TechTips: Making working-at-home work
Many developers see the irony in driving twenty miles to work and back each
day, to sit down at an Internet-connected computer just like the one they
left at home, to work at a web-site on a remote server that is connected to
... the Internet.
Many /other/ developers, newly divorced from their previous job (either by
wish or by decree), ponder whether _this_ time they can find a "gig"
without leaving home.
Perhaps!
An Internet development company /can/ be run from your second bedroom,
perhaps with the assistance of other developers throughout your nation or
the world. (The world /is/ your oyster, if you can find it.) But it takes
a very different approach from "traditional work."
The most important thing to realize is that you are _not_ an employee; you
are not working on time-and-materials and you are not working on salary.
"No workee, no eatee." You must make a specific committment to deliver a
specific thing by a specific date for a specific not-to-exceed price, and
you must also commit to provide warranty-service for what you have done.
It is often a good idea to work through an agency that brokers your services
to their customer and stands behind what you're doing. Brokers can provide
a more steady supply of gigs. {We are not, BTW, a broker!!}
It is also _extremely_ important to recognize that you must have a contract
and that you probably should be incorporated. Your committment to your
customer must be thought of as long-lasting and sometimes not too
convenient.
You must be willing to accept /small/ jobs as well as large ones. There are
quite a lot of "broken down" web-sites out there. We rather specialize in
helping folks fix them, "after the last developer ran off to greener
pastures." You can too.
Contracting is not /steady/ work, unless you spend just as much time
marketing as you do coding. Even then, it can be as unsteady as
unemployment. Plan accordingly!
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