What does not want to remember the programmer
Somehow, reading the comments to the next introductory article to oDesk, I ran into
A comment in which the phrase “thrash-work” was present. Comment was
about something else, but that's exactly what got hooked. Because it is this phrase briefly
and capaciously describes the whole layer of work in freelancing and to some extent in IT, especially in
areas where information technology is only a concomitant part
business process. This post is a free presentation of my experience and experience.
my acquaintances: freelancers, programmers, system administrators who took
participation in the work to which the capacious prefix thrash sticks.
This narration is conducted solely from the perspective of an employee,
so if you, as a customer, boss, manager, it seems that in this text
such characters as customers, supervisors, managers are described one-sidedly and
biased, this is done intentionally, and not by stupidity or omission.
If we talk about the original sources of trash (for the performer) in any field of application
wage labor, everything rests on 3 pillars: low budget, unrealistic requirements,
low mental or moral characteristics of the governing party. Like three
basic colors, these three circumstances can generate a whole palette of projects
varying degrees and shades of trash. On this, perhaps, it would be possible
stop, but wounded collective pride requires details.
')
Of course, there are people to whom the writing below will seem ridiculous and incredible, and
we would like to have such a majority. There will be many people who, remembering
similar episodes from the origins of his career, only nostalgic grin.
Nowhere can you be insured against being in a situation where you
painfully feel like an idiot. Not a project - so the bosses, not the bosses
- so the team, not the team - so the salary ... There is a chance to burn wonderful
any of these points (with good luck, for all) wherever you work, freelance
at home in Ruby or repairing printers in a glorious state institution. And yet, everyone
The place has its own unique flavor.
A typical place to start a career as a young specialist, as well as a permanent place
habitat specialist mature for unknown reasons turned out here. Well,
Of course, there are many non-specialists who probably have something to do with IT,
because otherwise they simply would not have been taken because of the inconsistency of their position. Or
would you take? The state of the park of cars of this institution very often can you
please (if you are a sophisticated connoisseur of antiquity and think that if not 640kb, then
256 MB of memory is enough for everyone), and can leave you indifferent (if the technopark
enterprises have already experienced a senile apocalypse, and on its wreckage it was decided
to build a new world on the basis of the cheapest, but still modern equipment),
and sometimes you may even be upset by the excesses that resulted from
fun pre-Christmas fuss associated with the full development of the budget.
As for stability, then your grandchildren may suffice it, which is impossible
say about the prospects. But after all, if there are no prospects, then there will be no grandchildren, and if not
will be grandchildren, then there will be no problem. Being a man with a fine sense of humor and
low material needs, you can easily find yourself
entertainment, ironically above the calculation table
department.
If you are a young specialist, but you do not have high-ranking
relatives in the state structure, where do you want to go, and are not interested in history
computer technology, then try before you get a job as much as possible
clearly identify for yourself what goals you are pursuing. Get professional
development is almost impossible here, especially if you want to engage in IT, and not
undercover games, dating or stuffing experience. Avraly here are rare
technologies are not applicable in other more paid sectors, the routine is great, efforts
keeping the aging infrastructure huge, computer illiteracy and
unwillingness of workers to learn is unlimited.
Well what can I say? The gradations from bad to good are so extensive here that
give any exact picture of what is happening is impossible. Anyway, there is
he who says that everything is wrong. So let's talk about the bad. In any case speech
below will be about small and medium-sized companies, mostly about those where IT is not
is the main activity. However, first things first.
Here it is the zero circle of hell, the eternal refuge of self-seeking students, and
purgatory for tired souls of average specialists. Typical organization of this type
located in the basement, industrial area, a hotel that still stores memories of
Soviet tourists from Vladivostok, - in general, everywhere where the enterprising owner
web studios could find the cheapest place to rent. Technique as a rule
much better than in the public sector, because a large part of such studios are interrupted
creating applications for the iPhone that has. However, the frenzy of keyboards
and mice can often cause a nostalgic tear in a person whose youth has passed
in semi-basement computer clubs playing games in online shooters. State can
consist of a couple of programmers as well as an incomprehensible number
workers coming in shifts and specializing in different things. AND
in the latter case, it is likely to see an idyllic picture in the smoking room when
connoisseur of life ^ W Cocos2d teaches inexperienced Joomla-water. Reverse idyll can
to observe in the case when sales of utilities of this company in the appstore are not high, and
rental of premises is largely hampered by the creation of business cards. In rare
In web studios you can find a secret table with a j2me developer,
creating the same games that can be purchased in an amount of at least 3 pieces for
one SMS.
