Ask HN: Transitioning to Freelancing with a Neurological Condition?
For various reasons, I've been considering a transition from full-time salaried employment to freelancing. My current situation is:
* I'm a backend web developer in the UK with three year's experience plus university. I've primarily spent my time written web server software in Kotlin and Java, although I'm comfortable writing software professionally in a couple of other languages including Python and Rust. I know enough SQL to get by but I'm far from an expert in the subject and I know my way around nix servers comfortably. I've also done a fair amount with AWS.
I have a neurological condition that flares up unpredictably with a frequency of anything from around three to six months. This condition is poorly understood and cannot be controlled or mitigated with any known medical intervention; while I can mostly tolerate the chronic symptoms these acute episodes cannot be averted. For this reason I find working in lockstep to a traditional 9-6 schedule very stressful for obvious reasons, and permanent WFH is not an option in my current role. Freelancing sounds an ideal way to work around this problem as I'd be setting my own hours rather than working to somebody else's schedule, meaning I'd be able to fit work around my condition rather than forcing myself to work through episodes which frankly is already leading to burnout. This neurological condition also precludes me doing UI-related work for the most part as my visual perception often differs quite strongly from the norm.
* I have experience with the formalities of running a limited company, as I've had a side project going with a couple of others which for various reasons I won't bore you with made sense to register as a limited company in the UK rather than the other possible legal configurations. While this is obviously very different from living off your own limited company, I'm at least aware of what's required to keep Companies House and HMRC happy. I'd likely be running my freelance business from the UK too, I know there's more tax-efficient jurisdictions to set up in but I'd rather stick to what I know at first!
* For reasons I've made in another post, I'm intending to move onto a liveaboard sailing boat in the future rather than renting or buying a house. While it's orthagonal to my main issue of dealing with a neurological condition, freelancing at least on the surface appears to lend itself much better to such a lifestyle as full-time 9-6 employment is incompatible with long ocean crossings which are a long-term ambition for me. It goes without saying that such work would have to be full-time remote.
Given this background, I'd really appreciate advice from anyone else who's made the transition from traditional employment to freelance work generally, or suffered with a neurological condition as a software developer and attempted to mitigate it in this way. I'd particularly appreciate recommendations for agencies which would be a good fit for the kind of work I have in mind.
Cheers in advance!