June 5, 2019 at 11:56Why I changed freelance to a remote team
There are many options for remote interaction. It is customary to single out remote work and freelance, but more often we are in some of the intermediate states. And the state of strife. Some options provide market coverage, others - a stream of orders, and others - a social package. And the prospects are different everywhere. So it’s better to clearly understand where you want to come.
For myself, I chose the format of remote work in a distributed team. Under the cut - about the reasons for choosing: an analysis of my experience and the options that I had to deal with personally.
There have been many funny stories and interesting experiences in my working life. But so that the main idea is not lost behind them, all the lyrical digressions are removed under the spoilers.
For ten years I have been engaged in web development, and the total experience in IT has exceeded 15 years.
Technologically, I’m closer to what the end user interacts with. I like to make interfaces for people, and not pick something “under the carpet”. It motivates me when people appreciate work - when you hear from end users words of gratitude for the fact that based on the results of your work it becomes easier for them to live.
Over the past years, I never worked in the office in the traditional sense, but I tried a variety of forms of freelance and remote work, as well as ways of organizing work.
It so happened that my first job (while still a student) was from home and on a free schedule. From the very beginning I liked the remote format.
A big plus was the flexible schedule, as well as the geography of the search for orders. Thanks to the remote, you can search for employers or clients not only in your city, and this is not connected with the move. You are not limited to the local labor market (in my region it is very limited), but you turn to another plane, where geography no longer plays a role, but the market itself is slightly different. For you, even political borders cease to exist - if you wish, you can go to another country (of those that you can afford) or, conversely, cooperate with customers from abroad, where they pay more.
Of course, in the office there is socialization - a smoking room, a kitchen, corporate parties and even personal life. But there are a lot of points that reduce overall efficiency - I know this from my own experience, because at one time he rented an office in such a “standard” office, and it was interesting to watch from the side what was happening there. And socialization on a remote site can be implemented through coworking.
The very change of scenery helps the brain not stick, it stimulates mental activity. And personally, I’m easier to tune in to the work process, when work is also in full swing, even if it’s just a barista scurrying around at a counter in some coffee shop.
If I made a choice between the office and the remote quite quickly, then at first I did not notice much difference between freelance and remote work at full time. Yes, probably, there wasn’t a full-fledged offer market at full time. But after so many years, I see many options for the interaction of the customer and the contractor. And I completely consciously choose a remote team in a strong company. My article is just about the reasons for this choice.
Of course, to oppose freelance and remote work is not entirely correct. But in order not to turn my thoughts about typical pluses and minuses into a philosophical treatise, I’ll continue to talk about some opposing entities - “classical” freelance (individual projects from exchanges, such as FL and Upwork) and a remote distributed team of specialists in full time, hired by one company.
In the IT segment where I work, the time for small projects “sawn on my knees” has passed. To successfully compete for a place in the sun, you need to do well and quickly. One specialist (freelancer) in theory can do something substantial well, but it will take a lot of time. And when time plays a key role, it is not profitable for business to wait, it is more profitable to hire a team.
Even if, for some reason, the business hires only one person for the implementation of a serious project (suppose his competence is rare), he will most likely be on staff to retain expertise in the company and subsequently support the decision. In the context of our conversation, this will already be full-fledged remote work.
Freelancer is a kind of free artist. Today he works with the customer, and tomorrow (as the classic stereotype says) may simply not get in touch.
Even if you are a hyperresponsible freelancer and have not missed a single business call in your life, stereotypes work against you: at the start of a project, against the background of hiring a contractor or a developer, you will always be at increased risk for the customer. So, he will turn to you only if necessary to save. One can only guess what caused this saving - will the money run out tomorrow?
The corollary of the two previous points is that if you operate alone on freelance and avoid hiring for full time, you have to work on small and inexpensive tasks. For example, for some small online stores, to finish functionality on trifles. They can’t be shown in the portfolio either. It often looks like this: “Look at this site - the design is crap, but it's not me, but this feature is mine.” Anyway, on the part of your feature will be perceived in the context of the same sloppy design with all that it implies.