The example above remarkably illustrates the stability of web studios in terms of career
growth, as well as the depth of learning technology. In our opinion, web studio is one of
the best places to start, after it will not be worse. Only if you do not fall into
another web studio where everything is still worse. Here you will find everything: an incentive for self-learning -
because no one knows what order your boss will intercept next time, and hire
specialist for each profile is expensive and long; avraly and deadlines - sin not to name
unrealistic for the customer to get an order from a dozen of the same web studios and
fifty freelancers; incentive to increase revenue - an approximate ceiling in
regional web studios - $ 500-700 per month; experience of communication with people -
low-skilled colleagues and most inadequate customers will give you
true bliss when you finally leave the web studio and get settled
a professional team, where the team leader is engaged in communication with customers or
project manager.
Of course, there are good web studios leading several large / high-yield
projects where the workflow is less stable, well-organized, and your height
as a specialist is possible. Usually at the head of such studios is a strong programmer,
still gaining good customers. If the studio is headed by SEO-Schnick, designer, yes
just an entrepreneur who was doing furniture yesterday, and today he decided to get angry by
the Internet, then be on your guard. Attitude towards programmers can be either
dismissively beastly, or self-confidently amateurish. Anyway you
unsafe
Namely - prodbases, supermarkets, trading offices, law offices, etc.
All those places where programming manifests itself only in the form of editing configs 1C or
same script writing for backups. As a first prize you can get
exclusive right to support intracorporate portal, honed under IE 6.
Backups, workflow automation, virus scrubbing, reinstalling Windows,
cable laying ... and much, much more.
Perhaps this is the most interesting place to work, if you have some
fist fight skills, or the ability to stay in a mixed team. AND
if a web studio can be called an IT school, then non-core enterprises can be called
school of life. For a stereotypical sysadmin, or experiencing not the best
programmer's time working in such a place will be what is called going to the people.
Technopark will be characterized by moderate conservatism, however, according to
compared with state-owned enterprises, such progress achievements as
PBX and LAN. Here the corrosive reader exclaim that they say lokalku on
he put the coaxial, and manually switched the PBX set up in the GORG. though
there is a difference. The fact is that at state-owned enterprises, communications organizations usually
the individual is engaged, as in more or less large private enterprises.
A small private enterprise, led by the hand of the sacred economy and striving to
minimizing costs, will rather hire one person to repair coffee makers,
refilling printers, wall churning, cable laying, telephone, alarm,
software installation and configuration in general and 1C in particular. Do I need to clarify what to handle
With all this, not everyone can do well? Should I say to whom the stones will fly
when something breaks somewhere? Do I need to be reminded that the probability of failure is right
proportional to the number of places where malfunction can occur?
In such large companies as Google, Yandex, Microsoft, etc., where the requirements for
employees are high, and there are offices throughout the CIS, the situation is radically different - they don’t take them there
people writing gall articles on Habré. Therefore, for this category of companies we
nothing to say.
A mid-sized company recruits $ 400-800 students who write in Java.
Attempts to settle in such companies as senior and timlid from our side
suffered a fiasco due to our professional inappropriateness. When our professional suitability
has reached a level sufficient for these positions, defeat suffered attempts
these companies invite us for an interview. Therefore, in this category
Companies we have nothing to say. Although the topic is certainly fertile and deserving
so that one of the readers has covered it in detail.
Much has been written about this by many, and the topic has been beaten so badly that I don’t even want to
repeat. But it is necessary, dear readers, it is necessary. After all, only such reprinting
one-sided truths can be achieved by reducing the number of school-age professionals in
freelance.
Let's start with the fact that freelancing, and, in particular, Russian freelancing is seen by most
of us is not just the focus of all evil, and no less than its embodiment. Exactly
here, in addition to the typical problems of hired work, more risks are added and
competition. This is where the most suitable place for the birth of a superman, ready
work for free, overtime, possessing the gift of providence (and only this method
allows you to estimate the likely project time required by the poorest description
assignments, at the stage of his interception from student Stepan and schoolboy Vasily), who owns
the whole range of web development skills, starting with setting up virtual servers on
base kvm, and ending with the writing of "selling" texts and sharp design in Photoshop.
