Who says you have to pick? I do both concurrently today. However, if I had to pick one or the other, FTE has enabled the most growth in my career and lifestyle.
How do I contract while holding a FTE? Asynchronously. I only take jobs where my participation during business hours is kept to a minimum so I can engage outside my normal FTE responsibilities.
I've been a professional C, Perl, PHP and Python developer.
I'm an ex-sysadmin from the late 20th century.
These days I do more Javascript and CSS and whatnot, and promote UX and accessibility.
I've been thinking about freelancing with something like upwork (I haven't researched so I don't know whether that's a good one) while I hold down a full-time position.
I think there is a distinction between freelance and contracting which is often missed or at least misunderstood. For me Freelance is a short discreet work-package that has a fixed price and scope and could normally be finished in a couple of sprints. Contractors get signed up for a fixed period of time with the aim of completing longer development pieces.
Of course these are on a spectrum and some freelance can turn into contracts and people's definition of short will vary.
Other distinctions for me is that contract work on the UK normally comes via a recruitment agency so the risk of non payment is mitigated
Freelance requires much more time spent of marketing, pitching and networking and the general day to day activities of running a business
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Who says you have to pick? I do both concurrently today. However, if I had to pick one or the other, FTE has enabled the most growth in my career and lifestyle.
How do I contract while holding a FTE? Asynchronously. I only take jobs where my participation during business hours is kept to a minimum so I can engage outside my normal FTE responsibilities.
I've been thinking about freelancing with something like upwork (I haven't researched so I don't know whether that's a good one) while I hold down a full-time position.
I think there is a distinction between freelance and contracting which is often missed or at least misunderstood. For me Freelance is a short discreet work-package that has a fixed price and scope and could normally be finished in a couple of sprints. Contractors get signed up for a fixed period of time with the aim of completing longer development pieces.
Of course these are on a spectrum and some freelance can turn into contracts and people's definition of short will vary.
Other distinctions for me is that contract work on the UK normally comes via a recruitment agency so the risk of non payment is mitigated
Freelance requires much more time spent of marketing, pitching and networking and the general day to day activities of running a business