After dedicating over five years to my career in software development, I've spent the last two years freelancing on various platforms, with Toptal emerging as the clear standout winner. Today I want to write about my short experience of freelancing, shedding light on the challenges and offering tips for those aiming to try remote software engineering positions.

How I got into freelancing

After working around 2 years in regular startups in South Korea in the office environment, I finally decided to give freelancing a shot after receiving an offer from Toptal to try out their platform. You can read more in detail here about why Toptal reached out to me. Since then I’ve been working with Toptal full time for a little bit over 2 years and I’m ready to give my verdict as I look back at those years.

While at it, it is worth mentioning that I have never looked at freelancing as a reliable career choice since it always seemed to require a lot more non coding tasks from the developer such as constantly being on the lookout for gigs, dealing and negotiating with clients, marketing yourself and having to switch the tech stack you work with constantly. However, nowadays these concerns effectively are addressed by numerous platforms out there such as Toptal that help the developer to concentrate on the what matters most, developing and creating high-quality software.

Distinctive Advantages

Looking back at those 2 years as a freelancer, here are the key benefits I have observed:

Time

As an office worker, a substantial portion of my time was dedicated to the daily commute, often extending up to 3 hours. This not only represents a considerable time investment but also a crucial part of the day when one possesses peak mental energy in the morning, which unfortunately is often spent navigating through traffic or going through subway lines.

Now, I allocate this portion of my day to personal development. It's safe to affirm that the volume of materials I absorb during my free time has significantly expanded since I started my freelancing career. Ultimately, the approach varies from person to person. I've observed certain developers inclining towards familiarity, opting for the ease of the known rather than seizing the chance to explore new tools and possibilities. Different from an office job, freelancing is a competitive field where one can easily get left behind or not be able to land any job if one does’t regularly keep themselves updated with the latest trends in technology.

Freelancing guarantees more free time by eliminating the need for a daily commute, but how a developer chooses to invest that time is entirely up to them.

Physical Health

When I started my freelancing career, landing my first gig in Toptal, I remember working quite intensively. I used to spend all my free time before and after the job to learn about the company projects, work on my programming skills and more. However, this is kind of work style is difficult to maintain and it can easily burn you out in around a month or two. It leads to the developer productivity decreasing over time as well.

This approach taught me that it is important to keep your body active when working as a freelancer because now working from home, the body doesn’t get to be as active as it used to be before.

Recognizing the importance of physical health, I've intensified my commitment to fitness by dedicating more time to gym workouts and swimming sessions, averaging 2-3 times per week. Additionally, I make a conscious effort to engage in weekend hikes and mountain treks, trying to strike a balance between computer-based work and an active lifestyle.

Networking

It might not be the case with other freelancing platforms out there but Toptal has given me a chance to network with exceptionally talented people within and outside its platform.

Income

Freelancing carries its own risks by, in most cases, not providing any job security or insurance coverages. It depends on which part of the world you are freelancing from to take care of those side of things by yourself. I think considering those risks, you can earn more by freelancing, given that you are skilled and professional in your area of expertise.

Those are the key benefits that have been outstanding for me and those are definitely not all.

Next, I am going to briefly touch on the parts of freelancing that have been challenging for me during those last two years.

Challenges

Finding jobs

I must emphasize that the challenging global economic landscape over the past few years has affected various employment sectors, not just freelancing. Furthermore, the rapid advancements in AI have illuminated a pathway for the evolution of job roles, rendering certain positions that once relied heavily on developmental skills susceptible to transformation.

I think the process to land a job gets easier as you grow in your freelancing career as that has been the case with me in Toptal. However, finding those early clients and building a reliable network might be quite challenging in the early phases of freelancing.

It took me around two months to get my initial engagement in Toptal and also I wasn’t actively looking for a job for around a month after I joined since I had a full-time job and was really reluctant to leave. My first role was with Constructive Dialogue,(CD) one of the top companies that focus improving the way people with different background and perspectives communicate and exchange ideas with each other. (Note: I got full permissions from CD to disclose that I worked with them. This is not the case with all projects). The CD project itself was a full-time position that lasted for around five months and I worked as a maintenance developer for another 4 months there. The engagement went quite smooth and I really enjoyed working with them since they had their custom programming language they built their platform with, it gave me a chance to take a break from the fast paced JavaScript ecosystem and its frameworks.

The positive experiences clients had with my skills not only bolstered my visibility within the Toptal platform but also paved the way for future engagements as finding the next engagements has been easier.

Lack of exercise

Programming is mostly a passive role and freelancing takes out the only moving parts in it which are commuting to work. As we touched upon this earlier, make sure to keep your body active as lack of exercise might cause burn outs.

Timezone

Freelancing connects people from very different parts of the world. When I started freelancing from South Korea and my co-workers were working from New York, we were basically on two opposite parts of the world with 14-hour difference in timezone. I wouldn’t say this has been really challenging for me but it has required me to give up certain parts of my social life so be prepared to adjust the portion of your working time to match those of your client.

This has been my experience over the last few year freelancing and I hope you find this helpful !