We all understand that a good narrow specialist is better paid, but not all
understand that:
1) The narrowness of the specialist is inversely proportional to the breadth of the spectrum of vacancies in the market
labor
2) The amount of remuneration of a narrow specialist is directly proportional to the number of narrow
specialists in this field
3) The number of narrow specialists over time becomes back
in proportion to the pay of these specialists
4) The probability of employment of a specialist is directly proportional to his experience,
which in turn is a function of such quantities as the number of vacancies per
labor market and time spent on this experience
5) The narrowness of the specialty is usually directly proportional to the threshold of entry into it.
In short, PHP ‑ programmers with frontend programming experience are quite
very promising people. At the same time, the Haskell programmer is quite
very narrow specialist. In recent years, the popularization of information
technology and social phobia has led to the fact that competition in freelancing has increased significantly
so it is still unknown who to be worse - the jack of all trades or the master of his
affairs Those. the labor market is not just big, but very big. What does this lead to? To that
that the customer is a divine figure surrounded by an aura of permissiveness. Highly
It would be naive to believe that if he behaves like a beast, he will not find a performer and
fill up the project without making a profit. The abundance of labor supply allows him
firstly, to collect passport data scans for a dozen of the first performers, secondly
find a clever student who does the project, and who
You may also be able to throw with payment.
There is one subtlety - often the ability of a person as a specialist back
proportional to his self-selling abilities. Therefore find a good
a specialist, to eat his brain, to get a finished project and not to pay is possible. we
even dare to say more: to get into freelancing without having the skills of "torsion" in
society and even being a good specialist - this is obviously a game for the kill. Or
for good luck. Depends on your worldview. The number of competitors is from your
worldview does not depend, and the fact that in the lower sector of freelancing (God forbid that
it occupied only half of the market) competition comes primarily at a price during
the second is in writing writing texts, the third is in order of priority, in
the fourth - by the fact that you lied to yourself in the portfolio, and, finally, in the fifth - by
professionalism.
Freelance - this is a difficult way to build a portfolio, or rather difficult, if you
pursue the goal also earn at the same time.
We immediately dismissed the idea of somehow classifying projects - too
different specifics at different places of work. Therefore, the only pattern
which we almost unanimously deduced, can be stated as follows: the more
Hemorrhoids gives the project / work, the less they pay for it. You have to check
the truth of this statement is from experience. Just remember that if work
reminds hell, and the salary inexorably strives for the minimum element of the set
natural numbers, then most likely somewhere near there is a place where your skills and nervous
cells will be valued much higher.
As mentioned above, it is impossible to classify everything, but let's quickly
let's go over freelance - the areas where the situation is most important
grotesque form. Moreover, we all went through this stage, and with all of us he was
recognized as the most memorable in terms of negative experiences. Especially if you -
novice freelance programmer.
Probably there is no greater evil for the novice inexperienced freelancer than small
projects. They give hope that by doing a little work it will be possible to raise
reputation, and thus increase the likelihood of acquiring the next project.
However, this hope is deceptive, and it may take a long time before such
Freelancer will learn to distinguish between small projects and large brainwashing.
The smaller the project, the greater the chance to know all the negative aspects.
human nature, such as: greed, tyranny, bad manners, a tendency to
cheating and god knows what else. At that moment when it turns out that the TK described in the project,
to which you subscribe, describes only a small part of the work offered to you,
you can finally figure out who you are dealing with.
It is logical not to expect anything good from a person who wants some kind of
the work was done, but it does not have the money (or the desire to spend
the required amount) for employee services. This person has only 2 options -
lies and coercion. Rare freelancer does not distort from the first words of the customer about
that he wants to continue working with you on other projects when the current
is in a sluggish beginning stage - this is how our psyche prepares us for an unpleasant
conflict with the interlocutor, who will have to explain why you are not ready
now make concessions. Conflict can be aggravated by the fact that people of this kind
after incapacity admonitions love to move to threats like intentional
reputation damage. Generally, if you come to freelancing with the goal of being free from
bosses and siburdination, you may be surprised to find that in order to
to make any serious reputation you have to (in any case
at first) fawn on customers with much more effort than you would like
would. We should not assume that communication in the format "I am the boss - you are a fool" is peculiar
only for the post-Soviet freelancing sector.
As for projects, everything is simple here - there are normal projects and there are
cash. The probability of getting a money project (let's say it can be
perform and live on this money a few months) is extremely small - in any case,
if you are an ordinary freelancer. Such projects diverge between web studios and other
major performers. Although in the order of statistical fluctuation something can
cross you too.
Normal projects are routine, and usually include:
Binary Roulette - either everything is simple and fast, or your brain will be eaten without
the remainder. The main difficulty lies in knowing the SEO and the basics of web graphics.
Catalogs and online stores.
