My short flirt with freelancing

In autumn 2024, I decided to resign from my full-time position and try my luck as a freelance “light” consultant at Dataist. I had been pondering the idea for quite some time; I found the combination of more control over my time and potential financial upside appealing, and, in the end, a friend of mine convinced me to take the plunge. I call it freelance “light” since I ended up being employed by his company and didn’t go completely solo. It offered many of the benefits of freelancing, with a high cut of the hourly rates I was contracted for, but also the safety net of a reasonable minimum income during quiet periods. The position felt like a less risky version of being freelance, which made the move easier, as I had never worked as an IT consultant before and I didn’t have a ready-made set of prospective clients.

This post is a summary of what I learned during my short-lived freelance career – which lasted less than two months – and why I gave up so quickly.

Supply is higher than demand

When I made the decision to try freelancing, my partner and I were betting on a bounce-back in demand for IT consultancy services after a couple of mediocre years. Not so. There were definitely some relevant engagements advertised, and I had three interviews (which did not materialise), but I wouldn’t describe my skillset as particularly rare right now. In other words, the timing for starting out as a freelancer wasn’t ideal.

My CV wasn’t anything special

Before trying freelance “light”, I thought my 10 years of relevant, broad experience would be very attractive to potential clients. In hindsight, I wouldn’t say my CV is bad, but it seems unremarkable these days. This is related to point 1: with relatively low demand and consultants in high supply, clients are spoiled for choice with many high-quality senior consultants applying for the few engagements listed at the “freelance brokers”¹.

Having broad experience is a two-edged sword

I have experience as a data analyst, data scientist and data engineer, and I’m comfortable working with the entire data stack, as well as software and cloud engineering. This makes me a relevant prospect for a wide range of advertised engagements, which I thought – before starting freelancing – would make me an easy sell. However, in today’s market, I got the feeling that there was always a candidate with more experience with tools x, y, z (e.g. Snowflake, Iceberg, Azure). My own assessment is this: I’ve focused on the principles underlying the technologies I’ve worked with, and I’m confident I could get up to speed on any stack in a matter of weeks. But prospective clients tend not to think like that, and I can’t blame them; if they’re hiring a consultant for a 3-6 month engagement, why pick someone claiming to understand the principles and be “stack agnostic” instead of a candidate with existing first-hand experience with the stack? Another way to put it is that I felt somewhat overqualified for the engagements I was interviewed for, but my profile was never a perfect fit either.

I underestimated the importance of first-hand relations

Being a freelance consultant means you have two primary ways of getting engagements: via the “freelance brokers”¹ or selling directly to someone in an enterprise. For the latter, having worked together previously with that person matters a lot. Referrals from people I have worked with don’t matter as much; the communication bandwidth between them and prospective clients is minimal at best.

I am technical by heart, not a salesman

I was open to the idea of spending time marketing myself. According to Secrets of Consulting, you should spend at least one day a week on the next engagement, via direct or indirect marketing or networking. I think this is sound advice, but I must admit spending time on it was even harder than I anticipated. I am – always, it seems – more inclined to spend time on the technical side of things, like working on my pet projects or reading books or documentation about some new tool I’m curious about. Marketing myself feels like time I’d rather spend learning new things, and I simply don’t have the time for both.

It is not glamorous

I had not envisioned freelancing being glamorous, but I found the prospect of more control over my work hours and a potential salary boost enticing. However, I missed the perks of a regular job, like having an office with colleagues to go to every day, even more than I thought. In Secrets of Consulting, the author compares it, amusingly, to running a restaurant. Many have a romantic dream of opening a restaurant, only to realise it’s a lot of hard, painful work. Consulting ain't as easy as it looks is the number one secret in the book, with the author providing a long list of the challenges of being a (freelance) consultant.

CV writing is not fun

Before starting freelancing, I hoped my brief 1.5-page CV would suffice when applying for consultancy engagements. Not so. Clients want what they’re used to: CVs with 10+ pages listing prior projects, what was achieved in them and how the consultant contributed to the project’s ultimate success². So, I spent a significant amount of time tailoring and perfecting multiple project-based CVs (in MS Word³). Of course, spending days working on CVs in MS Word isn’t the end of the world, but I’d rather spend my time on something more exciting.

I landed a more interesting full-time job

I could have given my freelance career some more time, of course. But when I got an offer for the tech lead position I initially applied for as a “plan B”, and I found freelancing life increasingly frustrating and the listed engagements only being so-so interesting, it was an easy decision to let it go in the end.

If I were to do it again?

I am not sure there will be a next time for me and consulting, but if there were, I’d probably join a consulting company with at least 10 employees. They have a larger pool of established prospective clients, and some even have framework agreements⁴, likely leading to less time spent on “the bench” doing marketing and CV related activities. And it’s nice to have an office to go to in periods without engagements and colleagues who share an interest in the craft to discuss and learn from; being a freelance loner is certainly tougher from a mental wellbeing perspective. This wasn’t a problem for my mental wellbeing during the 1.5 months it lasted, but the idea that this lifestyle would not suit me long term did cross my mind.