Hi Devon,
First off, I want to say that you’re awesome. It’s people like you and offers to help aspiring devs in the community that really makes me love this industry so much. Much more helping I see than most other places.
Little bit about me, I first learned HTML from a real physical book, if you can believe it. That was like 12 years ago though, and since then I kept trying to “break through” in the tech industry. It started out good, I was freelancing and since I was super green, I did alright.
What happened from there is a little strange, I was initially picked up by an SEO Agency to help with technical stuff, but my knowledge of SEO and technical stuff wound me in a Director of SEO position. Now although the job was ok, it wasn’t what I really wanted to do, as I sort of fell into it. I felt myself just going through the motions and having little to no interest in what I was actually doing.
I eventually parted ways with them and found a SaaS startup that was very new and doing some interesting things (MarketMuse is the name, feel free to check them out) in content marketing using AI. Now this was a great experience and I was back in tech. However, it was short lived. I found myself in a Product Manager role where I did more directing than coding by far.
I left there in May of this year to focus on programming full-time and have been freelancing semi-successfully since I left. I say “semi” because although I am landing gigs, they are hit and miss and barely making ends meet. Actually, if I didn’t have a very loving partner, I’m not sure I’d make ends meet on my own. I enjoy lots of things in this world, but how I can tell I really love programming is I could be stuck on a task/project for an entire day, and although I’ll take breaks, I’ll keep coming back and NOT be ready to shove my computer in the oven.
I’ve been trying to get out and network a little more, but I’m in sort of a remote area, and quite the introvert, so I’ve been trying my hand at social media. Doing ok, getting some small chit chat started with a couple people here and there. I also help my buddy maintain a community for up and coming devs, it’s pretty small right now but it’s cool to connect with people from all over the world who are in a similar situation as myself. We get to pass ideas back and forth, show off work we’ve done, get feedback, etc. There’s a handful of more mid-senior devs that will pop in every now and then, but it’s usually us rookies. Oh, and I do very much consider myself a junior still, since I was taken away from programming twice for a total of 8ish years. But I have been full-time with it since May, every day.
Here’s a few things to hopefully help give this story about me a little more color:
ar3tea.github.io --- a sort of digital business card I set up
are-tea.com — a WIP personal website built with React, and I’m trying to use Contentful (headless cms) as my blogging platform. Having trouble with the API connection and making it styled, but it’s getting there.
https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~01eaad53379ddc1c35 — this is my UpWork profile. So far it’s my most successful means of finding/getting gigs
linkedin.com/in/ryan-tabassi — and of course my LinkedIn
I’d really like to either land a job (remote preferably) to have a more steady paycheck, or learn how I can more successfully freelance, again for the steady paycheck. I love what I do but it feels like every day is a grind just trying to get the jobs to earn the money. Once I get the gigs, I do well, and I have glowing 5-star reviews on UpWork, just feels like GETTING them is a beast of task in and of itself. I’ve heard that presenting yourself as an agency can help land larger contracts, since some people prefer working with another company vs. just a single person, but I don’t even know where to start with that. Best I came up with was an idea for a company name, Jussme, because it’s Just Me. Clever right? =)
Again, I really appreciate the outreached hand of this possible mentoring and I completely understand that you can only do so many. Please keep me in mind even if you are full for the next few weeks, I’d love to connect.
Thanks again!
-Ryan
Ryan first said he just wanted to code. I told him freelancing might not be best for him because he’ll have to do a lot more than just write code. He probed a little about that, but it seems like he’s more OK with the other aspects of freelancing than he is with the management roles he’s been working.
Advised Ryan to try focusing less on the technology and more on a solution.