The abundance of various engines for these does not mean absolutely nothing, unless you
you can prove to the client that he has enough functions for his tasks that already exist.
But through the hell of customization of the store engine, in order to obtain from it, for
what it is not intended at all, you need to go at least in order to give yourself
the covenant never do that again. Often a customer wants a store promotion in
competitive topics to be on the front page of Google. Special
the piquancy of the situation can add the fact that he can refuse to pay
your work on the basis of precisely the absence of promotion to the necessary and sometimes impossible
level Always ask about search engine optimization.
Fortunately, few of the customers are haunted by the ghost of Zuckerberg’s success, and those
excites you easily calculate on their offer to work for the option. Mainly
networks for any communities or clubs that are either made on the basis of
engines are either written from scratch. My humble experience on customization requirements
suggests that using ready-made engines you almost inevitably come to the idea that
it would be easier to write from scratch.
Tie the payment system, make the import from Excel, make the interface to
some kind of service. Most humane tasks when viewed from the point of view
the programmer is firstly there is purely programming, secondly the criteria
the assignment is clear enough to avoid unnecessary disputes with
by the customer. Well, there is some probability that the same module can be sold.
someone else.
Want to make a contribution to the piggy bank site govnokod.ru? You came to the address. Not necessary
blame your distant predecessors - in those days ereg_replace is not yet
was considered deprecated, and good practices have not yet been so obvious for only
emerging web programming industry. The degree of simplicity of the task depends on
the extent of your perfectionism - the best option here is to make the site
to work, and to fight with all the warrants is a thankless task.
Subtype of the previous item, if the engine is old. Only routine work will be
much more. If the engine is written humanly, then you can relatively easily
get off For any large-scale website, redesign is an extremely difficult task.
unpleasant, if only because the customer often asks to make changes on the move,
and their complexity is changing. A common situation is when localization is made like a god on
put the soul and scattered on the engine, template and JS. In this case, take on the project
it is only after a detailed discussion with the customer, otherwise there is a chance that
at the time of delivery, you simply will not have time to collect some working version of the updated
site.
You never know what to expect.
If the engine is open, then everything is simple and pleasant. If the engine is self-written, then
the task is complicated by the fact that it is difficult to predict the execution time
tasks. Programmers of the old school often possess superpowers- skill
write code that is protected from extension attempts. So be prepared that in case
non-standard engine your efforts will be mostly concentrated on
so as not to break the old, and not to add something new.
Programming, but not without subtleties. In short, the payment is small, but from
Your scripts will require AI primordia. We need to get used to the idea that $ 50 is
quite a normal price for a program that can recognize any captcha, and then the
work will boil.
You no longer need to think that the interface to the web service worked on
half a dozen browsers, which means you now have time to think about how to
make your new application work equally correctly on a dozen
unsuited mobile devices.
The most unpleasant option - to finish someone else's work. A sample ad
tells you that there is some site that needs to be completed in a very
small way. What does it mean? This means that, for some reason, the
contractor faded shortly before the project was completed, the main reasons for which may be as follows:
a) the customer is not an easy-to-communicate person
b) the customer delayed the promised payment too long
c) the contractor realized that the customer’s requirements could not be met, and there were
two options : either the performer was a poor specialist and left behind bad code and
architecture, to which the remaining requirements could not
be stuck on the desire of the customer to do something impossible.
Whether you should undertake such work is up to you.
Each of us wants to do what he likes, but not everyone succeeds in it, or
only in words, and if you look at the work process, it will turn out that there are
many more things that you don’t like. There
are difficulties and trials in the development of each specialist , but
sometimes it is not easy to determine where the boundary between them and objectively poor working conditions are. Perhaps if you are uncomfortable at the current
place of work, you are to blame, but it is possible that the matter is in work. Yes, very often all your
troubles are in your workplace. And even if you look around and see
the same problems on similar vacancies in other places, this does not mean that the problem is in
you.
If you want to start your career in IT, then remember that if you do not have a friend
who drags you where you need, from where you will gradually grow from junior to
senor (or from assistant to chief administrator), or you will not be a prize winner of the
Olympiad , on which Yandex and Google are crying, then there is a possibility that you will have to
work in places, remembering about which you will only regret about the time
and nerves spent . Not all programmers have good salaries, not every friendly team of
young specialists is such, not all projects lead to professional
growth.
