nice to your clients. Chances are they'll refer you to their friends and family.
That's pretty much all I've done and I get more freelance dev requests than I could take. -
!rant
Freelance web developers: please talk about yourselves.
How much experience did you have at the beginning?
How did you get started and was it much work to get set up?
How do you find a constant stream of clients?
Do you make a living wage just from your freelance work?
Any other information you'd like to share is appreciated.18 -
As I already said on devrant, I'm a freelance web developer and I also often sell my services for teaching, loving that. Currently I'm teaching PHP with 30 students and it's going very well.
But yesterday, I received an offer for giving another course next month, this time on HTML and CSS, for a company I don't know yet. Almost every line of this email is wrong, outdated by 20 years, or just basically meaningless...
So I thought I could do my best to translate this as close as possible to the original, preserving the wrong formulations too, just for you devranters fellas.
"Hello,
I have an offer for a 2 days course for 5 people (level 1+ and/or 2), on HTML5 and CSS3. Below, the program :
1. XHTML AND CSS2 INTRODUCTION
Advantages and benefits of change
Understanding compatibility for different versions of browsers
HTML, XHTML, CSS edition tools : presentation of the different tools
The CSS language : different types of selectors : class of selector, identifier of selector, contextual selectors, grouped selectors
Blocks of text, boxes of text
The CSS1, CSSP, CSS2 properties
Relative and absolute measures units
2. LAYOUT TECHNIQUES
Full CSS, XHTML websites demo
Positioning with the position property, positioning with the float property
Columns creation
Layout for forms
Layout for data tables
Layout for menus
3. INTRODUCTION TO SVG (SCALABLE VECTOR GRAPHICS)
Role and importance of SVG
Using SVG on client side : basic shapes
SVG structure of document, tags examples
Using CSS styles with SVG
Different integration methods for SVG in a XHTML document
4. OPTIMISATION OF JAVASCRIPT CODE
Introduction to DOM and Javascript
Access to document objects : different access techniques, using this keyword, create elements dynamically
Positioning elements with the help of Javascript : positionning elements relatively to the mouse, move elements
Show/hide elements for creating hierarchical menus
Code optimisation techniques : using objects, objects litterals, loops optimisation
Can you please give me your availability ?"
Seriously...
CSS-fucking-1 ! Is it a course for dinosaurs ?
...And if only my rant was just about the program...
It's totally impossible to cover all these subjects in only 2 days with people of different levels and experience.
The guy exactly said to me : "don't worry about the program, it's an old text but they agreed to it anyway. They just want to learn HTML and CSS, some of them already know it but want to learn more, and the others are total beginers.".
And here is the meaning for the "(level 1+ and/or 2)" part in the email.
So... Surprizingly, I accepted the offer, but asked for at least a 3rd day. I'm waiting for their answer, but I'll do it anyway, adapting the course content to the actual students knowledge. I need the money, after all.
Wish me luck...
It's just sad that these formation companies are selling bullshit to clients that just want to learn something useful. It's too often like that, they sell shitty/useless programs and we have to catch up in real time with students that don't understand why they don't learn what was told to them.3 -
The more I'm on here the more I remember all the shit I have had to deal with in the past.
Anyway, lets rant! I just moved cities after college to be closer to my family, I didnt have any work lined up at that stage but started job hunting the moment I was settled in, I did some freelance for smaller companies to stay afloat.
Eventually I got a job at this agency startup where "SEO" was there main focus, still very inexperienced they put me on frontend and data capturing but will teach me how to code using their systems in due time. At this stage I was getting paid minimum wage, but I was doing minimum work and it wasnt that bad.
A new investor bought 49% of the company and immediately moved into the office space to focus more on marketing (He was one of those scaly marketing guys that will sell you babies if he could get his hands on enough to make a profit).
This is where everything starts going to shit. He hires a bunch of "SEO Gurus", fills up the small office with people like sardines squished together. Development was still our main money maker at this stage, so there where 3 new more senior developers at this stage and I started learning a lot really fast.
