Why I Stopped Freelancing as a Software Engineer 😲

Ultimately, this post is about…have you chosen a path that is leading you towards your life goals?

And those goals can be…

• Lifestyle
• Financial
• Relationship
• Etc

For me, continuing to be a software engineer and or freelance software engineer did not fit into my path.

(But don’t get me wrong, the skills have helped me in every single thing I’ve moved into).

This is just speaking from my experience. Hopefully, it gives you some food for thought.

Read on and I’ll explain why I’ve ultimately shifted my focus toward setting up automated workflows, and sales operations for, mostly, agencies.

The 3 main reasons are:

• You’re trading time for money
• I needed to become a biz owner, not a technician
• Software development is hard to productize

So who am I?

Don’t worry, I’ll keep this short, it’s just for context.

Hi, my name’s Gavin Wiener.

Born in South Africa, studied programming in high school, and went on to study a 4-year degree in Computer Science & Business Science.

Important to point out, I also studied for a business degree alongside Computer Science.

The reason? I enjoyed coding, and I was pretty good at it, but I knew I didn’t just want to be a software engineer.

I wanted to know how technology and coding fits into the business, not just be head-on focused on the little details.

I graduated and was hired as a software engineer.

I enjoyed it for the first few years, but then I realized…

“Well hey, I only need a laptop and an internet connection.”

And so cue becoming a digital nomad 

(I hate that term, but it’s the term people understand).

I started to work as a freelancer/contractor for some…

• Past employers
• Companies I had done internships with
• New businesses I connected with

I grew to love traveling around the world, and having wild experiences.

But as I traveled more, and learned more about business after paying for mentors, coaches, and courses, I realized being a pure freelance software engineer did not align with my goals anymore.

You’re Trading Time for Money

Being a freelance software engineer demands a lot of time.

You’re building custom software. And creating high-quality custom software requires time.

Projects are not typically just a few weeks. They’re at least a few months.

You often need a lot of meetings to scope out the work.

You need to create wireframes.

There’s often a lot of back-and-forth communication.

It’s not just demanding your time, it’s also hard to coordinate all this communication while traveling, and across timezones.

And the more I traveled, I realized that was not going to be sustainable.

So 1 of them had to go…in my case it was building custom software engineering projects for clients.

There are also financial implications.

Software engineering projects are usually priced by the hour or at a fixed price.

If you’re charging hourly, you’re literally trading your time for money.

Charging by the hour is a great way to quickly make money.

But that also means if you’re working, you’re not making money.

And when I’m not working, I’m doing the things that actually make me happy.

There are people who are passionate about software engineering, but I’m just not one of those people.

Further, there’s a cap.

If you’re charging by the hour, you only have so much time in the day.
And once you hit that cap, your only option is to increase your hourly rate.

And I believe there’s also a cap for that.

There’s a point that I believe most companies will decide to hire in-house.

Maybe, the person won’t be as skilled as you are (otherwise they would have already hired in house), but the cost savings may be so great that they’ll make the trade-off.

I Want to Be a Biz Owner

Business owners are the people who make a lot of money in this world.

Yes, there are highly skilled employees making a lot of money, but ultimately the owner is making more.

I mentioned in the previous section that I believe freelance software engineers have a natural cap on how much they can earn.

That cap, and the amount of time I’m willing to trade, would not allow me to meet the financial goals I have in my mind.

The financial goals that’ll allow me to travel, support my family, give to friends, have the experiences that I want to experience.

In the book E-Myth, author Michael E. Gerber describes a “technician”.

Technicians are the people focused on the details, and the implementation.

They are the people who keep businesses going, they love the nitty-gritty details.

But they’re also typically trading their time for money.

I realised I didn’t enjoy being the person involved with the nitty-gritty details.

I enjoyed being able to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

Thinking, “Who do I need to bring together to build this bigger picture”.

And those people are the technicians.

The logical conclusion? I couldn’t continue being a freelance software engineer.

Exception: If you are building software for yourself to sell…then you are creating an asset.

You are building a SaaS business, that’s different than building software for someone else.

In that case, being a software engineer is an invaluable skill.

I’ve experienced this myself because I’ve built a SaaS called Leapfrog Leads.

You get to receive ongoing benefits after initially trading your time, but that’s something a freelance software engineer does not get to experience.

Software Development Is Hard to Productize

There’s a running theme between this post’s sections…
TIME.

We want out time back, and for our time not to directly connected with our ongoing income.

My last point is that freelance software development is hard to productize.

Each project is different, often for different types of clients.

And if you found yourself creating, roughly, the same solution for, roughly, the same types of clients…

Well, now you’re moving closer to a SaaS or a productized service.

And those allow you to divorce your time from money.

I have no issue with software development, my personal issue is custom freelance software development.

Because it does not scale beyond the time you’re investing.

Again, if you are passionate about building software and solving problems for new clients, and maybe money isn’t your biggest focus, you can ignore everything I’m saying.

But for me, these factors put me on a path of moving away from custom freelance software development.

Conclusion

This post is food for thought.

Maybe you’re already a software engineer and you want to start freelancing.

Maybe you’re just thinking about learning to code to become a freelance software engineer.

Or maybe you’re already freelancing and curious what others’ experiences have been like.

Then hopefully, this post raised some ideas you may not have thought about, and helps you determine if custom freelance software engineering aligns with your goals.

Like I mentioned, I moved away from custom freelance software engineering projects for clients because I do not believe it’ll allow me to…

• Make as much money as my goals
• Manage my time commitments as I want
• Build a long-term career or business that allows me to focus on what I enjoy more