A comment in which the phrase “thrash-work” was present. Comment was
about something else, but that's exactly what got hooked. Because it is this phrase briefly
and capaciously describes the whole layer of work in freelancing and to some extent in IT, especially in
areas where information technology is only a concomitant part
business process. This post is a free presentation of my experience and experience.
my acquaintances: freelancers, programmers, system administrators who took
participation in the work to which the capacious prefix thrash sticks.
This narration is conducted solely from the perspective of an employee,
so if you, as a customer, boss, manager, it seems that in this text
such characters as customers, supervisors, managers are described one-sidedly and
biased, this is done intentionally, and not by stupidity or omission.
Synopsis
If we talk about the original sources of trash (for the performer) in any field of application
wage labor, everything rests on 3 pillars: low budget, unrealistic requirements,
low mental or moral characteristics of the governing party. Like three
basic colors, these three circumstances can generate a whole palette of projects
varying degrees and shades of trash. On this, perhaps, it would be possible
stop, but wounded collective pride requires details.
')
Of course, there are people to whom the writing below will seem ridiculous and incredible, and
we would like to have such a majority. There will be many people who, remembering
similar episodes from the origins of his career, only nostalgic grin.
Places
Nowhere can you be insured against being in a situation where you
painfully feel like an idiot. Not a project - so the bosses, not the bosses
- so the team, not the team - so the salary ... There is a chance to burn wonderful
any of these points (with good luck, for all) wherever you work, freelance
at home in Ruby or repairing printers in a glorious state institution. And yet, everyone
The place has its own unique flavor.
Public sector
A typical place to start a career as a young specialist, as well as a permanent place
habitat specialist mature for unknown reasons turned out here. Well,
Of course, there are many non-specialists who probably have something to do with IT,
because otherwise they simply would not have been taken because of the inconsistency of their position. Or
would you take? The state of the park of cars of this institution very often can you
please (if you are a sophisticated connoisseur of antiquity and think that if not 640kb, then
256 MB of memory is enough for everyone), and can leave you indifferent (if the technopark
enterprises have already experienced a senile apocalypse, and on its wreckage it was decided
to build a new world on the basis of the cheapest, but still modern equipment),
and sometimes you may even be upset by the excesses that resulted from
fun pre-Christmas fuss associated with the full development of the budget.
As for stability, then your grandchildren may suffice it, which is impossible
say about the prospects. But after all, if there are no prospects, then there will be no grandchildren, and if not
will be grandchildren, then there will be no problem. Being a man with a fine sense of humor and
low material needs, you can easily find yourself
entertainment, ironically above the calculation table
department.
If you are a young specialist, but you do not have high-ranking
relatives in the state structure, where do you want to go, and are not interested in history
computer technology, then try before you get a job as much as possible
clearly identify for yourself what goals you are pursuing. Get professional
development is almost impossible here, especially if you want to engage in IT, and not
undercover games, dating or stuffing experience. Avraly here are rare
technologies are not applicable in other more paid sectors, the routine is great, efforts
keeping the aging infrastructure huge, computer illiteracy and
unwillingness of workers to learn is unlimited.
Private sector
Well what can I say? The gradations from bad to good are so extensive here that
give any exact picture of what is happening is impossible. Anyway, there is
he who says that everything is wrong. So let's talk about the bad. In any case speech
below will be about small and medium-sized companies, mostly about those where IT is not
is the main activity. However, first things first.
Web studios.
Here it is the zero circle of hell, the eternal refuge of self-seeking students, and
purgatory for tired souls of average specialists. Typical organization of this type
located in the basement, industrial area, a hotel that still stores memories of
Soviet tourists from Vladivostok, - in general, everywhere where the enterprising owner
web studios could find the cheapest place to rent. Technique as a rule
much better than in the public sector, because a large part of such studios are interrupted
creating applications for the iPhone that has. However, the frenzy of keyboards
and mice can often cause a nostalgic tear in a person whose youth has passed
in semi-basement computer clubs playing games in online shooters. State can
consist of a couple of programmers as well as an incomprehensible number
workers coming in shifts and specializing in different things. AND
in the latter case, it is likely to see an idyllic picture in the smoking room when
connoisseur of life ^ W Cocos2d teaches inexperienced Joomla-water. Reverse idyll can
to observe in the case when sales of utilities of this company in the appstore are not high, and
rental of premises is largely hampered by the creation of business cards. In rare
In web studios you can find a secret table with a j2me developer,
creating the same games that can be purchased in an amount of at least 3 pieces for
one SMS.
