zboox

A freelancer is usually an independent contractor, so they're a subset of contractors.

You get a certain kind of freedom with freelancing but it does get tiring to chase people down for your money.

Doesn't really have the "team" feel when the rest of your team is offshore. Large time zone differences make synchronous communication difficult.

It's simply good to ask questions to show your interest in how others reason about.

Hi Hnrobert42, thanks for your advice but I am not certain about limiting my options to small startups. I already attract small startups to a high degree and for better or for worse, they never want to hire me as W2. So I don't get sign-in bonuses, nor a 401K nor health benefits.

What I don't know is what is so different about the approach to getting hired as full-time employee compared to a freelancer that makes it so difficult for me to pass. In what ways should one behave differently at a full-time job interview compared to a contractor's interview.

Right now I'm on YouTube looking for winning tech interviews in order to see how I should speak and things to say. It's the closest you could be to a fly on the wall eavesdropping on an interview. Because when it comes to social cues, I learn better by observing than by intuition.

As stated before, I find freelancing to be a lonely experience. Not a lot of developers to talk shop to, and rarely do clients follow-up with additional work or referrals.

I finish work for clients as I get paid, and usually never hear from them again.

I've interviewed at larger companies trying to expand my career into being a senior among more developers but they seem to think I don't fit the bill, yet never tell me what I need to do to improve.

Lots of other small startups contacting me all the time trying to convince me to do a lateral move, but what's the point, I will just be the only in-house dev, stuck and stagnant again.

TBH I find freelance career maintenance to be laborious. It's just not right for me. I would rather move into a low maintenance software job rather than the high maintenance world of startups and freelance. It's so easy for me to lose my grip in freelance- I barely make enough money to stay above poverty level (I live in the US so I'm referring to US poverty).

At the very least I want to experience both full-time and freelance to an equal degree. Right now my experience is like 5% full-time and 95% freelance, so trying to shift my time spent on both closer to 50/50.

I find freelancing to be a lonely experience. I don't get to talk shop with co-workers as well.

>I have no plans to go back to full-time employment. You should consider that route.

Just because that is your preferred experience, you want me to follow it? Okay but my personal goal is to be employed full-time and you seem more interested in making me more like you, and not like who I want to be.

If you want to help me on my goal to get employed full-time, I'm all ears. But I am not looking to be convinced to stay freelance.

Do I need to make that distinction explicit? Companies are usually more interested in hearing what the employee can do for them rather than what the employee wants out of their career.

Underselling myself is probably also due to my lack of career intelligence. I don't know how to take responsibility for a career. I don't know how to give it periodic maintenance. I'm always living in the now, looking for my next jobs under pressure. Then I become so focused on tasks at the current job that I don't see the bigger picture (especially since I am just a temp worker).

What good would a code bootcamp do for me which I can't already do self-taught?

Sounds like the bystander effect.

I'm seeking a website for politics similar to what Patheos does for religion and non-religious perspectives. All the biases are present, but they are more clearly delineated and categorized in different "channels".