Andreas

Posted on Jan 13, 2020

I'm here to encourage you, ask me anything!

#ama #career #freelancing #webdev

I started reading articles on dev.to 2.5 years ago and I'm still amazed how welcoming this community is, especially for beginners. 4 months ago I decided to give some love back and started to write one article per week. I was overwhelmed by all your reactions, follows and positive feedback and I'm wondering if I might encourage you from dev to dev in your current situation.

A little bit about myself: I'm a 30 y/o German software developer and consultant living in Berlin. I'm happily married and father of two sweeties. I studied Computer Engineering at the Technical University of Berlin - it took me 3 additional years to finish my studies, (partly) because I started working as a system administrator at the university itself and later as a freelancer in web development during my studies.

When getting my Masters degree, I had grown the number of projects I worked freelance for, so I decided to go full-time and that currently works very well for me and my family (very flexible working times, an average of 30-35 hours/week, home office).

I really don't know much, but I would love to help you by sharing my experience e.g. to the following topics:

home office, balancing work and family (especially with kids)
freelancing (get projects, get clients)
programming (Javascript, Python, PHP, CSS, VueJS)

I don't want to give you cheap answers, so please forgive me if it may take me a while to answer 😇.

Latest comments (68)

Zachary Stone • Feb 15 '20

I have two little ones and I work from home Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's a challenge to do so with a one year old and a almost 3 year old. They want to see their papa, and we have limited space. (I use their playroom as an office.) What tips do you have to make it work?

Andreas • Feb 16 '20

Hi Zachary,

thanks for this question - I feel you. Home office with kids can be very challenging. We both are in a similar situation, my kids are 0.5 and 2.5 years and especially my boy (the older one) often is very focused on me. I experienced the following points to be helpful:

Explain your kids again and again that you work, how long it would probably take and that it's important, that the door is closed. It's much easier for children to accept something they don't like when they know it's only for a limited time and not the whole day.
Take breaks if possible. That way, you can spend some time with your family during the day. But that may depend... If it makes things more complicated because seeing you for a short time makes your kids cry again for a long time, it's maybe not a good idea 😅
Take advantage of sleeping time. My girl sometimes only sleeps in a baby carrier - so I carry her while standing or sitting on my laptop working.
Try to build habits, it will make things easier because the kids know beforehand what will happen and they can better adapt to it. My boy e.g. knows exactly, that he is not allowed to open the door to our bedroom (it's were I currently work 😅) if it is closed. Except my wife asks him to call me for dinner - in that case he proudly knocks on my door, opens it and shouts "papa, dinner!!" 😂

I hope this helps you a little. Me and my wife always try to figure out the real reason for a particular behavior of our children to understand their needs and provide alternatives were possible. I should also add that most of the points above only work, because my wife is at home taking care of our kids most of the time.

Zachary Stone • Feb 16 '20 • Edited

Thank you for this sound advice. I love the emphasis on taking the time to talk to your kids explaining what's going on, I feel like some people don't realize how much kids understand. Explaining expectations and giving them upfront times you will see them is vital. My wife is a stay at home mom, so that is extremely helpful. I typically know that the morning isn't going to be as productive as the afternoon. I got my wife annual subscriptions to the childrens museum and the zoo so they have a place to go to if they want to get out and be entertained. My son just turned 1 and my daughter will be 3 in June.

Andreas • Feb 16 '20

My pleasure.

I feel like some people don't realize how much kids understand

This is soo true! Including myself. I'm always surprised how many details my son remembers from situations we've experienced together. Or what we talked about even days ago...

I got my wife annual subscriptions to the childrens museum and the zoo

Great point! Having enough ideas for trip destinations for kids is indeed very helpful. As well as meeting friends who also have kids.

Peter • Jan 18 '20

I hope I haven't scrolled over a too-similar question, but: What made you decide to work as a freelancer? I've got some years of work experience, part of it in parallel to my studies, and once every few month or so I consider going freelancer here in Germany, always concluding that it's very probably not a good idea for me at the moment. What made it sound like a good idea for you?