The example above remarkably illustrates the stability of web studios in terms of career
growth, as well as the depth of learning technology. In our opinion, web studio is one of
the best places to start, after it will not be worse. Only if you do not fall into
another web studio where everything is still worse. Here you will find everything: an incentive for self-learning -
because no one knows what order your boss will intercept next time, and hire
specialist for each profile is expensive and long; avraly and deadlines - sin not to name
unrealistic for the customer to get an order from a dozen of the same web studios and
fifty freelancers; incentive to increase revenue - an approximate ceiling in
regional web studios - $ 500-700 per month; experience of communication with people -
low-skilled colleagues and most inadequate customers will give you
true bliss when you finally leave the web studio and get settled
a professional team, where the team leader is engaged in communication with customers or
project manager.
Of course, there are good web studios leading several large / high-yield
projects where the workflow is less stable, well-organized, and your height
as a specialist is possible. Usually at the head of such studios is a strong programmer,
still gaining good customers. If the studio is headed by SEO-Schnick, designer, yes
just an entrepreneur who was doing furniture yesterday, and today he decided to get angry by
the Internet, then be on your guard. Attitude towards programmers can be either
dismissively beastly, or self-confidently amateurish. Anyway you
unsafe
Non-core companies
Namely - prodbases, supermarkets, trading offices, law offices, etc.
All those places where programming manifests itself only in the form of editing configs 1C or
same script writing for backups. As a first prize you can get
exclusive right to support intracorporate portal, honed under IE 6.
Backups, workflow automation, virus scrubbing, reinstalling Windows,
cable laying ... and much, much more.
Perhaps this is the most interesting place to work, if you have some
fist fight skills, or the ability to stay in a mixed team. AND
if a web studio can be called an IT school, then non-core enterprises can be called
school of life. For a stereotypical sysadmin, or experiencing not the best
programmer's time working in such a place will be what is called going to the people.
Technopark will be characterized by moderate conservatism, however, according to
compared with state-owned enterprises, such progress achievements as
PBX and LAN. Here the corrosive reader exclaim that they say lokalku on
he put the coaxial, and manually switched the PBX set up in the GORG. though
there is a difference. The fact is that at state-owned enterprises, communications organizations usually
the individual is engaged, as in more or less large private enterprises.
A small private enterprise, led by the hand of the sacred economy and striving to
minimizing costs, will rather hire one person to repair coffee makers,
refilling printers, wall churning, cable laying, telephone, alarm,
software installation and configuration in general and 1C in particular. Do I need to clarify what to handle
With all this, not everyone can do well? Should I say to whom the stones will fly
when something breaks somewhere? Do I need to be reminded that the probability of failure is right
proportional to the number of places where malfunction can occur?
Profile companies
In such large companies as Google, Yandex, Microsoft, etc., where the requirements for
employees are high, and there are offices throughout the CIS, the situation is radically different - they don’t take them there
people writing gall articles on Habré. Therefore, for this category of companies we
nothing to say.
A mid-sized company recruits $ 400-800 students who write in Java.
Attempts to settle in such companies as senior and timlid from our side
suffered a fiasco due to our professional inappropriateness. When our professional suitability
has reached a level sufficient for these positions, defeat suffered attempts
these companies invite us for an interview. Therefore, in this category
Companies we have nothing to say. Although the topic is certainly fertile and deserving
so that one of the readers has covered it in detail.
Freelance
Much has been written about this by many, and the topic has been beaten so badly that I don’t even want to
repeat. But it is necessary, dear readers, it is necessary. After all, only such reprinting
one-sided truths can be achieved by reducing the number of school-age professionals in
freelance.
Let's start with the fact that freelancing, and, in particular, Russian freelancing is seen by most
of us is not just the focus of all evil, and no less than its embodiment. Exactly
here, in addition to the typical problems of hired work, more risks are added and
competition. This is where the most suitable place for the birth of a superman, ready
work for free, overtime, possessing the gift of providence (and only this method
allows you to estimate the likely project time required by the poorest description
assignments, at the stage of his interception from student Stepan and schoolboy Vasily), who owns
the whole range of web development skills, starting with setting up virtual servers on
base kvm, and ending with the writing of "selling" texts and sharp design in Photoshop.
We all understand that a good narrow specialist is better paid, but not all
understand that:
1) The narrowness of the specialist is inversely proportional to the breadth of the spectrum of vacancies in the market
labor
2) The amount of remuneration of a narrow specialist is directly proportional to the number of narrow
specialists in this field
3) The number of narrow specialists over time becomes back
in proportion to the pay of these specialists
4) The probability of employment of a specialist is directly proportional to his experience,
which in turn is a function of such quantities as the number of vacancies per
labor market and time spent on this experience
5) The narrowness of the specialty is usually directly proportional to the threshold of entry into it.