Here are some of the issues we had to deal with:
1. Incentives - Great more money, haha! No, No, you where 5 minutes late so you only get half of the promised amount.
2. For every minute you are late we will deduct it from you paycheck (Did I mention I was getting paid minimum wage).
3. If you take a smoke break we will dock it from your pay.
4. Free gym membership to the gym downstairs, but you can only go once a week during your lunch.
5. No pay raises if you cant prove your worth on paper.
He on purposely made up shitty rules and regulations to keep us down and make as much profit as he could.
Here are some shitty stuff he has done:
1. We arent getting a 13th check this year because the company didnt make a big profit - while standing next to his brand new BMW.
2. Made changes over FTP on clients work because we where too slow to get to it, than blames me for it because its broken the next day and wants to give me a written warning for not resolving the issue Immediately. They went as far as wanting to fire me for this, gave me 1 day notice for meeting and that I can bring a lawyer to represent me (1 day notice is illegal, you need 5 days where I am from), so I brought a lawyer since my mom was a lawyer. They freaked the fuck out and started harassing me about this a week later.
3. Would have meetings all the time about how much money the company is making, but wont be raising our pay since no one has proven they are worth it yet.
4. Would full on yell at employees infront of the entire office if they accidentally made an mistake on a clients project.
One one occasion I took a week off for holiday, my coworker contacted me to ask a question and I answered that I will handle it when I am back the following week. Withing 2 hours my other boss phones me in a rage, "he is coming to fetch the company laptop from my house in 5 minutes, he will let me know when he arrives. Gives me no time to talk at all and hangs up - I have figured out what has happened by now so when he showed up he has this long speech about abandonment, and trust and loyalty to the company. So I pass him my laptop once he shut up and said: "You do know I am on holiday leave which you approved, right?", he goes even more silent and passes me back my laptop without saying anything, and drives off.
While the above was happening Douche manager back at the office has a rage as well and calls the whole office (25 people) to a meeting talking about how I abandoned the company and how disgraceful that is.
Those are the shitty experiences I can remember, there where many more like this. All of the above eventually led to me going into a deep depression and having panic attacks weekly, from being overworked or scared to step out of line. Its also the reason I almost stopped coding forever at that stage. I worked there for 2.5 years with the abuse.
I left 2 weeks after the last shit show, I am ok now and have my anxiety and depression well under control if not almost gone completely.
Ran into Douche Manager a few months ago after 9 years, the company got bought out and the first person they fired was him. LOL! He now has his own agency and is looking for Developers (They are hard to find he says), little does he know I spread his name far and wide to all and every Dev I knew and didnt know to avoid working for him at all costs. Seems like word of mouth still works in this digital age.
Thanks for reading this far!5 -
!RANT
Web Devs - I need your opinions.
To make a long story short, when my fiancé and I first moved in together I changed cities. One day at the grocery store we ran in to one of his old buddies, whom I had never met. His buddy works as a counselor at a non profit organization for mental illness. His friend asked me some questions to get to know me and found out I was a web developer. He instantly got exited and told us they needed a new website for their non profit, and asked me what I charged. Being shy, put on the spot, newer to the industry (uncomfortable talking $ due to inexperience) and seeing the guy was paralyzed I felt I HAD to say yes. I also said I would consider donating the site to them, as I knew my other web dev friends had done that for other non profits.
They were easy to work with and the build went smooth. We chose Wordpress so that they could go in and update the site on their own. I was under the assumption that I would create the site for them, but that they would take care of changes on their own, that I wouldn't be "supporting it". I even trained the friend 2-3xs on how to use Wordpress and make changes, but they ALWAYS have changes every month, including slides and content creation. Being a noob at the time, I KNOW it's my fault for not being more clear on the I'll build it but not make changes thing, and I've tried to kind of get them to see that I'm too busy, politely.
