Freelancers on dev.to

I'm having a little poll on twitter right now, asking a simple question to freelancers. Do you estimate that you have enough work, too few or too much compared to what you would ideally want?

I thought it would be more interesting to ask freelancers (or former freelancers) their experiences concerning freelancing.

I am especially interested in knowing:

• What type of freelancers you are/were? Part time? Full time? Just for non-profit on the evenings?...
• Was your income satisfying to you as a freelancer?
• What made you change your professional situation? From traditional job to freelancer and vice versa.

Really curious to have people from different parts of the world share their experiences about freelancing.

Comments

[Arden de Raaij]

Interesting stuff! I'm not a freelancer anymore, but you can read most of my freelance history here: dev.to/ardennl/how-the-hell-did-i-....

To answer your questions:
I was a full-time freelancer

My income was very satisfactory. I did however had troubles with managing a steady flow of income. Sometimes I had to stretch my money a bit and at other times every payment came in at the same time. I could've definitely managed that better.

What made me change back to a traditional job were a few things:

• My freelance jobs were slightly boring. I was definitely done with creating WordPress sites for small-medium businesses and after moving to a different country I found it difficult to get the kind of clients I wanted. I still had plenty of WP sites I could do for clients in my home-country but the work wasn't satisfying me anymore.
• I missed working in a steady team and making great things together. I highly enjoy being the 'dumbest' person in the room and having people around me that I can learn from. I also love being out of my (knowledge) comfort-zone and I found it hard pushing for that as a freelancer as well.

I hope this answers some questions!

[James Perkins]

What type of freelancers you are/were? I am a part time full stack developer for codementor and also my open source project (IQFINITY)

Was your income satisfying to you as a freelancer: my project currently doesn't generate any income, the Codementor paid minimal and I do it to pay for prescriptions for my wife that isn't covered by my full time job

What made you change your professional situation? From traditional job to freelancer and vice versa: Open source is important for our future in tech and the other is because America health care is the worst health care in the 1st world... (coming from the UK)