How taking a full-time position made me a better freelancer

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I started full-time freelancing almost two years ago after my studies. I mainly worked on Symfony project before but I had very little to no experience on how to handle medium to large size projects, I didn’t feel confident in my abilities to carry through an entire project by myself.

Even though Symfony was my bread and butter before, I had more affinities working with Laravel and wanted to work on Vue.js project to extends my profile to be more “full-stack”, but I was too afraid not being able to deliver good result.

I declined a lot of good opportunities to work on interesting projects at the time by fear of not being competent enough for the task.

I had the feeling that, as a freelancer, I should be competent enough from day 1 and be able to work productively after a very short adaptation period as it was one of my selling point when working for new clients.

Moreover, I also had to pay the bills at the end of the month and to counter-balance my lack of confident I accepted a lot of projects which were basically “not the right fit” for me. They were for the most part either built on technologies I knew but had no interest improving on or simply not interesting.

I was always concerned about finding the next project, and save as much as possible for the next month as we all know freelancing can be unpredictable. I was afraid of not being able to sustain myself.

I worked remotely all the time, disconnection and loneliness had a lot of impact on my moral and motivation after just a few months of freelance.

I didn’t feel happy and I felt it was time for a change.

From freelancer to full-time employee

At the beginning of 2018, I applied for a few positions just to test the water. I didn’t expect much out of it. I did this mainly to see which opportunities were available to me, but also certainly to reassure myself at the time about how hireable I could be.

After two months and a few propositions, I decided to quit the freelancing world and finally start working for a small rising startup as a full-stack Laravel / Vue.js developer. The dream stack I worked so hard to learn.

My mission for the past year was to create a sustainable project for the future of the company as the initial project was starting to accumulate too much technical debt. It had reached a point of no return where no one besides the initial developer of the project, the CTO, could actually work on the project.

With quality in mind, I had the freedom to spend time thinking differently about my work and gain perspective on how to work on a long-term project, with the opportunity to work on many differents subjects.

The company was transitioning from a one-man team to a team of 4 people at the time.

A lot of organisation and process, like git flow, automated deployment and agile process; had to be implemented, and I was lucky to part take in each decision regarding the team organisation.

Working as a full-time developer also allowed me to focus more on code and less on client management. That was very beneficial for my personal growth as a developer, and I acquired skills and knowledge way faster as I was able to challenge and implement new ideas, week after week.

I had a great time working on this project with a small team of talented dedicated people and having this environment helped me grow much faster than I could have ever done by myself.

I was an integral part of the decision making process, whether it concerned technical aspects or process decisions. Today, we finally launched that brand new project to the world with more than 250k users across France, Germany and United Kingdom.

This is by far the biggest project I have worked on, and I feel very proud and strangely validated in my ability to work on bigger and better projects even though there is a lot of remaining work to do.

I have nothing but good memories of this year, and for the first time in my career, I’m really proud of what I can show to the world.

But after one year, it’s time for me to fly on my own again.

From full-time employee to better freelancer

During the year I worked as a full-time employee, I was excited by my new position and the challenges awaiting but I now feel like it’s time for me to start working for myself again, and pursue my own goal this time.

I reflected these last couple of months on what I want to achieve and what mistakes I made while I was freelancing one year ago.

My lack of confidence was definitely one of my biggest obstacles at the time and turning down opportunity for growth by fear of screwing up was a vicious circle.

It prevented me from improving because I wouldn’t take the risk to not being able to deliver.

With what I achieved today, I feel more confident than ever to grab opportunities, and even though I might (will) screw up in my journey, I know I will still manage to learn and grow from my mistakes and I should embrace failure instead of fearing it.

I also plan on fighting loneliness by participating in more events and connecting more with people online from different communities. Travelling while working will also be my objective by the end of the year, letting me to take my marks again.

Moreover, being able to find my first full-time job without too much trouble, made me realise that this time, taking the leap will not be an irreversible decision and if ever I feel like times are difficult, or I don’t enjoy freelancing, I will most likely be able to find a new job again.

The main objective as of now is to focus on myself this year and on my own personal goals rather than pursuing money by fear of the future. I want to feel the “free” in the word freelance.

Free to decline missions I don’t want to take part in.

Free to take a break.

Free to pursue my own projects.

So what’s next ?

I’m thrilled to restart freelancing and excited about all the new challenges to come, but right now, after one year of intense stress and deadlines, I just wish for one thing, a god damn break.

Starting mid-march, I’ll take a one month break to find myself, recharge my battery and prepare myself for my new journey.

That break will not only be for slacking (but mainly 😅), and I plan on trying my best to be helpful to others, give back to all the communities that have helped me so far.

Starting today, I’d like to openly invite any person out there that need help on anything I can provide help on (freelancing, laravel, vue, etc.) to reach out to me on Twitter and I’ll try my best to help any of you 💪

I plan on blogging consistently throughout my freelance journey but also on my personal development and my tech adventure so if you like this article, be sure to follow me on Twitter where I share random thoughts and progress in my work 👇

Once more, special thanks to my dear friends: Abdoulaye, Samuel and Jean-Baptiste ❤

Originally published at stevenyung.me.

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