6d ago
How Do You Start Consulting?
Maybe you're currently employed or between jobs. But it occurs to you that you want to go off on your own and start consulting (as opposed to freelancing with labor services). How do you do that? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: CSuite Content has a practical guide to executive bios for business leaders. Enov8 shared a clear explainer on Oracle ERP data masking . InfluxData put together a getting-started guide to in-memory databases . Unusual VC explored how AI is changing software development . Careflow is a referral management platform for healthcare organizations. Tricentis explains AI Quality Assurance for modern testing teams.
Jan 22
How Can You Go from Employed to Freelancing with Low Risk?
Plenty of employees entertain the idea of going freelance. But one of the biggest barriers to entry is the perceived risk of doing so. Is there a way to jump to freelancing with minimal risk? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: CSuite Content published a practical guide to Gen-Z slang for business leaders . Enov8 shared a clear explainer on SAP data masking . InfluxData put together a getting-started guide to MQTT . Unusual Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on technical founders . Careflow is a referral management platform for healthcare organizations . Tricentis offers Oracle App Testing for teams running Oracle E-Business Suite.
Dec 23, 2025
Should I Gain Leadership Experience Before Freelancing Programming?
In this installment, a question submitter wonders whether it would be better to earn promotions into leadership before leaving the salaried world, or whether to leave as an individual contributor. Which is the right path? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: CSuite Content published a practical guide on how often executives should post on social media , including benchmarks and strategy tips for staying visible without becoming noise. Enov8 shared a clear explainer on test data in auditing , breaking down what it is, why it matters, and how teams should think about it from a compliance and risk perspective. InfluxData put together a solid glossary entry on data lakes , covering what they are, how they work, and when they make sense compared to other data architectures.
Nov 19, 2025
Can You Avoid Having Your Efficiency Questioned by Having Flat Rates?
Occasionally, you might find yourself with a whale client, or at least a profitable one, that treats you poorly and shows no trust in you. How should you handle this? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: Enov8 published a helpful guide to data masking tools (and they also define data masking , if you're interested). Our friends over at CSuite Content published an interesting guide to becoming a thought leader . And finally, Tricentis put out a round-up of AI testing tools .
Oct 11, 2025
How to Handle a Lucrative Client with No Trust in You
Occasionally, you might find yourself with a whale client, or at least a profitable one, that treats you poorly and shows no trust in you. How should you handle this? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: Enov8 has a helpful guide to test data management . The DataOpsZone community site has a handy explainer about the concept of referential integrity . This guide to ephemeral environments from Test Environment Management.
Sep 10, 2025
How to Avoid Giving Away Consultative Services as a Throw-In?
Sometimes a client is looking for labor and expects you to bundle in the strategic piece. For instance, they expect architecture to come along with a software development project. How to handle this? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: Enov8 recently published a take on application portfolio management best practices , for you enterprise fans. Spin has a round-up of the top SSPM vendors , if you're in the market. I just recently learned that Industry 4 is a thing, and what it is, thanks to Influx's glossary. If you're looking for help with Ansible tags , Netbox Labs has an introductory guide to the subject.
Aug 5, 2025
Setting Up and Filling Your Funnel with Leads to Avoid Gaps
Depending on fate to bring you business can lead to gaps between projects. How do you setup some kind of sales funnel and get leads into it to avoid these gaps? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: Enov8's guide to data masking . This comparison of Logstash and Fluentd from Sawmills. Tricentis's (Testim's) AI-powered Salesforce Testing (also in German, French , and Japanese ). A definition of SSPM from Spin.AI.
Jul 15, 2025
How To Handle a Client Wanting Work When You're Sick?
You're collaborating with your client on a time-sensitive deadline and you get sick. How should you handle that? Whose problem is it, ultimately? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: Enov8's list of enterprise architecture tools to be aware of in 2025. This introduction to the subject of log parsing from Sawmills. Tricentis's legacy tool replacement solutions (also in German and French ). A guide from Testim on unit testing in React Native .
Jun 18, 2025
How to Calculate Runway When You Have an Initial Contract
You've got a full-time job but want to go indie, and you line up your first contract. How do you think about how much runway you need to create between current savings and that first contract, for when it expires? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: A post from Sawmills, which introduces log parsing , explains its importance for transforming unstructured logs into actionable data and outlines best practices for efficient and scalable implementation. Learn how Tricentis Data Integrity helps ensure end-to-end data accuracy and reliability across complex enterprise systems through automated testing and validation. (The Data Integrity page is also available to read in German , French , and Japanese ).