In short, PHP ‑ programmers with frontend programming experience are quite
very promising people. At the same time, the Haskell programmer is quite
very narrow specialist. In recent years, the popularization of information
technology and social phobia has led to the fact that competition in freelancing has increased significantly
so it is still unknown who to be worse - the jack of all trades or the master of his
affairs Those. the labor market is not just big, but very big. What does this lead to? To that
that the customer is a divine figure surrounded by an aura of permissiveness. Highly
It would be naive to believe that if he behaves like a beast, he will not find a performer and
fill up the project without making a profit. The abundance of labor supply allows him
firstly, to collect passport data scans for a dozen of the first performers, secondly
find a clever student who does the project, and who
You may also be able to throw with payment.
There is one subtlety - often the ability of a person as a specialist back
proportional to his self-selling abilities. Therefore find a good
a specialist, to eat his brain, to get a finished project and not to pay is possible. we
even dare to say more: to get into freelancing without having the skills of "torsion" in
society and even being a good specialist - this is obviously a game for the kill. Or
for good luck. Depends on your worldview. The number of competitors is from your
worldview does not depend, and the fact that in the lower sector of freelancing (God forbid that
it occupied only half of the market) competition comes primarily at a price during
the second is in writing writing texts, the third is in order of priority, in
the fourth - by the fact that you lied to yourself in the portfolio, and, finally, in the fifth - by
professionalism.
Freelance - this is a difficult way to build a portfolio, or rather difficult, if you
pursue the goal also earn at the same time.
Projects
We immediately dismissed the idea of somehow classifying projects - too
different specifics at different places of work. Therefore, the only pattern
which we almost unanimously deduced, can be stated as follows: the more
Hemorrhoids gives the project / work, the less they pay for it. You have to check
the truth of this statement is from experience. Just remember that if work
reminds hell, and the salary inexorably strives for the minimum element of the set
natural numbers, then most likely somewhere near there is a place where your skills and nervous
cells will be valued much higher.
As mentioned above, it is impossible to classify everything, but let's quickly
let's go over freelance - the areas where the situation is most important
grotesque form. Moreover, we all went through this stage, and with all of us he was
recognized as the most memorable in terms of negative experiences. Especially if you -
novice freelance programmer.
Probably there is no greater evil for the novice inexperienced freelancer than small
projects. They give hope that by doing a little work it will be possible to raise
reputation, and thus increase the likelihood of acquiring the next project.
However, this hope is deceptive, and it may take a long time before such
Freelancer will learn to distinguish between small projects and large brainwashing.
The smaller the project, the greater the chance to know all the negative aspects.
human nature, such as: greed, tyranny, bad manners, a tendency to
cheating and god knows what else. At that moment when it turns out that the TK described in the project,
to which you subscribe, describes only a small part of the work offered to you,
you can finally figure out who you are dealing with.
It is logical not to expect anything good from a person who wants some kind of
the work was done, but it does not have the money (or the desire to spend
the required amount) for employee services. This person has only 2 options -
lies and coercion. Rare freelancer does not distort from the first words of the customer about
that he wants to continue working with you on other projects when the current
is in a sluggish beginning stage - this is how our psyche prepares us for an unpleasant
conflict with the interlocutor, who will have to explain why you are not ready
now make concessions. Conflict can be aggravated by the fact that people of this kind
after incapacity admonitions love to move to threats like intentional
reputation damage. Generally, if you come to freelancing with the goal of being free from
bosses and siburdination, you may be surprised to find that in order to
to make any serious reputation you have to (in any case
at first) fawn on customers with much more effort than you would like
would. We should not assume that communication in the format "I am the boss - you are a fool" is peculiar
only for the post-Soviet freelancing sector.
As for projects, everything is simple here - there are normal projects and there are
cash. The probability of getting a money project (let's say it can be
perform and live on this money a few months) is extremely small - in any case,
if you are an ordinary freelancer. Such projects diverge between web studios and other
major performers. Although in the order of statistical fluctuation something can
cross you too.
Normal projects are routine, and usually include:
Sites business cards and promotional sites
Binary Roulette - either everything is simple and fast, or your brain will be eaten without
the remainder. The main difficulty lies in knowing the SEO and the basics of web graphics.
Catalogs and online stores.
The abundance of various engines for these does not mean absolutely nothing, unless you
you can prove to the client that he has enough functions for his tasks that already exist.