The nature of the tasks, the minimum budget that needs to be saved, is determined by the loading mode: episodic irregular employment. There is work today - no tomorrow. And this is nerves and anxiety: you do not know exactly when the next order will happen.
To ensure yourself an acceptable income, you will constantly look for customers. This search is a separate topic for conversation, sometimes it takes even more than the immediate execution of tasks.
No one pays for the search. You have to somehow put these labor costs into the cost of your hour on the project. But you cannot raise this number indefinitely - you will not be able to compete with other freelancers.
The solution that I found for myself was to focus on long-term cooperation, so that for each conditional hour of the search there should be as many hours as possible on the project. The “long” client also loads you irregularly, but when it is not one, but several, you get more or less uniform loading and decent earnings.
True, you still don’t stop working in your own name and in the background searching for customers - but what if?
With the transition to long-term cooperation, a new level of responsibility appears. I work with business critical systems. If the online store suddenly “falls”, sales stop at the customer, and these are direct losses. In this context, it is problematic to simply plan a vacation. Money can be postponed, but you feel responsible to customers for what has not happened yet. You are like a one person company. And the company should work 365 days a year, at least in matters of technical support. Therefore, if you go on vacation, you take a laptop, dragging it along with you to museums, and do not plan trips to regions without normal communication.
When finalizing functioning projects in the described format, a collision with Legacy is inevitable. And usually on such projects you are far from the first performer. The tasks are realized by a whole stream of constantly changing specialists (customers are also looking for their ideal executor), and some of them dragged their stack of technologies into the project. All this works - the client solves the business task, but a real zoo can be created under the hood.
Понятно, что для работы с таким зоопарком надо владеть довольно широким спектром технологий. Но даже обладая нужными знаниями, придется сталкиваться с банальными организационными проблемами: документации к написанному ранее, естественно, нет, аккаунты разных сопутствующих сервисов (вплоть до управления доменом) оформлены на личные почтовые ящики предыдущих разработчиков, пароли только у них. В общем, жуть. В особо тяжелых случаях даже не используются системы контроля версий. А клиенту кажется, что у него все пучком и задача, которую сейчас надо сделать, копеечная.
It would seem that, having an understanding of how it should be, it is possible to make the client “good” and fix at least some of the problems. But as I mentioned above, the client saves, which means that writing autotests and documentation most often will be out of the question. And updating the stack is not included in the plans. What is on the project, so do the work.
What kind of self-development is there in the described zoo?
Of course, it happens that business needs to solve a problem, but it doesn’t matter exactly how, and then you can try new tools.
For example, in more than one online store, rooted in zeros, I found business tasks that could be solved on vue.js instead of the existing jQuery on the project. Updating the stack is generally good, and I solved the problem. But the problem is that my solution only exacerbated the technology zoo. The circle is closed. And frankly, the task was set to me as a freelancer small (as it usually happens), so I didn’t manage to fully deploy and cut jQuery - there wasn’t such a task. So vue.js and jQuery graze nearby in the same aviary, pinching traffic.
The opportunity to “turn around” would give specialization in a particular direction. But she is not in my freelance segment. A small task simply does not make sense to divide into a team - each will be involved for 15-30 minutes. Many simply will not agree to this - no one is interested in spending more time on immersion than on execution. Easier to do everything yourself. We have to close all the questions, from analytics to testing: at the same time, twist something on the backend, and make up, and UX to think over, and even sometimes pretend to be a designer (which, for example, is not mine at all, but it saves Bootstrap and Font Awesome).
A wide range of knowledge and practical experience (fullstack) is, of course, good. But sometimes it seems to me that because of such diversification, you simply do not have time to dive deep into each of the required aspects. You are not really studying any of the technologies. And as you dive into the details, you realize how little you know about all this - in itself it even slightly demotivates.
Freelance is essentially one-on-one work with a customer, usually the owner of a business. He formally formulates a small task, and we begin by joint efforts to untwist it - exactly how to implement the required thing. In the end, we work out a solution.
There is no real team development here and never will be. If you intersect with colleagues, then one-time - ask something, consult. Even if more than one freelancer is working on a project, each has its own pool of tasks, and in the general case they are not interconnected, with the exception of some degenerate situations, when one starts a task and something else is being finalized as a result of another.
