[Baypiggies] Thoughts on starting a career as a consultant? CALL FOR PANEL

[jim]

   This was an active thread, and a couple of years 
ago there was another similarly active thread on 
this topic. 
   This is a call for people to be part of a panel 
presentation at one of our BayPIGgies meetings. 
We've got one volunteer already. If you've got 
experience and opinions, please reply. 
jim 


On Tue, 2010-06-22 at 10:35 -0700, Stephen Lacy wrote:
> Hey all,
> 
> I've been a software engineer for well over 10 years, mainly C++, but
> Python for about the last year, and I'm really enjoying it.  
> 
> I'm getting more and more interested in transitioning from a
> full-timer at a large company to being a Python+Django freelance
> consultant.  My background is mainly in engineering, not design, but
> of course I'm fully versed in HTML+CSS, I'm just not the best person
> to be designing interfaces from scratch or doing complex visual design
> & graphics. 
> 
> Has anyone here made this transition before?  How did it go?  My
> biggest fears are:
> 
> - How am I going to attract clients? (Although this list, and sites
> like djanggigs.com seem like pretty good sources to start.) 
> - Am I good at managing client relationships?  How hard will this be?
> (billing, scope creep, missed deadlines, etc.) 
> - What about the graphics/visual design side of things?  What do you
> usually do for this, or has the client already outsourced a design and
> they just need implementation?
> - Maybe I just want to get a FT position with a web design&build firm
> instead?  What are the pros/cons of that approach vs. freelancing?
> 
> Any thoughts or experiences from people who have done this transition
> would be great.  Thanks!
> 
> Steve
> 
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