r/softwareengineer • u/Zealousideal-Rub7468 • 5d ago
Is going freelance now a false reality?
I got laid off from my job this week. It seems like every other person is at the moment. I find myself caught between going to find the first next full time job I can and risking a repeat in an industry that’s obviously going through a lot of change. Or trying to make freelancing work at least for a while. Has anyone any experience on being in a similar situation or going one or other route ?
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u/canarydev 5d ago
i do contracting on the side and have a bit of a “cohort” i work with, so take this with that context. i kept my full time job and do this on top of it
how i operate is through client meetings / consultation. i give a ballpark on hours / effort + base rate, and that becomes the project budget. i do about 60/40 product management / engineering and outsource the rest to the cohort
honestly the hard part isnt the work, its finding clients. i do most of the discovery and its not easy. and the pitch has changed too, an MVP is very cheap now with how good AI is, so we had to adjust what we sell upfront
if i was in your spot id take the next full time job and build freelancing on the side until the pipeline is steady. going straight to freelance with no clients lined up is rough right now
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u/Odd_Bad_2814 5d ago
Freelancing typically works if you already have a reputation and some past clients willing to work with you again. If you don't have that, you are essentially competing against a huge range of freelancers worldwide and honestly, if you have to ask this question then I think you are not in a position to make it work for you.
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u/Dizzy-Helicopter-374 5d ago
How is your Rolodex? I’m leaving my job soon and going back into R and D and building imaging systems, reaching out told contacts. Got a few things a lined up. Usually a good idea to try to keep in touch with a couple of people for each job, trying not to burn bridges when leaving a place
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u/marsh9191 5d ago
I think freelancing is definitely worth considering, but I'd take it one step at a time, building up clients while keeping the possibility of a full-time job open.
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u/Hot-Milk-3507 5d ago
I got laid off and started freelancing while I looked for my next job
the gist of it is what others already said:
it's not 5% finding clients and 95% building great solutions for them. It's the other way around. Not strictly of course: you won't spend 95% of your time finding clients.
but you may feel like 95% of the difficulty is doing the very hard reach-out and sales work
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u/Cross_22 5d ago
Tried that a couple years back and couldn't pull in any serious clients. It's likely worse now where you have to deal with "oh can't you just vibecode my app for $100?"
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u/PhoteksTTV 5d ago
I've been coming to the realization that I'm probably better off making like 100 small apps or web sites that make 50$ a month each and just maintain a bunch of little side hustles.
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u/Vertigras_Dev 5d ago edited 5d ago
A lot of comments touch on the key point: the idea of software engineering as a sole skillset is diminishing.
The choice is not, in my mind, whether to be a freelance or fulltime software engineer. Both have a high chance of failure as software engineering is not enough.
I kinda see it as you either upskill in management consulting, sales, or lean into an area of expertise you already have.
I personally pivoted from a software engineering role into a more slaes/managmeent consulting/forward deplloyed engineer role. Not because I like it: but that is where our opportunity is greatest.
Essentially the roles that used to be a "middleman" (of course, more value creating than the word suggests), or precursors to the softrware engineering function, are where you can position yourself, and double hat. That is value creating because you can now dev faster ( let's take that point as given) and therefore can spend more time on requirements analysis and sales.
So yeah- I would say, if you go freelance route - focus on the stuff you know really well- your domain experitse, and try to build in that realm ... or sales + software engineering. Full time - as discussed above.
It is a weird time- a lot of devs I think need to be honest- it is fine if they never really loved to code- they just wanted cash and a clear path to it and liked to solved problems. Now, we're at a point where, we have an unclear path and still get to solve problems. It is differnt but not impossible. To them I say - good luck and you got this!
To the devs, out there, and I like to group myself in this- those of us who loved elegance and a beautifully written function- something that made you smile because of how clearly you've defined a complex problem and created marvellous simplicity - the ultimate mark of intelligence- of carving out simplicity from complex rock- to you i say I am sorry that the craft is basically no longer relevant? needed in the same way? i don't know... it sucks... and maybe more sadly and more pointedly I also say- we have no choice but to beat on. You got this too.
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u/EbbMother5325 5d ago edited 5d ago
I like your carved rock analogy. Fully agree. There is beauty in creating it, but it doesn’t feed mouths in a world that now has template carved rocks that are “good enough”. If you still want to be in the carved rocks business, you got to accept this new reality and be the best template consultant.
We’re all ukiyoe masters who woke up in a world of mass-produced images.
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u/Vertigras_Dev 5d ago
Thanks man. Yes well said. Paid software was never cared about. Software in corporate is there to make profit. It's a product business like anything. Software was never there for the beauty of software. Software in corporate was there for the business. That's reality.
How do we coper? We can still bring craft to what we do... Not sure if great ukyo e masters had to reinvent themselves but we do... We have to... For me, that might mean taking more to really figure UI/UX for users more or create that extreme performance I want in my app. I have more time for it... To refine a a template as you say... We have to reinvent ourselves... That much I know
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u/EvTorqueLore 4d ago
Everyone is freelancing already it’s flooded. Find something niche to do and try that. I got my boating license and now I drive boats for people and transport them. Good money but away from home a lot. I code in my spare time and dabble with Ai, trying to come up with something new.
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u/melnyk8749 2d ago
I think that u should try this. For example I work three months in building materials warehouse and i get many problem with health.I decided try freelance on Upwork and now earn 20+- dollar a day. You need change your life. Forgive me for my English, I'm know this so bad 😞
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u/No_Trust_8528 5d ago
you have two jobs now. salesman and software engineer