I will not be limited only to shortcomings. Freelance gives freedom not available in other formats. Nobody sets the task for you to “close 160 hours a month”. Piecework or hourly rates apply. When there is no task, you simply understand that you will not receive money for this time. However, you are not accountable to anyone other than yourself. I did not work today for 8 hours - it's okay, there will be less money, but you have a free day or a couple of hours for talking with children, a hobby, building a house or any other business. For some, this factor is fundamental, outweighing the rest.
But I wanted more.
The format of several clients, the download of which is on average more or less constant, is already striving for full-fledged remote work at full time. You work out a schedule of employment for N hours a day, have more or less stable incomes. Unless administration remains with you, and tasks are not out of ambition. But for me, the remote command format at full time turned out to be more suitable.
Remote teams are recruited either to develop their own products, or to provide these services on the side. Whether it is an internal or external customer, he is ready to give the team as a whole a larger-scale project that requires a greater range of competencies. Especially if the team has already shown itself in action.
“Big fish” just doesn't work with freelancers. They usually need longer negotiations, administrative red tape. And even if in the end the work is built on the model of a dedicated team, an intermediary is required who will take the risks of working with staff on himself.
New technologies help solve new problems or change existing solutions, making them more efficient, and the product is competitive. Anyway, updating technologies is a vital necessity, because support for old technologies on new platforms is gradually disappearing. Therefore, a large-scale business is interested in using a modern technological stack.
In addition to solving project tasks, new technologies help large companies attract and retain developers - those who, like me, want to learn in the process.
I always wanted to work with a fresh stack, because self-study in my spare time (at the table) is ineffective. Those. you won’t be able to learn Angular by watching a video course, but not having projects on it (or by writing a training project like “Hello world!”). It is much more effective to comprehend new technologies in real projects. When you come to a new task and the first 2-3 weeks frantically try to move into what is happening. And then, when the puzzle suddenly begins to take shape in your head, you feel the pleasure of going here, overcome your fear of the unknown. You understand that over the past couple of weeks I’ve pumped much more than over the past year on the old, though well-known project. This cool feeling is like overcoming yourself, which greatly helps in development, motivates you to move on.
An interesting task in itself involves. “For dessert” in large projects there is a continuity: the tasks are interconnected, because there is some kind of logical chain of product development. This evolution inspires me - when you realize where the product you are working on is moving. At least for me this is important, for programming as such for me is just a tool with which to create a new world. Evolutionarily, in small steps (as it seems when he is involved in this), but it is changing.
And by the way, according to the results of work on a large project, there is something to write in the portfolio. Such things are not ashamed to show in their entirety, even if you “sawed” a separate layer in it.
Obviously, as part of the team, you delegate the task of finding customers to specially hired salespeople or managers (again, it doesn’t matter if it’s internal or external to the customer). To some extent, you lose control over which projects to go to work on (although here it depends a lot on the company). But you don’t have to worry about employment tomorrow: the company is interested not only in not being idle, but also in maximizing your potential - putting you on more complex projects that mean more financial return for it.
On large projects, separation into zones of responsibility and narrow specialization of each participant are inevitable. And this is a completely different team story.
People are predictably available for communication, and the time to release a solution in production can be estimated with known accuracy. The team’s effectiveness is much higher than the described freelance bunch. All this additionally motivates, especially if you are focused on the result in your work.
Of course, working for a large company, one can also encounter problems where teams are minimal. But usually this is a temporary phenomenon, and the employer is engaged in the search for a “team” project (as I noted above) - he is also interested in this.
Of course, I am an introvert, but not a misanthrope. I need professional communication and enjoy teamwork. So much faster you feel your own professional development - when there is not only the one who can ask something, but also the one to tell. You begin to understand that you really represent yourself in the great mass of other specialists. There is someone to brainstorm with - perhaps the best way to make decisions (not to be confused with meetings).
However, remote work is no longer freelance. On a remote site some of the advantages of freelance are preserved, in particular, complete geographical freedom. It's important for me.