But through the hell of customization of the store engine, in order to obtain from it, for
what it is not intended at all, you need to go at least in order to give yourself
the covenant never do that again. Often a customer wants a store promotion in
competitive topics to be on the front page of Google. Special
the piquancy of the situation can add the fact that he can refuse to pay
your work on the basis of precisely the absence of promotion to the necessary and sometimes impossible
level Always ask about search engine optimization.
Portals and social networks
Fortunately, few of the customers are haunted by the ghost of Zuckerberg’s success, and those
excites you easily calculate on their offer to work for the option. Mainly
networks for any communities or clubs that are either made on the basis of
engines are either written from scratch. My humble experience on customization requirements
suggests that using ready-made engines you almost inevitably come to the idea that
it would be easier to write from scratch.
Modules for various CMS, engines, etc.
Tie the payment system, make the import from Excel, make the interface to
some kind of service. Most humane tasks when viewed from the point of view
the programmer is firstly there is purely programming, secondly the criteria
the assignment is clear enough to avoid unnecessary disputes with
by the customer. Well, there is some probability that the same module can be sold.
someone else.
Upgrade an old engine for a new hosting or language version
Want to make a contribution to the piggy bank site govnokod.ru? You came to the address. Not necessary
blame your distant predecessors - in those days ereg_replace is not yet
was considered deprecated, and good practices have not yet been so obvious for only
emerging web programming industry. The degree of simplicity of the task depends on
the extent of your perfectionism - the best option here is to make the site
to work, and to fight with all the warrants is a thankless task.
Design change
Subtype of the previous item, if the engine is old. Only routine work will be
much more. If the engine is written humanly, then you can relatively easily
get off For any large-scale website, redesign is an extremely difficult task.
unpleasant, if only because the customer often asks to make changes on the move,
and their complexity is changing. A common situation is when localization is made like a god on
put the soul and scattered on the engine, template and JS. In this case, take on the project
it is only after a detailed discussion with the customer, otherwise there is a chance that
at the time of delivery, you simply will not have time to collect some working version of the updated
site.
Corrections in the layout or front end
You never know what to expect.
Implementing some new features for one of the above options
If the engine is open, then everything is simple and pleasant. If the engine is self-written, then
the task is complicated by the fact that it is difficult to predict the execution time
tasks. Programmers of the old school often possess superpowers- skill
write code that is protected from extension attempts. So be prepared that in case
non-standard engine your efforts will be mostly concentrated on
so as not to break the old, and not to add something new.
Grabbers, posters, and other scripts
Programming, but not without subtleties. In short, the payment is small, but from
Your scripts will require AI primordia. We need to get used to the idea that $ 50 is
quite a normal price for a program that can recognize any captcha, and then the
work will boil.
Mobile applications
You no longer need to think that the interface to the web service worked on
half a dozen browsers, which means you now have time to think about how to
make your new application work equally correctly on a dozen
unsuited mobile devices.
The most unpleasant option - to finish someone else's work. A sample ad
tells you that there is some site that needs to be completed in a very
small way. What does it mean? This means that, for some reason, the
contractor faded shortly before the project was completed, the main reasons for which may be as follows:
a) the customer is not an easy-to-communicate person
b) the customer delayed the promised payment too long
c) the contractor realized that the customer’s requirements could not be met, and there were
two options : either the performer was a poor specialist and left behind bad code and
architecture, to which the remaining requirements could not
be stuck on the desire of the customer to do something impossible.
Whether you should undertake such work is up to you.
And what is the result?
Each of us wants to do what he likes, but not everyone succeeds in it, or
only in words, and if you look at the work process, it will turn out that there are
many more things that you don’t like. There
are difficulties and trials in the development of each specialist , but
sometimes it is not easy to determine where the boundary between them and objectively poor working conditions are. Perhaps if you are uncomfortable at the current
place of work, you are to blame, but it is possible that the matter is in work. Yes, very often all your
troubles are in your workplace. And even if you look around and see
the same problems on similar vacancies in other places, this does not mean that the problem is in
you.
If you want to start your career in IT, then remember that if you do not have a friend
who drags you where you need, from where you will gradually grow from junior to
senor (or from assistant to chief administrator), or you will not be a prize winner of the
Olympiad , on which Yandex and Google are crying, then there is a possibility that you will have to
work in places, remembering about which you will only regret about the time
and nerves spent . Not all programmers have good salaries, not every friendly team of
young specialists is such, not all projects lead to professional
growth.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/167997/
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