We'll, 3+ years later I've now found success in a different career path that takes up ALL of my free time after my 9-5 corporate web dev position, and am no longer interested nor able to do freelance work, including supporting existing sites. Since we don't have a contract in place, and they've never given me a cent, i was thinking of giving them a notice at the end of this month saying as of 2018 I will no longer be able to take care of their website, and that they'll have to find someone else by that time? I feel bad because it's a non profit and they don't have a lot of money. I'm afraid they won't find someone else nor be able to afford it. The situation is a little more sticky since this is my fiancés friend and I don't want them to feel like I'm leaving them high and dry, cuz I know they're very thankful for the site. I just wish they understood that I never promised to do changes for them every month. Even if they offered me money, I just don't have the time. I'm 100% fine if they want to keep the site and my code, although they really could use a redesign anyways cuz my code back then was terrible. What are your thoughts on this? Is 5 months fair? Am I doing the right thing?8 -
For all freelance Devs out here.
How do you get clients ?
Because am planning to begin with freelancing but am afraid that i won't be able to get any clients.4 -
Describe one instance when you thought, "Fuck this shit, I'm done with this client". Preferably when the client came up with stupid/impossible requirements10
-
Freelance developers, how do you get clients?
I am developing apps/websites with a friend and so far er have found our clients mainly on project-listing sites (sites like freelancer.com). My experience is though, that it always becomes a price-race, and with many projects only being small static websites, it just doesn't seem that this is the way to Go.
So if any of you have suggestions on how and where to find larger/more serious clients that will be much appreciated - it should be said that we already have quite a few projects to show in our portfolio, so I think we are ready to take on some larger projects6 -
I guess no one except designers know the pain of dealing with clients.
I am a dev and a freelance designer and sometimes my patience drops to zero and walks out from my desk and try to sleep, just to not break stuffs out of anger. You guys think dealing with a designer is an issue? Try dealing with a dumbfuk client!2 -
Could a freelance dev let me know how they find clients? Not just the ones from sites online and such, but the good clients, 3-4 month projects, proper prices?4
-
Hello, dear devRant! It's been 2 weeks since I started working on my "new old job". The pressure's still on, but at least I can focus on a single company (and have a steady income).
Now, one of my last freelance job clients just called me, telling me I "promised" to go do a "presentation and training" for a project I built, or else I won't receive it.
It's some good cash, but all I want to say is "fuck-off, not by problem", mostly because he keeps saying "this will cause friction with my clients, and you want the money, right?".
More like: "hey, I got something to deliver for my client and I need YOU, so fuck your job and come, ok?".
Dude, I'm only going to present a website project and give basic instructions. Why the hell we use Skype and Hangouts for? 🤷♂️
Oh problems, they never end 🤦♂️2 -
Best part of being a (freelance) dev : working from home, being able to see my newborn son slowly growing up. Not easy to run after clients days after days, but I don't regret the silly project managers, the dumbasses from the marketing, and, gosh, I don't miss the CTOs. :)1
-
Hey guys! Can anyone help me with coping up with very low savings? I have been looking for freelance jobs, but I haven't gotten any clients. Any tips or advice that may help me get myself out of this pinch.(BTW I live in India/and am a college student. 21yo.).9
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This is why I sometimes hate freelance work. You do the stuff and when it's time to pay, ducking clients come up with stories4
-
Was freelance artist for 10 years.
Decided it would be easier to learn to program than to get clients to pay.3 -
So here's what I'm putting up with for the last 6 months, clients..
A client proposed to me a project he had in mind. Project is pretty solid, could have a bright future. Since they didn't have the money to spend, we agreed on a % of the income they will earn from the project. So, let's say I get 20% of the income in exchange for building the application. I didn't receive any down payment or payment of any kind.
Just for info, project is a Web application/portal and it is ~80% done at the moment. Client provided a logo and a wireframe/ideas/pictures how he sees the project. I built everything, from DB to Frontend. Also, project is completely custom made, no CMS or anything. Project will make profit by subscription base, every user of the project pays.
For various reasons, we did not yet sign a contract. So, what is my issue...