May 10, 2025
How to Build a Marketing Funnel with an Audience on Another Platform
If you've built an audience on a platform other than your own website, how do you go about turning that following into a marketing funnel for something you're offering? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: This post from BlinkOps explains Identity and Access Management (IAM) automation . A Testim blog post that provides an overview of six JavaScript editors . A Sawmills post that gives an overview of Logstash filters , explaining their role in parsing. An Enov8 blog post that explains how a Release Train Engineer (RTE) facilitates Agile Release Trains (ARTs) within the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). An overview of Tricentis Testim, an AI-powered test automation platform designed to streamline the testing of custom web, mobile, and Salesforce applications (sites also available to read in German , French , and Japanese ).
May 9, 2025
What Should You Do When Asked to Implement a Bad Idea?
It will sometimes come up that a prospect or client asks you to implement something that's either too vague to work or a flat-out bad idea. What should you do in this situation? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: This round-up of application portfolio management tools from our friends at Enov8. Regression testing for Workday , from our friends at Tricentis (also in German and Japanese ).
Mar 24, 2025
Is Strategic Advice a Good Up-Sell for a Programmer?
If you're a programmer (or, generally, a labor-based freelancer), is it a good idea to sell strategic advice as a kind of "up-sell" to your normal offering? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: An Introductory Guide to Application Portfolio Management A beginner's guide to volume testing
Feb 25, 2025
How Should I Price an Hour-Long Training Session?
I do a lot of theory in this series, but here's something practical. How would I recommend someone price an hour-long training session to teach social media tactics to a salesforce? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: Sprint Scheduling: A Guide to Your Agile Calendar Not only do our friends at Tricentis offer Tosca, a powerful end-to-end testing tool , they also have sites available in these languages: French Japanese and German !
Jan 23, 2025
How Should I Handle a Non-Compete Agreement from a Client?
Sometimes, a client may ask you to sign a non-compete agreement as a prerequisite for engaging with them. Should you do it? How should you handle this situation in general? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: How regression testing is performed An Introductory Guide to Application Portfolio Management What is Security Automation? Benefits, Types & Best Practices What Is Software Testing? All the Basics You Need to Know
Dec 11, 2024
How Can You Move to Niching and Value Pricing?
The default with freelancing is to charge by the hour and do generalist work. You might have, however, heard of value pricing and heard the idea that you should establish a niche. How should you go about doing that? View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: Test Suites and Their Test Cases: The Hierarchy Explained Challenges in mobile testing and how to solve them What is A/B Deployment (aka A/B Testing) What is Data Lineage? An Explanation and Example
Nov 15, 2024
Does Having More Leads Mean You Can Raise Your Rates?
As you grow your business successfully, you'll have more demand for your work and, thus, more leads. Does that naturally mean you can raise your rates? The answer is more complex than you might think. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: UI test automation: What it is and how to get started Testim, a fast and flexible authoring of AI-powered end-to-end tests—built for scale Enterprise Intelligence – Migrating & Managing the Cloud Database Virtualization Tools
Oct 30, 2024
Is It Worth It to Bring in Subcontractors?
If you establish a practice and start to earn a good bit of business, sooner or later you'll have to contend with the decision of whether or not to bring on subcontractors to help you. Should you do it? View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Link of the week: Get Started With Salesforce QA and Testing: A Tutorial
Oct 23, 2024
Will ChatGPT Replace Freelance Programming?
I resisted talking about ChatGPT as long as humanly possible, but I did wind up getting a question in the backlog about it. So, will ChatGPT replace freelance programming? View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: How to Do Test Data Management in Agile: 8 Best Practices Android testing: An easy introduction with examples
Oct 16, 2024
Freelancer or Self Employed: What Should You Call Yourself?
If you go into business for yourself, what should you call yourself? Freelancer? Self-employed? Something else? View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Link of the week: Enov8: The IT & Test Environments Management Company
Oct 9, 2024
What Bookkeeping Software Should I Use to Freelance?