Andreas • Jan 21 '20

Hi Peter, sorry for the late reply 😇

This may sound a little strange but actually I never really decided to work as a freelancer - it just happened... During my studies I had some side projects which earned me some money. That went very well, so I came to a point where I had to register my work as a business in order to everything remaining correct/legal. Over the years working as small entrepreneur (in German its Kleinunternehmer) next to my studies, my freelancing income increased. When finally getting my Masters degree, I had to decide what to do next and since I had the opportunity to get two larger companies as clients, I decided to try freelancing full-time.

It's still going very well and as long as it does, I will continue freelancing. If someday it doesn't anymore, I don't have a problem with searching for a permanent employment. But currently I really like the freedom to decide when, where and how long to work each day, which is particularly family-friendly. I've been given the possibility to actually see my children grow up, take part in our family life and be there for my kids when they need me - and for that I am truly grateful!

Sorry, is this answering your question? 😅

EzeM • Jan 17 '20

I'm a junior dev, working for an accounting company, alone, and struggling to finish a project in C# using Prism. Many many times i feel like the program is just too much and too big for me. I asked the company to hire at least one more dev, but they don't want to.
I feel completely useless and like I'm about to get fired at any time. Should i just give up? Or push more harder to finish?

Andreas • Jan 18 '20

Hi EzeM,

I'm sorry that you're in such a difficult situation. It sounds like the company doesn't really care about your concerns, which leads to the question, if you really want work for them in the future or not. If your work is not valued I would say it's better to find a more welcoming and (junior) dev friendly environment.

Without knowing your whole situation in detail I would nevertheless tend to finish the project if possible - just because you gain a lot of experience especially on difficult projects.

EzeM • Jan 20 '20

I definitely don't want to work for them in the future, but i wanted to keep my word and finishit it.
I like your experience aproach. Guess is one more good reason to get it done.
Thanks for taking time to answer : )

Andreas • Jan 20 '20

You're very welcome. Wishing you best of success for getting the project done and the change afterwards!

thedevkim • Jan 17 '20

How do you define a good software developer ?

Andreas • Jan 17 '20

Hi thedevkim,

let my quote my comment to sky's question:

Andreas

Jan 14

Hi sky,

thank you for these questions. I'm sure there are tons of definitions what a good developer is. The following is my personal opinion.

You are a good developer if ...

You listen to your clients and understand their needs
You make things that are useful and fun/easy to use
You're eager to learn new things to create the next project
You accept making mistakes is normal
You are patient with yourself and with your clients

Things that don't matter:

You used whatever language or framework is currently trending
You have at least 200 years work experience
You have at least 2000 projects in your portfolio
You indented with tabs

please how long will i have to learn before i can say i am a good in web dev

I really can't answer this question for you, but I can answer it for myself: There will probably never be a moment in my life where I say to myself, that I learned enough to be a good developer. But I always try to appreciate what I learned so far and improve everyday a tiny little bit 😊

emil18 • Jan 16 '20

hallo Andreas, ich bin Emile aus Hamburg. Wäre es möglich Kontakt mit Ihnen zu haben? Besten Dank.

Andreas • Jan 16 '20

Hallo Emile! Natürlich, du kannst mich gern anschreiben: hier, hier oder hier - such dir was aus 😎 lg

Ben Sinclair • Jan 14 '20

Should I do the thing?

Andreas • Jan 15 '20

if (benWantsToExplain(thing)) {
  waitForExplanation(thing)
} else {
  return ['yes', 'no'][Math.floor(Math.random() * 2)]
}

Ben Sinclair • Jan 15 '20

Right, I'm doing the thing.

Andreas • Jan 15 '20

Good luck! 😊

Zaynaib (Ola) Giwa • Jan 14 '20

This might be a silly question. But did getting a Masters in CS give you a boot in your career compared to someone who is self taught or someone who just has a Bachelors in CS?

Andreas • Jan 16 '20

This isn't a silly question at all! Thank you for asking. I would say yes, it really helped me starting my business full-time, because I could establish some business contacts during that time and I learned a lot of self-discipline (I wrote my Masters thesis when my son was about 6 months old 😅) as well as working in teams. But in my opinion, all of these things could have also been learned as Bachelor or self-tought. There were a lot of specialised subjects I learned in my Masters studies that were really interesting but are not really relevant for my current work today.

