Giving Up The Day Job
The slightly longer version really is this. Two and a half years ago, I left a job at a type of company I usually describe as a yet-another-website company, where literally every new project was another CMS website. Which was fun for about the first 4 months and got old pretty quickly. Two and a half years at Ibuildings and I haven’t done yet-another-anything, the projects have been technical, challenging and my colleagues are the best qualified set of people I’ll probably ever work with.
Along the way I’ve also done a wide variety of other things, most of which are achievements beyond my wildest dreams, some within the scope of this job and some on my own time but of course influenced by all that I’ve learned. I’ve delivered training, led projects, been published, become a regular conference speaker and travelled internationally doing so, collaborated on an open source project, edited a developer portal and hosted a major international PHP conference. I’ve even learned to say those things about myself in public without feeling too much of a fraud!
At this point, there are so many things I want to be doing, writing, speaking and so on, as well as some interesting development projects, that holding down my 9-5 as well has become untenable; that’s the main motivation for this change. I don’t intend to take another full time job, although I don’t have a lot of paying work lined up so please bear in mind that I am looking for some ;)
Things I would like to be doing:
- Working with development teams on skills, tools and process (think teach a man to fish, rather than sell him a fish)
- API development
- Technical writing
- Meeting cool and interesting people and embarking on cool and interesting projects together
Advice on achieving any or all of the above is appreciated – if any of you can also think of me when discussing business, write me a linked in recommendation, or retweet my announcement of my news, that would be fabulous!!
If you’re still reading, then I’ll share a little something with you. I decided that with a career move, I needed a little rebrand, so here is my new angel avatar. I hope you like her :)
Wish me luck in my new (ad)venture, I’ll be keeping everyone up to date as always!
Congratulations on your move :) you will love it :)
Good luck with your new challenge! Freelancing is a big step, but I think you will do fine. I’m sure I will see you speaking at next conference!
Congratulations Lorna, and good luck with all the new and exciting things you’re planning to do in the future! It’s been an absolute pleasure working with you.
Wow, shocked but pleased to see you’re following what you want to do. Without gushing too much, you’re an inspiration to us girlie PHP devs who don’t want to be yet another web developer.
Good luck and hope to see some more of your talks at conferences!
Awesome! You’re going to love it :).
Hey there, good luck with it — congratulations on taking the plunge!
So far I’ve found that enough work has appeared when I’ve needed it; hopefully you’ve have a similar experience.
All the very best for your new way of working & living!
I hope it won’t be too long before I hear you talk again on a PHP conf somewhere ;)
All the best in the future! Have fun and keep posting and writing about PHP
Good luck! I hope (and am pretty sure) that it’ll all work out really well for you!
Hey Lorna,
Congratulations and good luck! I’m sure you will do fine. Talk to you soon.
Greetz, Lineke
Hey Lorna!
First point: Good Luck!
Second point: I have every confidence you won’t need the first point.
Enjoy it,
Eli
you shouldn’t quit your day job …..you need the stability it provides i think sooner or later you will have used up all your savings as living exspenses and will have to take anohter job you may as well keep your job and pursue you passions in your spare time.
Hey! Good luck! I am sure you’ll be doing fine. I also think it’s a good choice. Your profile doesn’t really fit in a 9-5 day job (for good).
Cheers!
Good luck with your new freelance career.
As you know I started for myself last year and while the first 6 months were really hard, currently I have to keep more work at bay with a stick.
So at least here in NL there is plenty of work, but I have no doubt you will find fun and challenging work in the UK as well.
Hi!
I wish you good luck, but as Eli above I think you may regret this later. Freelancing is MOSTLY yet-another-cms-project + there is no after-work-life. Been there, done that. IMO only chance to do something interesting is to work on some big website/portal/web-application/etc. There are plenty of them and they give stable, well-payed jobs to experienced programmers.
Congratulations with this wise decision. You will enjoy it.
Good luck lorna, although I agree with Eli that you don’t need it! :)
Have enjoyed working with you thoroughly and hope we will get a chance to work together on something again in the future.
To konradzik and calmchess: for a regular developer maybe, but someone with the experience and exposure Lorna has, she should have no trouble landing very exciting opportunities!
Good luck!
With your reputation I’m sure there will be plenty of work offers around, so freelancing could be whatever you want to make of it. Just remember it’s important to know when to turn down work.
Good luck!
It sounds exciting – changing job, doing your own thing etc. Remember to have a few lie ins and days off….
Lorna – I found these books to be very helpful. They came out after I was already in over my head in freelance projects and I found them invaluable. I reference them from time to time whenever I’m facing a new challenge. You might want to check them out, especially “My So-Called Freelance Life”.
http://www.anti9to5guide.com/
Congratulations and best wishes… how do I apply for your old job? :)
Dave: Ibuildings *is* recruiting – head over to http://ibuildings.com/careers for more information. Good luck :)
Good luck with the new challenges (like you really need luck huh?), but mostly I hope you will have a lot of fun!
To me the decision you made is bold and courageous Lorna.. (I would have done the same probably if I was in your position :p) I hope you will succeed in whatever lies ahead! You have many skill sets and hey will serve you well in your future achievements!
I will contact you soon regarding your Technical writing skills (freelance or part-time perhaps) for a company!
Wow, I think this is what i have been feeling too.
I now changed to a company wich also does only install and customize CMS’ses.
Maybe later I would like to make this step too…
I really hope you keep us up to date about this big adventure.
Lorna, this is a bold step, well done! I’m sure it will be a success.
Not sure I get the “why”, but good luck to you anyway! I’m definitely sure that you can manage solo, and I wish you all the best opportunities, although I’d like to keep some for myself :)
Amazing news Lorna, and a bold move!
Best of luck to you for the future :)
Having just done the same (finished my notice period last Friday) I can wholeheartedly say: good luck, and enjoy it!
I’ve said it elsewhere already, but congratulations and good luck!
I’ve been freelance since 2004, and I’m still at it. It has its ups and downs but I wouldn’t change it for the world. And all in all the last 6 years have been exciting and challenging.
I’m now embarking on developing my own web start-up The DJ Book. Currently flying solo on the development, but it is a BIG project and no-doubt I will need to get people on-board at some point.
Take care and good luck, Matt.
It’s three months since I gave up the day job and so many people have asked me how it’s going, that I thought I’d give a quick round up! I am a statistics nut so it will surprise nobody that I track my time religiously (using harvest, which I’ll post a
Since I started working for myself almost 6 months ago, I’ve had to get to grips with running a company myself, and I must admit that the paperwork was one thing that stopped me from making this move sooner! I’ve kept everything in order and I’d like to
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