But in my own skin I felt some discomfort of the transition, for example
I once read in one article that people working remotely are more responsible than office workers, because all the time it seems to them that they need to prove that you did not mess around. This is a source of anxiety that you need to get used to. Unless, of course, you are looking for opportunities to not work in remote work.
The lack of complete freedom that freelance gave is offset by material wealth.
Now I am working for the first time in a company (just distributed), where I am entitled to paid leave. And they even require me to plan it for the next calendar year. And I understand that I can not do this, because just not used to such a luxury. There is official registration of income, compensation for equipment and a gym. Now I have a salary and bonuses, and they do not depend on the relationship between the company and the end customers. The company assumes the risks of downtime and delays in payment from customers.
When you work alone, you swim finely anyway. Companies “float” much deeper, larger and more interesting projects are available to them, which, as a freelancer, I basically could not afford. Of course, I could leave my freelance option in my own business - open my own studio. But I felt that I was not ready for this - I do not want to prefer administrative tasks to real technical ones, and there are problems with finding adequate performers and customers. Therefore, the distributed team for me was the best way to develop.
However, my thoughts should not be taken as a contrast between two worlds - freelance and udalenka. It is not uncommon when, as part of the relationship between a specialist and a company, one evolves into another and vice versa.
Having left freelance for the company, I lost something, gained something. Everything has a price. In this sense, the remote format of work in a distributed company allowed me to minimize losses, having received maximum profit.
Posted by Maxim Prudnikov, Maxilekt
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For myself, I chose the format of remote work in a distributed team. Under the cut - about the reasons for choosing: an analysis of my experience and the options that I had to deal with personally.
There have been many funny stories and interesting experiences in my working life. But so that the main idea is not lost behind them, all the lyrical digressions are removed under the spoilers.
For ten years I have been engaged in web development, and the total experience in IT has exceeded 15 years.
Technologically, I’m closer to what the end user interacts with. I like to make interfaces for people, and not pick something “under the carpet”. It motivates me when people appreciate work - when you hear from end users words of gratitude for the fact that based on the results of your work it becomes easier for them to live.
Over the past years, I never worked in the office in the traditional sense, but I tried a variety of forms of freelance and remote work, as well as ways of organizing work.
It so happened that my first job (while still a student) was from home and on a free schedule. From the very beginning I liked the remote format.
A big plus was the flexible schedule, as well as the geography of the search for orders. Thanks to the remote, you can search for employers or clients not only in your city, and this is not connected with the move. You are not limited to the local labor market (in my region it is very limited), but you turn to another plane, where geography no longer plays a role, but the market itself is slightly different. For you, even political borders cease to exist - if you wish, you can go to another country (of those that you can afford) or, conversely, cooperate with customers from abroad, where they pay more.
Of course, in the office there is socialization - a smoking room, a kitchen, corporate parties and even personal life. But there are a lot of points that reduce overall efficiency - I know this from my own experience, because at one time he rented an office in such a “standard” office, and it was interesting to watch from the side what was happening there. And socialization on a remote site can be implemented through coworking.
If communication is not enough, then I work.
There are some other people there, sometimes acquaintances, and sometimes who have come to our city to live and work for a month or two. In general, rotation in coworking is usually pretty decent, and you can chat with various interesting people, also mostly working remotely. It’s even more interesting than seeing the same faces in your home office every day. Although in any coworking there is also a backbone of regular customers. Moreover, you can choose different locations for work at least every day.
The very change of scenery helps the brain not stick, it stimulates mental activity. And personally, I’m easier to tune in to the work process, when work is also in full swing, even if it’s just a barista scurrying around at a counter in some coffee shop.
If I made a choice between the office and the remote quite quickly, then at first I did not notice much difference between freelance and remote work at full time. Yes, probably, there wasn’t a full-fledged offer market at full time. But after so many years, I see many options for the interaction of the customer and the contractor. And I completely consciously choose a remote team in a strong company. My article is just about the reasons for this choice.
