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Comment by wnolens | Hacker News Reader

I was a freelance/contract developer for 2 years, went back to full time. And I had a golden ticket (a company had full time amount of work avail, I only did and billed for 20h/wk, paid every other week).

Now that almost all dev work is going to be remote friendly, The only advantage to freelancing that I can see is the flexibility to work less than 40 hour weeks, or take more time off than vacation time you're allotted.

That freedom is purchased with a lot of stress and uncertainty, and may not actually result in that much freedom if you're semi-actively always looking for leads.

Ultimately I found the type of work companies go to freelancers for is terribly uninteresting most of the time.

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> The only advantage to freelancing that I can see is the flexibility to work less than 40 hour weeks, or take more time off than vacation time you're allotted.

I've been doing contract work exclusively for the past 9 years now and this is exactly why I continue with contract arrangements. If I could find a "permanent" position with flexibility like this I would likely consider transitioning away from contract work.

You can go further and say there is little to no advantage in freelancing. A lot of remote dev work isn’t even 40/hrs a week of constant work. You can pick a low stress job working from home and still make six figures, more than most freelancers with far less stress.

I’ve given up on ever pursuing freelancing because I realized I actually didn’t want to be self-employed, I just wanted to work from home and be in control of my time.

> You can pick a low stress job working from home and still make six figures, more than most freelancers with far less stress.

Where are these low stress remote jobs making six figures? Asking for a friend.

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Most US tech companies, except the trick is that you have to put up strong boundaries to overworking and be okay with level stagnation.

Most folks I know in FAANG/equivalent are not that stressed once you give up the race for promotions and accolades.

Even then, I've found setting boundaries can actually help with promotions. Making it clear that your time is valuable to you can help force others to value your time. As long as you're spending the rest of your time on the right stuff (80/20 rule totally applies), you can have stellar performance AND a 40 (or effectively less) hour work week.

There’s plenty of jobs that are just heads down coding, cranking out tickets and attending a couple zoom meetings a week. Once you find such a job, just stick to it. Don’t go getting promoted to some higher position where you have to endure more meetings or become responsible for more things and have a bunch of people depending on you.

When you want more income, pick up a second job that is also similar. You should easily clear a quarter million dollars or more a year this way, and all you’re doing is writing code and going to some meetings. Easy.

In Europe freelancing is still the main way for a proper paycheck. The salaries have been rising so we'll see if the situation changes, but for now the six-figure jobs are still somewhat elusive outside freelancing.

> I realized I actually didn’t want to be self-employed

Good for you. I spend a lot of time on /r/freelance and I've identified this as the main reason most freelancers have trouble and just flat out don't like it. They really just don't like running a small business. It's essentially impossible to thrive as a freelancer unless you accept (actually embrace!) this.

> Now that almost all dev work is going to be remote friendly, The only advantage to freelancing that I can see is the flexibility to work less than 40 hour weeks, or take more time off than vacation time you're allotted.

Oh, there's a few more reasons: taxes (paid in arrears, after expenses), carry your own insurance/benefits (can work really well if you are young & healthy), business can own property, corporate veil, separate business finance from personal, have more than one client, etc...

> Ultimately I found the type of work companies go to freelancers for is terribly uninteresting most of the time.

Sometimes. Other times it can be better.

Health insurance is not pro. At a big four I am paying ~$50/month for great health insurance, freelancing it was 650 from Covered California and involved repeated heated calls to every party involved.

> Health insurance is not pro. At a big four I am paying ~$50/month for great health insurance,

Most employers aren't passing through the whole premium. With my current company, we're covering 85% of the premium for our employees, so they see some token amount out of their paychecks, but the actual premium is a lot bigger than $50/month.

It's hard to beat HC insurance from a big employer. When you have to buy your own, it can work out as you usually can get a higher hourly rate than an employee by 25-30%. You also avoid double deductibles when your employer changes the plan changes mid-year. You also avoid COBRA if you quit or are fired.

Personally glad to be free of complex taxes and insane health care costs on individual market.

Being a developer is too cushy a job full-time.

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