If you're thinking of hanging out your shingle or have just done so, you might wonder whether to use bookkeeping software and, if so, what to use. I have a surprisingly specific and opinionated answer for this one. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Link of the month: TEM Metrics - Test Environment Management (DOT) Com
Sep 25, 2024
How Freelancers Can Avoid Self Employment Tax
When you go off on your own, at least in the US, you might be in for a rude tax awakening. In this video, I talk about what self-employment tax is, and what you can do about it. View this podcast as a video on YouTube . Links of the Month: An in-depth look at spike testing with examples Follow our podcast at Iheart! Automate web and mobile testing with AI Metrics vs. Logs: When to Use Each in Your Telemetry Stack DORA Metrics Dashboard: How to Build One, With Examples
Sep 18, 2024
Which Meetings with Clients Should I Bill For?
You're a freelancer and doing regular work with your clients. If you bill by the hour or, more generally, for time and materials, which meetings should you bill the clients for? View this podcast as a video on YouTube . Links of the Month: What are the different types of release management? Follow our podcast at Buzzsprout Follow our podcast at Listennotes
Sep 11, 2024
When Do You Look Too Much Like an Employee?
Freelancers, especially newbie freelancers, can find themselves caught in situations where their only, large, 40-hour-per week client starts to treat them more like an employee than a freelancer. What should you do? View this podcast as a video on YouTube . Links of the month: End-to-end testing for enterprise business processes Check out our new State of the Business newsletter
Aug 28, 2024
Is California a Bad Place to Start a Business or Practice?
I've been asked this more than once, but eventually got around to doing a video about it. Rumor has it that California is "business-unfriendly," and, if you live there, you should start a business in another state. What's my take on that? View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: Salesforce Test Automation: What Every Engineer Should Know Key Components of a CI/CD Pipeline
Aug 21, 2024
Should I Run Away If Someone Offers Equity?
It's a situation that a lot of techies can relate to. Someone comes along and offers you a stake in their business, instead of money, if you build their vision for them. What should a freelancer do in this situation? View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: Oracle testing 8 CI/CD Best Practices for Your DevOps Journey
Aug 14, 2024
Is It Okay to "Fake It 'til You Make It?"
We've all heard the phrase "hake it 'til you make it." A reader asked me if this is a good mantra to live by. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: Data: What Is DevSecOps? Key Components of a CI/CD Pipeline
Aug 7, 2024
Should I Approach Freelancing Differently During a Recession
At the time of recording, there's a good bit of uncertainty about the economy. Against that backdrop, as a freelancer, should you approach your work differently? View this podcast as a video on YouTube.
Aug 7, 2024
What is the Best Way for Freelancers to Get Paid?
Wire Transfer? Check? Cash? If you're just starting out as a freelancer, what's the best way to get paid? View this podcast as a video on YouTube.
Jul 24, 2024
What is My (Erik's) Worst Client Experience?
One of the questions that came up in my reader/viewer backlog was specific to me and my background. What is/was my worst experience with a client? View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Link of the week: Using Pytest Fixtures: A Step-by-Step Guide With Examples
Jul 17, 2024
Is Coaching a Good Line of Work for Independents?
There are all kinds of people billing themselves as (non-athletic) "coaches" out there. As someone looking to go freelance, is becoming a coach a good line of work to get into, specifically in the B2B/professional world? View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Link of the week: Learn Regression testing
Jul 10, 2024
Should Freelancers Have References, Like Employees?
It's common (at least in the US) for employees to furnish "references," which are essentially friends or colleagues who vouch for them as character witnesses. As a freelancer, should you also do this? View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Link of the week: Test Environments: Why You Need Them and How to Set It Up
Jul 3, 2024
What Are Taxes Like for Freelancers, Compared to Employees?
When you're an employee, you probably only really think about taxes once per year. But what about as a freelancer? Well... it's a little more complicated than that. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Link of the week: Get Started With Salesforce QA and Testing: A Tutorial
Jun 26, 2024
How Many Hours Per Day or Week Should Freelancers Work?
In this video I field a question about how much per day or per week a freelancer should work. That's not really an easy question to answer because, in a sense, it's not the right question. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Link of the week: Testim Salesforce Testing
Jun 19, 2024
Is Freelancing Riskier Than Employment?
If you're a salaried employee, freelancing or starting a business can seem like a major risk. But just how risky is it, actually? View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Link of the week: Test Automation from Tricentis
Jun 12, 2024
Should You Charge for Discovery Calls?
Once you start taking sales and discovery calls, sooner or later you might have the impulse to start charging people for your time during this process. Should you do that? View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Link of the week: Serverless Computing for Dummies
Jun 5, 2024
Is Data Science as Viable for Freelancing as Programming?
