- lots of time spent on marketing, network building, and sales. You don’t get paid for this time.
- you have no benefits that you don’t purchase yourself. In the US this means very expensive healthcare
- you are first to go when things get tight for your clients.
- nobody at the company cares about your growth or mental health under crushing workloads.
- PAYMENT RISK - ready to wait 30, 60, or 90 days to get paid, only to be get the runaround by some Rando in the clients accounts payable? And what can you do anyway if they can’t pay you?
- double taxation in the US as you must also pay employers taxes on yourself
The main upside is you can charge higher rates. So if you can handle cash flow issues, have light benefit needs, can ride instability in workloads, and like networking a ton - then it’s a great fit! But there’s a pretty specific group of people that thrive as a freelancer.
The good part is that your pay is anchored on value. With full time jobs, they pay you as little as they can get away with. With freelancing, the work is usually not going to be finished without you, so the budget is a lot higher.
I'd say about 70% of the effort is in chasing payments and landing (better) clients, though. You're not really a software developer anymore, more like a salesperson.
They’re basically recruiters, but for freelancers. I could send an email and have a 6-12 month assignment within a week in exchange for ~10% of the invoiced sum.
10% is a steal considering I don’t have to do any sales or worry about a bounced invoice (for a few % more I usually can be paid within a day of sending it)