Of course, to oppose freelance and remote work is not entirely correct. But in order not to turn my thoughts about typical pluses and minuses into a philosophical treatise, I’ll continue to talk about some opposing entities - “classical” freelance (individual projects from exchanges, such as FL and Upwork) and a remote distributed team of specialists in full time, hired by one company.
Freelance - Small Budgets and Projects
There will be no big budget on freelance
In the IT segment where I work, the time for small projects “sawn on my knees” has passed. To successfully compete for a place in the sun, you need to do well and quickly. One specialist (freelancer) in theory can do something substantial well, but it will take a lot of time. And when time plays a key role, it is not profitable for business to wait, it is more profitable to hire a team.
Even if, for some reason, the business hires only one person for the implementation of a serious project (suppose his competence is rare), he will most likely be on staff to retain expertise in the company and subsequently support the decision. In the context of our conversation, this will already be full-fledged remote work.
Hiring a Freelancer - Always Saves Risk
Freelancer is a kind of free artist. Today he works with the customer, and tomorrow (as the classic stereotype says) may simply not get in touch.
Even if you are a hyperresponsible freelancer and have not missed a single business call in your life, stereotypes work against you: at the start of a project, against the background of hiring a contractor or a developer, you will always be at increased risk for the customer. So, he will turn to you only if necessary to save. One can only guess what caused this saving - will the money run out tomorrow?
No big tasks to find
The corollary of the two previous points is that if you operate alone on freelance and avoid hiring for full time, you have to work on small and inexpensive tasks. For example, for some small online stores, to finish functionality on trifles. They can’t be shown in the portfolio either. It often looks like this: “Look at this site - the design is crap, but it's not me, but this feature is mine.” Anyway, on the part of your feature will be perceived in the context of the same sloppy design with all that it implies.
In general, this is similar to the sphere of repair and construction.
One person, of course, will be entrusted with laying tiles in the bathroom. But for the repair of the apartment as a whole, most likely, they will already be looking for a small team to parallelize and speed up the process. In addition, different competencies are already needed here - wiring, plumbing, heating, etc. Well, if you need to build a normal house from scratch, then, in a good way, you need a contractor with an architect, landscape designer and foreman.
One craftsman made repairs in my apartment. Tile laid very nothing. I wanted to take on the wiring. But when in the process of discussing the problem, I heard from him that here, they say, there’s a plus in the outlet, and here is a minus, I realized that I need to call a narrow specialist - an electrician-freelancer :).
One craftsman made repairs in my apartment. Tile laid very nothing. I wanted to take on the wiring. But when in the process of discussing the problem, I heard from him that here, they say, there’s a plus in the outlet, and here is a minus, I realized that I need to call a narrow specialist - an electrician-freelancer :).
Permanent “free” search
The nature of the tasks, the minimum budget that needs to be saved, is determined by the loading mode: episodic irregular employment. There is work today - no tomorrow. And this is nerves and anxiety: you do not know exactly when the next order will happen.
To ensure yourself an acceptable income, you will constantly look for customers. This search is a separate topic for conversation, sometimes it takes even more than the immediate execution of tasks.
No one pays for the search. You have to somehow put these labor costs into the cost of your hour on the project. But you cannot raise this number indefinitely - you will not be able to compete with other freelancers.
The solution that I found for myself was to focus on long-term cooperation, so that for each conditional hour of the search there should be as many hours as possible on the project. The “long” client also loads you irregularly, but when it is not one, but several, you get more or less uniform loading and decent earnings.
True, you still don’t stop working in your own name and in the background searching for customers - but what if?
A “long” client eliminates some problems, but adds others
With the transition to long-term cooperation, a new level of responsibility appears. I work with business critical systems. If the online store suddenly “falls”, sales stop at the customer, and these are direct losses. In this context, it is problematic to simply plan a vacation. Money can be postponed, but you feel responsible to customers for what has not happened yet. You are like a one person company. And the company should work 365 days a year, at least in matters of technical support. Therefore, if you go on vacation, you take a laptop, dragging it along with you to museums, and do not plan trips to regions without normal communication.