The advantage you have with a Masters degree (at least here in Germany) is that you will more likely find a job with higher salary. But I have the feeling that it's changing more and more from employers looking at degrees to employers looking at the projects you did...

Emtized • Jan 14 '20

I do agree with you, the first impression is so important, Thanks for sharing

sky • Jan 13 '20

At what point can i comfortably say "i am good as a web developer" ? i was introduced to web dev world last year October..i have not really done any project, please how long will i have to learn before i can say i am a good in web dev.

thanks

Andreas • Jan 14 '20

Hi sky,

thank you for these questions. I'm sure there are tons of definitions what a good developer is. The following is my personal opinion.

You are a good developer if ...

You listen to your clients and understand their needs
You make things that are useful and fun/easy to use
You're eager to learn new things to create the next project
You accept making mistakes is normal
You are patient with yourself and with your clients

Things that don't matter:

You used whatever language or framework is currently trending
You have at least 200 years work experience
You have at least 2000 projects in your portfolio
You indented with tabs

please how long will i have to learn before i can say i am a good in web dev

Robin Kretzschmar • Jan 13 '20 • Edited

Hey Andreas this is great!
For me it would be interesting to know your point of view on getting clients.
I though a lot about going fully self employed but one thing that bothers me is the fact that I don't quite figured out how to get clients. Surely there are platforms like Upwork or Fiverr but I always thought having a network is the better option. But I don't see myself promoting me or my work to attract new clients whatever it costs or force myself onto them.
So are there any tips you can give on how to get new clients and build a stable network without selling myself too hard?

Andreas • Jan 14 '20

Hi Robin,

thanks for your question. As I already answered to Vaibhav's comment: I try to make it as easy as possible for people to find me.

there are platforms like Upwork or Fiverr but I always thought having a network is the better option

I totally agree with you! And I think You don't have "to sell yourself" to build a network, just let people know who you are and what you do. The beginning is the hardest part, but once you have a few active contacts, word will get around that there is a developer available. But this will take some time. I registered my business end of 2014. I finished my studies and started full-time freelancing in 2018. If that's possible with your current job/income I think it's a good idea to reduce your working hours a bit and start working freelance on the side.

thedevkim • Jan 17 '20

This is what I'm currently doing. As for 2020 I try to make connections now with other developers, I am not selling myself that "hey i can do this" I just want to connect with other developer.

Robin Kretzschmar • Jan 14 '20

Thanks for your answer, I also read your answer to Vaibhav's comment.

This is a valuable tip to start on the side and enhance it over time when more projects will come. I'll start with the networking part and see where it gets me :)

Andreas • Jan 16 '20

I really wish you best of luck for that! Oh and let me know if you search for projects here in Berlin - I can introduce you to some people 😎

And one additional point for the "promoting yourself" topic: Sometimes just using tools you developed for yourself is enough to get a new client. Let me tell you a little story:
I'm a musician and christian, so I often perform songs in our local church for various events. I always was annoyed by paper song sheets, so I developed SongDrive, a tool where I could easily build setlists, transpose songs and even use a bluetooth foot switch to turn to the next song while still playing my guitar. One day after another event where I played, a guy came to me and told me, that he really liked the song presentation and asked me, which software this was. I told him I developed it myself. It turned out, that he was a software developer too who was currently searching for a software tester for a project of a big company. Long story short: This company is now one of my best paying clients and brought me many new contacts, just because someone saw me using my own tool 😇

Robin Kretzschmar • Jan 16 '20

Thank you very much!
I'm currently living in Mannheim but I travel to Berlin from time to time so maybe there is an opportunity for a project, who knows :)

This sounds really great! A couple of my side projects came in a similar way. Simply friends asking for a quick and dirty script or small app for something and then someone else saw it and came to me to talk about a project of his.

Your insight is valuable to me so I'll definitely try to place my work in the right channels and make people around me aware of that.

Would you be open for a chat sometime when the first clients come just to exchange some knowledge and talk about legal stuff (how to manage invoices etc)?

Andreas • Jan 17 '20

You're very welcome!

Would you be open for a chat sometime

Would be my pleasure 😊

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