I have been a freelancer off and on for over 20 yrs.<br><br>My advice is to go through head hunter agencies especially in Silicon Valley. They do take a cut but you only pay the one that finds you work. They also deal with billing. They know where the better pay contracts are. If you have short gigs, you will spend far too much time looking for work.<br>
<br>I use 3-4 agencies. The key to managing more than 1 agency is that you do not allow them to send you in until they call you with the name of the company. Do not allow more than 1 agency to submit you to the same company regardless of what they say.<br>
<br>Alvin<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 10:35 AM, Stephen Lacy <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:slacy@slacy.com">slacy@slacy.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
Hey all,<br><br>I've been a software engineer for well over 10 years, mainly C++, but Python for about the last year, and I'm really enjoying it. <br><br>I'm getting more and more interested in transitioning from a full-timer at a large company to being a Python+Django freelance consultant. My background is mainly in engineering, not design, but of course I'm fully versed in HTML+CSS, I'm just not the best person to be designing interfaces from scratch or doing complex visual design & graphics. <br>
<br>Has anyone here made this transition before? How did it go? My biggest fears are:<br><br>- How am I going to attract clients? (Although this list, and sites like <a href="http://djanggigs.com" target="_blank">djanggigs.com</a> seem like pretty good sources to start.) <br>
- Am I good at managing client relationships? How hard will this be? (billing, scope creep, missed deadlines, etc.) <br>- What about the graphics/visual design side of things? What do you usually do for this, or has the client already outsourced a design and they just need implementation?<br>
- Maybe I just want to get a FT position with a web design&build firm instead? What are the pros/cons of that approach vs. freelancing?<br><br>Any thoughts or experiences from people who have done this transition would be great. Thanks!<br>
<br>Steve<br><br>
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