Prehistoric zoo
When finalizing functioning projects in the described format, a collision with Legacy is inevitable. And usually on such projects you are far from the first performer. The tasks are realized by a whole stream of constantly changing specialists (customers are also looking for their ideal executor), and some of them dragged their stack of technologies into the project. All this works - the client solves the business task, but a real zoo can be created under the hood.
Part of the work is not visible and not appreciated
Понятно, что для работы с таким зоопарком надо владеть довольно широким спектром технологий. Но даже обладая нужными знаниями, придется сталкиваться с банальными организационными проблемами: документации к написанному ранее, естественно, нет, аккаунты разных сопутствующих сервисов (вплоть до управления доменом) оформлены на личные почтовые ящики предыдущих разработчиков, пароли только у них. В общем, жуть. В особо тяжелых случаях даже не используются системы контроля версий. А клиенту кажется, что у него все пучком и задача, которую сейчас надо сделать, копеечная.
Опыт подсказывает...
… если клиент кажется тебе по каким-либо причинам перспективным, имеет смысл наступить себе на горло и рискнуть, сделать первую задачу, взяв расходы по вниканию в проект на себя. Возможно, это даст свои плоды. А может и нет.
The client does not invest in improvements (did not break - do not repair)
It would seem that, having an understanding of how it should be, it is possible to make the client “good” and fix at least some of the problems. But as I mentioned above, the client saves, which means that writing autotests and documentation most often will be out of the question. And updating the stack is not included in the plans. What is on the project, so do the work.
Self-development versus business (the best is the enemy of the good)
What kind of self-development is there in the described zoo?
Of course, it happens that business needs to solve a problem, but it doesn’t matter exactly how, and then you can try new tools.
For example, in more than one online store, rooted in zeros, I found business tasks that could be solved on vue.js instead of the existing jQuery on the project. Updating the stack is generally good, and I solved the problem. But the problem is that my solution only exacerbated the technology zoo. The circle is closed. And frankly, the task was set to me as a freelancer small (as it usually happens), so I didn’t manage to fully deploy and cut jQuery - there wasn’t such a task. So vue.js and jQuery graze nearby in the same aviary, pinching traffic.
Specialization needs self-development, but contradicts the freelance format
The opportunity to “turn around” would give specialization in a particular direction. But she is not in my freelance segment. A small task simply does not make sense to divide into a team - each will be involved for 15-30 minutes. Many simply will not agree to this - no one is interested in spending more time on immersion than on execution. Easier to do everything yourself. We have to close all the questions, from analytics to testing: at the same time, twist something on the backend, and make up, and UX to think over, and even sometimes pretend to be a designer (which, for example, is not mine at all, but it saves Bootstrap and Font Awesome).
A wide range of knowledge and practical experience (fullstack) is, of course, good. But sometimes it seems to me that because of such diversification, you simply do not have time to dive deep into each of the required aspects. You are not really studying any of the technologies. And as you dive into the details, you realize how little you know about all this - in itself it even slightly demotivates.
Departure into specialization is a natural process as the industry develops ...
It’s like in medicine. Once there was one specialty - the doctor. And now even in such a narrow segment as dentistry, there are even narrower areas - surgeons, orthodontists, etc. So a move towards narrowing specialization is inevitable, it is a matter of survival in the industry.
Loneliness
Freelance is essentially one-on-one work with a customer, usually the owner of a business. He formally formulates a small task, and we begin by joint efforts to untwist it - exactly how to implement the required thing. In the end, we work out a solution.
There is no real team development here and never will be. If you intersect with colleagues, then one-time - ask something, consult. Even if more than one freelancer is working on a project, each has its own pool of tasks, and in the general case they are not interconnected, with the exception of some degenerate situations, when one starts a task and something else is being finalized as a result of another.
Only once I came across a customer who had formed a whole team of freelancers - 5-6 people ...
There were dedicated team lead, designer, layout designer, developers, tester, etc. It seems to be it! Freelance freedom with simultaneous teamwork. But taking into account the fact that each member of such a team is his own freelancer, he still gets a bicycle. A tandem where everyone pedals at their own speed and in their own direction.
