Ask HN: I burnt out, quit my job – any advice on moving to freelance/consulting? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I burnt out, quit my job – any advice on moving to freelance/consulting?

9 pointsgardennoise14 comments

I've been working as a software engineer for close to 7 years now, ended up burning out pretty bad after a long period of impossible deadlines and lots of pressure at work, so I decided to quit.

I did not look for other work - really needed a break, and luckily cost of living in my country is pretty low so I could afford it.

2 months later I feel much better and I would like to get back to working, though I would like to have more direct control over how expectations and deadlines are set - so I thought that freelancing would be good way to get that.

I'm wondering if I am thinking in the right direction here, and also how the situation is on the freelance market currently, I did some reading up and I hear that AI has caused a lot of competition/spam on Upwork and other platforms.

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Depends on the type of person you are. Are you ok with uncertainty of not having projects in pipeline all the time ? Are you ok to go a few months without work while other months being intense with strict deadlines ? Do you like to work with multiple clients with different needs etc ? Can you switch context quickly ?

The answer to these questions will help you determine what should be your next thing. But just fyi, freelancing doesn't mean there are no deadlines. In fact, quite the opposite. However, you do have the option of being selective (if you get to that point) and that can be a good thing.

Yeah, I'd love having some intense months with breaks in between, that and the ability to negotiate on deadlines or say no is why I even thought of doing freelancing.

Issue I had with deadlines is that management would set them and refuse to engage with engineers on how unrealistic they are.

Learn to use AI to assist you. Make it an advantage to you rather than a competition. I got burnt out in my job too, it was too stressful and I developed mental and physical illnesses that made me miss work by being in a hospital, and getting fired for missing too much work.

I did freelancing for 5 years and the trick for me was just aiming to do things faster, cheaper, better.

Well, the trick is really just faster. If you can do things at 2x the speed, you can charge 1.5x and clients will be very happy. And if things are done faster, you can layer on more quality things as well – tests, features, fancy backgrounds and animations, optimizations for low end devices, and so on.

People are often afraid that being too productive will make them run out of work. But with software, here's an endless amount of things to do. One of the more valuable things a contractor can do is help a profitable company with tech debt transition out of the tech debt. Eventually they become productive and take on tech debt because there's value to releasing new products as early as possible, and it's an endless cycle.

Yeah! I am thinking along those lines, will definitely use AI to speed me up where it's possible.

I hope you are doing better now health wise! Did you manage to get a less stressful gig for yourself?

Not yet, I am still on disability and have a sleep problem. I am working with a doctor to fix it, and I got the Inspire Implant https://www.inspiresleep.com/en-us/ to help fix it. I am not where I want to be, but I am learning AI in my spare time.

> impossible deadlines and lots of pressure at work

Freelancing/consulting has unfortunately a lot of this. It helps if you start within your existing network, but once you branch out it gets stressful trying to please your clients.

There are many older threads about consulting and freelancing here on HN, often with good advice from experienced people. You can find them with a google search like "advice freelancing site:news.ycombinator.com"

I've been contracting for a long time. Clients always have deadlines, mostly unrealistic ones. In my experience, business always prioritizes making or saving money ASAP.

What has worked for me is to work hard and fast. Deliver the results. Then take time out. This cycle works for me, because it typically takes some time to secure the next contract. When working on a contract, I don't have time to look for the next one.

That sounds pretty great actually, deadlines don't sound as bad if there is a break in between, in my case the reward for finishing work on time was even more work.

How did you get your first contracting gig?

Hey, I'll chime in to say that I've been contracting for 10+ years. I got my first few gigs on CraigsList and Upwork. Sorry to say that neither of those look very good, right now. At least, it takes a lot more work to find gigs on those platforms than it used to.

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