Client sent me his proposal of the contract, said it's solid stuff, just sign it. In the contract, it stated that he owns the application in full, can sell it, etc. and I get % of the price. There were also other sneaky parts about me having all the responsibility but owning nothing. I naturally declined and took a lawyer to construct a normal contract.
My proposal was/is, I own the application(source code) in full. They are obligated to pay the monthly percentage and can use the application normally and make profit. At any time, application can be bought by the client if they pay for the development. So, basically, they are getting the application to use "for free" with no initial payment/investment. And this is a long term deal, they can use is as this as long as they want. Also, if they go bankrupt at any time, no penalty or payment is needed, the risk is mine.
The client refused and what he claims is the following...
His share in the project is 80%, mine is 20%. If project is to be sold, I get 20% of the price. So, meaning, if we go to production tomorrow, if I want to buy his share, I have to buy 80% of the application I built entirely. Also he is convinced that by "telling me" what to built he's owning everything. In his words, he dictated me the notes and I'm just playing the violin.
I am having trouble explaining to him that he is getting the application to use and make profit basically for free and cannot and does not own the source code unless he buys it off. We are going in circles, I send him the contract to review, he changes it and returns it back. Also, he removes the parts where it is clearly states what he provided and what was done by me.
So, we kind off agreed on the authorship but in the case we break the contract he wants to be able to use the application for 3 more years.
Was anyone here in a similar situation? How do you handle this kind of situations?3 -
Im having a sort of dilema. I recently started taking freelance work for web developement (and design ack) and Im uncomfortable with the state of the industry. Ill explain: Say if I bid a client for a simple 1-3 page site w contact form (a new page, not migration) My suggestion is to use djangocms, django, or just static html/css/js (ie bootstrap), which produces clean, fairly secure, and fast sites. Of course I can throw a templated unoriginal wordpress site together in a few hours 2 days latest, so I offer that option as a sidenote on the bid, charging almost 2x more. For some reason I dont understand they choose the wp shitshow. I explain all the reasons that not the way to go( which I wont list, if u dont know, u never used it. google up) but they dont care abt the details, they rather pay more for shit job. OFC I reluctantly deliver what they want, but as a result my portfolio is full of unoriginal shit Im not happy showing off. I have a few sites Ive done on the side my prefered way, but they not deployed and sit in my github for all intents n purposes unviewable to potential clients.
I want to be proud of my portfolio, and it to be a representation of what Im capable of. BUT, I gotta eat, and work is better than no work.
There are so many "wordpress designers" oversaturaring the field and it lowering the overall standard of what we are capable of. I just begining my dev journey, but if I cant have a body of work Im proud of, theres no way I can see doing this the rest of my life, and that makes me really sad. My love of developing, coding, and IT/computers in general drove me to change careers from audio engineering to web development, and the fact that this fucking mr. potatoe head of a CMS is slowly turning that love into hate really pisses me off. So Im ending this !rant looking for hope.
Your thoughts?1 -
Have you ever been in the situation "I need to leave this job, my health demands it... But I can't, I need money" ?
What did you do? 😢
I would freelance but I have no idea where to start to find clients...
I would also stop for a while to make a proper portfolio or GitHub profile, since I always worked for companies with code discretion, I have nothing to show to new employers 😕2 -
Do any experienced developers have tips on beginning to freelance. I normally get sub-contracted work for back-end gigs, however I'd like to start landing fullstack clients of my own.
All advice welcomed! -
People always say thet you should not quit your job before you have the next job lined up, but what if you plan to do freelance? This is my dilemma.
A bit of context (rant).
My current job is my first official job. Small company, VERY HIGH staff turnover rate. I have been here for 2 and a half years. My commute on a good day is < 20 mins, and money is relatively good.
During the last 6 months, all devs above me resigned, which lead to the system maintenance being passed on to the few devs left. Our biggest system is a legacy system (Windows CE), and new clients are actively signed up and new features requested. The codebase is not even worthy of being called spaghetti, changes break every client, I need to wash my hands every couple of minutes. Seriously, I would rather maintain obfuscated code. It is like a bunch of highschoolers wrote the system, though I think they would have done a better job.
