More on Freelance Myths: Your Rate

In June I wrote a piece about what life has been like for me working as a technology contractor. This was mostly focused on the myth that all of contracting is the wild wild west. You have to be prepared to lose your gig in a moments notice. While that might be true for some people, that
Life as a Technology Contractor

I have been doing contract work in technology for the past three years or so. I have always had the goal of doing independent work as far back as I can remember, but wanted everything to be just right to start. It was bits and pieces of work at first -- an article here, some crowd source work...
Freelance to Founder

For me the idea of serving as an employee has always felt a bit surreal. I did not want a day job. From my first technology job I wanted to build something for myself, to strike out on my own. I've been freelancing for nearly two years now. I still do not want a boss, or to have to be...
Freelance As I See It

I'm in a few skype threads themed around software testing. Last week, I was chatting with a friend there about the topic of being freelance/independent full time. She mentioned that the word independent is a weird way to describe the way I work. Even though I'm not traditionally employed, my...
Surviving Layoffs

One argument for choosing a full time day job over independent work or running your own business is stability. Having a full time job means you aren't in the wilderness hunting new clients every few months, and you will get a paycheck every couple of weeks even when work slows down a little bit....
Starting freelance: Maintaining your pipeline

Developing and maintaining a pipeline of work, existing clients, and potential clients has been one of the more tricky aspects of doing freelance work so far. When I was starting out, all I had was a vision of how I wanted my career to progress. Unfortunately, that vision didn't come with...
Starting freelance: Budgets and personal finance

In the first part of my Starting freelance series, I talked about a few tactics for developing negotiation skills. Hopefully you were able to use that to get a little more money from your...
Four Requirements for Independence
