Questions tagged [freelancing]

Questions for professional programmers who are often contracted out for various positions rather than being part of a company.

A freelancer, freelance worker, or freelance is somebody who is self-employed and is not committed to a particular employer long term. These workers are often represented by a company or an agency that resells their labor and that of others to its clients with or without project management and labor contributed by its regular employees. Others are completely independent. 'Independent contractor" would be the term used in a higher register of English.

206 questions
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How should I charge for programming things which take two minutes to fix?

I am really confused with this. I believe that the more I am getting experience, the more I am becoming an expert at finding mistakes and fixing them quickly. Now my boss got website from a programmer who does very very bad coding. Now he sends the…
82
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6 answers

How should I determine my rates for writing custom software?

For a custom software that will likely take a year or more to develop, how would I go about determining what to charge as a consultant? I'm having a hard time coming up with a number, and searches online are providing vastly different numbers…
Carson Myers
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Why are more programmers not freelance these days?

Leaving the whole pie to only a few of them, amplifying the huge differences between the two status. Pay is a (huge) one, not having to do overtime is another. I leave the question open to hopefully get many great answers on all the different…
user2567
31
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10 answers

Contractor - Acceptable Payment Terms?

I'm wondering whether or not I've done the right thing as a contractor. Basically I'm in to my 3rd month, and my current client messed up the payment in the first month, and I just found out that they are again late in paying me for my 2nd month. It…
Martin Blore
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A client wants us to screen work machines for pornography. Is it possible?

A long-time client has asked us to help screen their work machines for pornography. They're worried about liability if sensitive materials were found. Their main concerns (for obvious reasons) are video, audio, and image files. If possible, they'd…
Scant Roger
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3 answers

What advice would you give to someone going freelance?

I'm trying to get out of the Corporate game and go indie. I've always prided myself on being a jack of all trades so I think it suits me. If you're a freelancer or independent, what's the best advice you could give me as I start down this road?
James
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19
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8 answers

Best industry to work for as a developer

My contract has just ended and I'm wondering what possible jobs I might want to look at next. I've worked in banking and insurance industry for all my career (including one Fortune 500 company) and in my experience banking is the slowest (and most…
18
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6 answers

Recommended Payment Schedule for Freelance Development

I've been a freelance developer for many years and am setting up a system designed to attract clients through one of my developer websites. If successful, these would be clients I do not know, and some jobs may be very small. When working with…
17
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6 answers

How can I remove my fear of doing freelancing work?

I usually work in a web design company, but my manager also has his own company. He is a designer basically and he catches the projects with clients and then I do his work during weekends or whenever I have time. He is very bold. He has no knowledge…
16
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14 answers

Should I ask/tell my boss before freelancing?

I am currently working as an intern at a consulting firm. I am soon to move to a full time employee once I graduate next semester, and I love working there. However, as a student, I lack money and I have met a business owner outside of work who has…
Malfist
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9 answers

Quit my job (for a new job). Old job wants me to be available for contracting. Steps to take?

The company I am leaving has asked that I make myself available to answer questions and/or debug programs occasionally should the need arise. I'm not opposed to this. After searching google for some kind of standard contract for this sort of thing,…
Zak
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What to learn to become freelancer?

I have around 8 years experience in software development. I have worked on application development all these years using C++ /win32. I few years from now I want to become a freelancer . I tried to look into some freelance sites and I am not able to…
Alien01
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Am I deluding myself? Business analyst transition to programmer

Current job: Working as the lead business analyst for a Big 4 firm, leading a team of developers and testers working on a large scale re-platforming project (4 onshore dev, 4 offshore devs, several onshore/offshore testers). Also work in a similar…
Ryan
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11
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4 answers

Employee vs Contractor mentality and career

I'm trying to work something out which isn't quite covered in any of the other "contractor vs employee" threads. In a nutshell: Is there a natural (possibly even hard-wired and inborn) tendency for people to be meant for one or the other? A bit of…
Bobby Tables
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11
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6 answers

How to capitalize maximally on location-independence … my personal #1-incentive for working as a developer

To me the ultimate beauty in working as a developer is the fact that given a nice CV, your are going to find a new job, everywhere at any time. So I would like to ask if somebody here as experience in working while travelling for example. Or…
Raffael
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