Everyone has an hourly hour and the presence of other projects, which is why a torn work schedule is obtained on this particular project. One was studying, the other was engaged in a more interesting business, the third was pulled by an old client for an urgent task (and freelancers would not leave “long” trusted clients for the project for a couple of months). As a result, there are difficulties with interaction, and even greater with planning. And the tasks by which one could get together, distribute responsibilities and close the question in a couple of days, stretch for weeks. Well, the idea of the zoo is also relevant here, because such a bunch of freelancers is like a pirate ship team - anyone is ready to go ashore in the nearest port, and the captain’s authority is very precarious.
In general, despite these difficulties, it was interesting to work on that project (more interesting than freelancing alone). But frankly, this is not quite freelance, but a degenerate case of a remote team with organizational problems. In the vast majority of cases, you are alone on pure freelance.
Everyone has an hourly hour and the presence of other projects, which is why a torn work schedule is obtained on this particular project. One was studying, the other was engaged in a more interesting business, the third was pulled by an old client for an urgent task (and freelancers would not leave “long” trusted clients for the project for a couple of months). As a result, there are difficulties with interaction, and even greater with planning. And the tasks by which one could get together, distribute responsibilities and close the question in a couple of days, stretch for weeks. Well, the idea of the zoo is also relevant here, because such a bunch of freelancers is like a pirate ship team - anyone is ready to go ashore in the nearest port, and the captain’s authority is very precarious.
In general, despite these difficulties, it was interesting to work on that project (more interesting than freelancing alone). But frankly, this is not quite freelance, but a degenerate case of a remote team with organizational problems. In the vast majority of cases, you are alone on pure freelance.
However freedom
I will not be limited only to shortcomings. Freelance gives freedom not available in other formats. Nobody sets the task for you to “close 160 hours a month”. Piecework or hourly rates apply. When there is no task, you simply understand that you will not receive money for this time. However, you are not accountable to anyone other than yourself. I did not work today for 8 hours - it's okay, there will be less money, but you have a free day or a couple of hours for talking with children, a hobby, building a house or any other business. For some, this factor is fundamental, outweighing the rest.
But I wanted more.
Remote work - a team on a fresh stack
The format of several clients, the download of which is on average more or less constant, is already striving for full-fledged remote work at full time. You work out a schedule of employment for N hours a day, have more or less stable incomes. Unless administration remains with you, and tasks are not out of ambition. But for me, the remote command format at full time turned out to be more suitable.
The scale of the projects is much larger.
Remote teams are recruited either to develop their own products, or to provide these services on the side. Whether it is an internal or external customer, he is ready to give the team as a whole a larger-scale project that requires a greater range of competencies. Especially if the team has already shown itself in action.
“Big fish” just doesn't work with freelancers. They usually need longer negotiations, administrative red tape. And even if in the end the work is built on the model of a dedicated team, an intermediary is required who will take the risks of working with staff on himself.
The business itself is interested in new technologies
New technologies help solve new problems or change existing solutions, making them more efficient, and the product is competitive. Anyway, updating technologies is a vital necessity, because support for old technologies on new platforms is gradually disappearing. Therefore, a large-scale business is interested in using a modern technological stack.
In addition to solving project tasks, new technologies help large companies attract and retain developers - those who, like me, want to learn in the process.
Self-study on live projects
I always wanted to work with a fresh stack, because self-study in my spare time (at the table) is ineffective. Those. you won’t be able to learn Angular by watching a video course, but not having projects on it (or by writing a training project like “Hello world!”). It is much more effective to comprehend new technologies in real projects. When you come to a new task and the first 2-3 weeks frantically try to move into what is happening. And then, when the puzzle suddenly begins to take shape in your head, you feel the pleasure of going here, overcome your fear of the unknown. You understand that over the past couple of weeks I’ve pumped much more than over the past year on the old, though well-known project. This cool feeling is like overcoming yourself, which greatly helps in development, motivates you to move on.
Additional motivation due to the nature of the project
An interesting task in itself involves. “For dessert” in large projects there is a continuity: the tasks are interconnected, because there is some kind of logical chain of product development. This evolution inspires me - when you realize where the product you are working on is moving. At least for me this is important, for programming as such for me is just a tool with which to create a new world. Evolutionarily, in small steps (as it seems when he is involved in this), but it is changing.