Management is nice and understanding, but the state of the codebase is killing the spirits.
I fill my nights and weekends moonlighting to keep my mind off of the 'daymares' at work. I have never been a team player, and thrive on my own. I have been thinking quiting and going full freelance/contract the last couple of months. Should things not work out, I can always go job hunting (see issue in par. 1)2 -
Remember, when a client is telling that the job you are doing something trivial or easy, he/she is most likely try to pay you less for it.
If the job is trivial, it should cost less. People underrate things to pay less. Don't back down, stand your ground and tell them to piss of, they will pull back their bluff. -
Do you also write long detailed emails to clients when working freelance / distance that your clients ignore and keep asking questions or inquiring things that are already answered in that email?
Sometimes I have to ask for the same thing three times in order to get an answer -
With my work putting more and more things on my plate that I don't want to work on and refusing to increase my pay proportionately I'm thinking about going freelance. My biggest argument against is this that I'm terrible with design.
What design tools to you guys use for mocking up a website? I use Windows and Linux for my work so Mac only apps aren't going to help.
I also struggle with colors. I've never been officially diagnosed as color blind, but I've been told I'm wrong about colors enough to know there's something going on there. Are there any good tools out there that can help select colors that go well together? I'm thinking if a company has a red they use for everything, I put that in and the tool gives me a few color pallettes to work with.
I've also thought about just finding a designer to work with, but then I have to budget for this person as well which means I'd have to take on even more clients. I want to improve my design abilities so I can do more myself.
Any help appreciated guys.2 -
This has probably been asked before here - but how does a developer leave a day job to start working freelance full time?
I've worked on projects in my own time on and off during the short 4 or 5 years of my career so far and I've always considered doing it, but how do people make that jump? How do you start working for yourself and how do you secure clients?1 -
Hi!, Greetings fellow ranters,
I got into thinking this past few days. Because over the years, i really wanted to start my career as a freelance web/mobile developer, i'm not planning to quit my job(yet), but i want to slowly but surely build my freelance career. I just need some advice from you on how i should optimally or best approach this goal, and where/how should i find clients or what sites should i find clients, i know freelancer.com but I've heard other freelancers who had nightmares with it, upwork is also kind of overcrowded.14 -
I've been freelancing lately with an agency to develop an android app for their client and at the same time another person is developing the website .
The story begins when I first contacted the web dev to give me access to the database (because he started before me ).It turns out that this guy purchased an almost ready cms template with a shitty data structure that has no relations between object .This database has no primary keys , no foreign keys , no indexes ... no nothing . Adding to that the web dev refused that I rewrite a new data structure claiming that he has done a good progress on the website .
Forward couple of weeks , I managed to create the api and develop an alpha for the app and sent it to the agency manager .
This bastard told me that the website and design have changed and the app shouldn't be like that .He told me to contact the other bastard the web dev to seen what the changes are . I'm waiting for the response about the new updates and I'm praying that they'll be just minor colors updates or something not a whole concept update .
My problem here is I'm stuck with this fucking agency cuz they paid half of the payment when I started .
Damn I must learn to say no to people .2 -
If you are a freelance dev; how do you deal with clients that you don't want anymore?
For example: clients you have been working for a long time ago when your were younger/cheaper and knowing that they will never contact you again.5 -
!rant
Looking for some guidance. I am thinking of doing freelance work on the side, but am a little hesitant when I think about contracts, closing out the projects, and getting paid. I even see it with my company where clients keep asking for little things here and there and it adds up to a lot of extra work and refusal to pay until this out of scope work is done. Do you guys have any tools or other suggestions that can help protect me as the developer in a freelance project?
Also, a good PM tool would be helpful too. I'm used to Trello, but it tends to get cluttered real fast.4 -
So basically, im here to ask, is there any good website, to freelance, I have try workana and freelance, but god damn clients are so cheap2
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