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How did you get into consulting? What do you do?

Thanks for asking. To be reductive: I mostly build webapps for my clients, but of course it's a lot more than just that. I got into it quite intentionally because I wanted to trade lower variance for higher pay and flexible lifestyle. That is, I'd rather make $3x one month and $0x the next (where I work on my personal projects or read a good scifi novel in the sun), rather than $x one month and $x the next.

When I started consulting, I was living in Seattle and I had a single long term client. Now that I live in San Francisco, there is high paying work everywhere.

What is the most painful aspect of consulting for you?

The trouble with working for yourself is, your boss can be an asshole. It's hard to take that vacation when there is billable work available. You can burn yourself out quite fast.

After having done this for a long time, I've learned to be zen about the intrinsic variance in income. But it is still hard psychologically. While rationally I know that I make more per year as a consultant and have more interesting work as a result etc, it's still painful to see the numbers in the spreadsheet go down when I'm not working for a few months, even if it was a deliberate decision that I made.

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