And by the way, according to the results of work on a large project, there is something to write in the portfolio. Such things are not ashamed to show in their entirety, even if you “sawed” a separate layer in it.
Search problem goes away
Obviously, as part of the team, you delegate the task of finding customers to specially hired salespeople or managers (again, it doesn’t matter if it’s internal or external to the customer). To some extent, you lose control over which projects to go to work on (although here it depends a lot on the company). But you don’t have to worry about employment tomorrow: the company is interested not only in not being idle, but also in maximizing your potential - putting you on more complex projects that mean more financial return for it.
Teamwork
On large projects, separation into zones of responsibility and narrow specialization of each participant are inevitable. And this is a completely different team story.
People are predictably available for communication, and the time to release a solution in production can be estimated with known accuracy. The team’s effectiveness is much higher than the described freelance bunch. All this additionally motivates, especially if you are focused on the result in your work.
Of course, working for a large company, one can also encounter problems where teams are minimal. But usually this is a temporary phenomenon, and the employer is engaged in the search for a “team” project (as I noted above) - he is also interested in this.
Professional communication
Of course, I am an introvert, but not a misanthrope. I need professional communication and enjoy teamwork. So much faster you feel your own professional development - when there is not only the one who can ask something, but also the one to tell. You begin to understand that you really represent yourself in the great mass of other specialists. There is someone to brainstorm with - perhaps the best way to make decisions (not to be confused with meetings).
Fly in the ointment: responsibility on the other hand
However, remote work is no longer freelance. On a remote site some of the advantages of freelance are preserved, in particular, complete geographical freedom. It's important for me.
But in my own skin I felt some discomfort of the transition, for example
regarding reporting on time.
With remote full time, the main way to record working hours is reports on hours worked in the context of the tasks set in the tracker (I do not consider cases of hypercontrol through special utilities with screenshots and recording from the camera, because I would not go to work for a company with such wild processes ) As a result, it all depends on projects and specific tasks. When the task or project is the only one, you write off as many hours as you worked. But sometimes you work on several parallel projects, between which you need to divide the hours in the reports, since this is important for the employer. The question arises, but how to take into account the switching time between tasks? Record on one of the projects? Share between them? Write off to simple? And if the project rests on a business that does not always respond quickly? How to take into account the waiting time?
From each of these questions (especially after the complete freedom of freelance) you feel discomfort. And in my case it’s even more unpleasant than on a “pure” freelance.
From each of these questions (especially after the complete freedom of freelance) you feel discomfort. And in my case it’s even more unpleasant than on a “pure” freelance.
I once read in one article that people working remotely are more responsible than office workers, because all the time it seems to them that they need to prove that you did not mess around. This is a source of anxiety that you need to get used to. Unless, of course, you are looking for opportunities to not work in remote work.
Compensation
The lack of complete freedom that freelance gave is offset by material wealth.
Now I am working for the first time in a company (just distributed), where I am entitled to paid leave. And they even require me to plan it for the next calendar year. And I understand that I can not do this, because just not used to such a luxury. There is official registration of income, compensation for equipment and a gym. Now I have a salary and bonuses, and they do not depend on the relationship between the company and the end customers. The company assumes the risks of downtime and delays in payment from customers.
Instead of totals
When you work alone, you swim finely anyway. Companies “float” much deeper, larger and more interesting projects are available to them, which, as a freelancer, I basically could not afford. Of course, I could leave my freelance option in my own business - open my own studio. But I felt that I was not ready for this - I do not want to prefer administrative tasks to real technical ones, and there are problems with finding adequate performers and customers. Therefore, the distributed team for me was the best way to develop.
However, my thoughts should not be taken as a contrast between two worlds - freelance and udalenka. It is not uncommon when, as part of the relationship between a specialist and a company, one evolves into another and vice versa.
Having left freelance for the company, I lost something, gained something. Everything has a price. In this sense, the remote format of work in a distributed company allowed me to minimize losses, having received maximum profit.
Posted by Maxim Prudnikov, Maxilekt
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