Thoughts from a freelancer who became a full-time employee
The opposite of a glorious job quitting story
While there are many stories about how people quit their full-time job and starting their own businesses, we rarely hear about the time when people decide to get a full-time job after working for themselves for a while.
I thought I would never work at a full-time job again. Yet, I have taken a full-time position now.
Why?
The question that I asked myself and you might wonder too if you’re a freelancer or an entrepreneur.
Ultimately, the following are my deciding factors.
Learnings
Learning is the top priority when it comes to working. And yes, it’s above money. To contrary belief, a software developer can and does make more money doing freelancing.
Saying yes to full-time is also saying no to future freelancing opportunities.
Learning is at the core of personal growth. I believe that a person’s income has a direct relationship to a person’s learning.
The more you learn and apply the skills the more value you can provide. Therefore, the more money you will earn.
Notice that pure learning will not automatically generate value, but the learning that’s applied will. Or else, we have so many billionaires in schools.
In the software development world, the more you know the more you understand that you don’t know so much. Because that’s just the speed at which innovation is happening, we can either continue to sell what we already know or learn more to share more.
Meeting talented people
Meeting people while freelancing or running your own business always has its limit.
While freelancing, you’re expected to provide value as soon as possible. There’s less room to really meet the people that you actually work with. When running your own business, if you get lucky, you will hire some talented people as well. But that’s if you get to the stage where you can afford to hire people.
Working as a full-time employee, allows you to think long-term together with your co-worker. And if the company has a decent hiring process, they will attract quality people.
The type of people where you can learn from and enjoy working with. Although there’s no perfect hiring process, you will be able to talk to the people who you will work with in the future during the interviews.
Listen to their experiences and why they wanted to join the company, this will give you a general feel about the working culture.
Get out of your comfort zone
I have always enjoyed working at my own pace and being able to take control of how much work I take on.
The thing is, it gets too comfortable. If you take on some less interesting projects, your motivation might take a hit. Being a freelancer, a low motivation can really slow you down. In the tech business, you can’t afford to be slow down.
My hope is that being in an organization, motivated individuals will push each other to be better. At the same time, I can also help someone to be better.
This reminds me of the high school basketball games.
I would get so nervous during the game that I forgot what I was supposed to do during the game. After that feeling passes, I was just enjoying the game.
The thing about getting out of my comfort zone. It’s uncomfortable and all your instinct tells you to go back. But after pushing through, it’s usually pure bliss.
Find new opportunities
If you have started your business before or freelance before, that fire to continue to find ways to make more money will continue to burn.
Honestly, after starting a full-time job, the hardest thing that I have to do is to say “no” to new business opportunities and also repeated customers asking me to do stuff.
At the same time, I know many businesses spawn from another company. Just by being in the midst of working people, I will learn more about the different pain points from different industries.
Being in a full-time job will give you more insights into the company that you work for, you can ask more about the business model or the financial situation. Understanding what makes this company profitable, how you can help the company grow?
Yes, the money that you helped make will most likely go to the boss or investors. But if you can make an impact in this organization, you will be able to do the same anywhere else. Including your own business.
Conclusion
This is obviously heavily based on my own opinions. While not working for the man became mainstream, I hope that I have made the full-time job less yucky than it seems. To be fair, a lot of full-time jobs are yucky because of the toxic environment. If you pick and choose carefully, you can also find an ideal job, full-time or not full-time.
