The Future of Remote Tech Work
How Freelance Tech Work is Evolving?
Freelancing in general and remote tech work in particular is evolving like never before. Freelancers and companies that hire them are looking for better ways to collaborate more efficiently.
It is a fact that every employee dreams of working independently but going freelance doesn’t mean complete freedom in professional life. Hurdles in traditional freelance work are manifold, yet people always tend to find ways that make it a bit easier to work remotely.
Dynamics of Traditional Freelancing
Freelancing is a huge thing all over the globe, where people prefer to choose their own working hours and the type of work they want to do. According to Payoneer’s Global Gig Economy Index, United States of America (USA) alone has seen a massive 78% increase in freelance earnings in the second quarter of 2019 compared to the previous year. Other countries are witnessing similar growth in freelance earnings.
This upward trend in freelancing definitely suggest that people love being their own boss, but working remotely or choosing your projects doesn’t necessarily mean that you are completely independent. In fact, the level of dependence in remote work is greater compared to normal employment. Freelancers often find themselves dependent on the few top online platforms where they search for freelance jobs. Other agents on which freelancers feel dependent include, third party payment processors, contractors, outsourcing companies and more.
Building Reputation
Quitting your job and going freelance is not an easy task. Regardless of your area of expertise, getting started with freelance work is a tough gig with many hurdles. One of the most common obstacles is reputation building. To secure good jobs you surely need a very good freelance profile.
Without a good profile, it gets a bit harder in the initial stages of freelancing work. Initially, a lot of patience and hard work is required to grow as a budding independent worker. But, if you are able to satisfy your early clients you can definitely grow your reputation with time and secure more jobs.
Communication Issues
One of the most common issues when it comes to remote work is miscommunication. The significance of clear communication in any kind of work goes without saying, but when it comes to remote jobs, communication becomes all the more important. No matter how much you try to keep things straight, managing a remote project gets harder with occasional communication issues.
Communication is vital when it comes to tech related work like software development projects. For example, during the course of the project, developers can face numerous scenarios where, clear communication with their remote leads or supervisors becomes absolute essential.
In this scenario, if things are misunderstood due to some communication issues then it can directly impact the quality of the work. Things can get messy ultimately impacting the efficiency of the project.
Project Management
Managing projects remotely can get really hard especially with large teams. Particularly in software development projects it is very important to manage teams and communicate effectively. But, things can get tricky if your team members are geographically separated by thousands of miles across different time zones.
In these conditions, project managers have to meticulously plan each & every action considering all the dynamics of remote work. Sometimes, it gets harder to meet deadlines. It can also affect the project finances as well.
Therefore, managing projects with freelancers is not as easy as it seems. And these are just some of the most prevalent obstacles tech freelancers face in their day to day work. Other project specific scenarios can arise anytime and disrupt the flow of the project resulting in many unintended consequences.
How Tech Outsourcing is Evolving?
Companies and individual clients who outsource tech related work simply want better collaboration and communication with remote freelancers. Due to the fact that traditional freelancing work gets hard to manage, people are now looking for better ways to make things more streamlined and productive. This is true for people who outsource and freelancers who are constantly on the hunt for better jobs.
Assurance & Quality Work
Most of the clients outsource because they want quality work done in a modest budget. And they also want to be sure that the person they choose to work with is reliable and can deliver what she/he promises.
With the rising trend of remote work, popular freelancing platforms are changing rapidly, creating unexpected scenarios for clients and workers alike.
In these changing times, it gets hard to adapt to new changes and expect the same level of quality assurance and reliability. Therefore, clients now prefer to work directly with good freelancers, removing the unnecessary protocols imposed by traditional freelancing platforms.
Dedicated Tech Teams
The most noticing change in the freelance industry is the trending tilt towards dedicated tech teams. Companies and many individual clients now prefer to hire specialist tech teams, usually provided by medium sized companies that curate talented human resource.
With this new freelance model, remote workers and clients can collaborate more efficiently while the freelance company provides quality assurance and reliability with additional options of scalability and project management.
Unlike the traditional freelance platforms, where clients are able to search for individual freelancers with no other additional services. New smaller platforms are taking freelance remote work to the next level with numerous additional services that value client requirements and help build a modern remote work ethic.
Diversity in Freelance Services
The modern remote work model is not just about connecting freelancers with clients. It is a holistic approach that aims to rectify caveats in the traditional model. For example, traditionally clients are always skeptic about outsourcing to freelancers due to various reasons including quality concerns and reliability issues. Similarly, freelancers have their own concerns with remote project management and in some cases, work exploitation due to lack of regulations.
In order to fill the gaps in the previous model, new emerging platforms are adamant in providing a diverse range of services that satisfy both clients and freelancers at the same time.
Some of the new platforms are categorizing services in a way, so as to give many options to both clients and workers. These categorizations are usually based on pricing, project nature, technology stacks, scale of the project and many other factors.
This diversity in services is thus providing new opportunities to both clients and remote tech workers to collaborate more productively while working from their own comfort zones.
Conclusion
The future of remote tech work is the emerging new model where clients hire curated tech talent without the fear of quality compromises and where freelancers can enjoy the work environment they strive for.
Moreover, the diversity in freelance services is creating more opportunities for remote work with effective collaboration and quality assurance like never before. With the rising trend of freelancing, remote tech work is only going to grow into a stable & sustainable industry with new opportunities.