A lot of the questions I field about freelancing and business come from people that are programmers. But what about data science? Can that be as viable a trade for freelancing as programming is? View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Link of the week: The basics of secret management
May 29, 2024
How Do You Win Long Term Clients?
Many freelancers, especially new ones, will want to earn long-term clients. How do you go about doing that, and is it actually valuable to do? View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Link of the week: Cypress vs. Selenium: What’s the Better Testing Framework?
May 22, 2024
Is It Normal to Feel Guilty about Raising Rates?
One of the most important (and stress-inducing) times in the career of a freelancer/business-owner is when you increase your rates or prices. Is it normal to feel guilty when doing so? View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Link of the week: Tricentis SAP Testing
May 15, 2024
Do You Need a Bookkeeper to Freelance?
If you're going off on your own as a freelancer, do you need to have a bookkeeper? If so, when should you hire one? View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Link of the week: Data: What Is DevSecOps?
May 8, 2024
What to Say to "Freelancing Isn't a Real Job?"
This is an interesting one. How would should you respond to someone telling you "freelancing isn't a real job?" View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Link of the week: What is a staging environment?
Apr 24, 2024
Client Supplied Contract Instead of Signing Mine
This one is kind of a specific question. What happens when you're a freelancer and ask a client to sign a contract, but they supply their own instead for you to sign? View this podcast as a video on YouTube Links of the week: Get Started With Salesforce QA and Testing: A Tutorial 8 CI/CD Best Practices for Your DevOps Journey What Is A Social Media Ghostwriter? An Executive’s Guide
Apr 17, 2024
What's it Like Adjusting to Not Having a Boss?
Once you go off on your own and freelance, likely for the first time in your career, you won't have a boss. What's that like? View this podcast as a video on YouTube Links of the week: Proxyrack.com Key Components of a CI/CD Pipeline
Apr 10, 2024
How Do I Become a True Consultant?
One thing that freelancers commonly deal with, and that a lot of people ask me about is how to become a "true consultant" or an advisor, rather than just a laborer where the client gives you a checklist of things to go. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: Test Environments: Why You Need Them and How to Set It Up Key Components of a CI/CD Pipeline
Apr 3, 2024
What Questions to Ask During Discovery?
Part of any freelancer's practice is going to be doing sales conversations, and any good sales conversation for custom work will involve a discovery process. What should that look like? What questions should you ask the prospect? View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the Week: Learn Regression testing Get started with Kafka and Docker in 20 minutes 8 CI/CD Best Practices for Your DevOps Journey
Mar 27, 2024
What To Do When Clients Want Bug Fixes after Contract Ends?
You've done some development work for a client, and as far as you're concerned, the work is over. But they come back later, demanding that you do additional work to fix a bug. How do you handle that? Join us to learn more. If you like this podcast and are interested in more business and freelance advice, you're welcome to join our free community. You can sign up and check it out here . This podcast is courtesy of Hit Subscribe, a content agency whose authors are all techies: https://www.hitsubscribe.com/ Link of the week: Testim Salesforce Testing
Mar 20, 2024
How Do I Get That First Client?
You've just hung out your shingle and are about to start freelancing. Congratulations! Now how do you get that first client? Join us to learn more. Link of the week: Proxyrack Residential Proxies
Mar 13, 2024
Dealing with Variable Income as a Freelancer
As a freelancer, you'll find that your income tends to be a lot more variable and less dependent than salaried work. How do you deal with that situation, both in terms of financial planning and making things more predictable? Join us to learn more. View as a video on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm5K4YiTf8o Link of the week: Serverless Computing for Dummies
Mar 6, 2024
How to Use LinkedIn to Generate Leads
When you have your own practice or business, lead generation is obviously critical. But how should you go about it and, specifically, is LinkedIn a good channel for lead generation? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on Youtube. Links of the Week: The basics of secret management Learn: AI in Software Testing
Feb 28, 2024
How Does Insurance Work When You're a Freelancer?
Insurance is pretty straightforward for those in the salaried world. But when you go off on your own, how does it work? What kinds of insurance do you need to think about, and how do you obtain them? Link of the week: Your Complete Guide to Test Automation Frameworks
Feb 21, 2024
How Should You Handle Raising Your Rates?
This is something near and dear to the heart of any freelancer. The time has come and you've decided you need to raise your rates. How do you tell your clients about it, and how do you manage this process of rate raising in general? Link of the week: How To Test Proxies
Feb 14, 2024
How Do You Break the Feast or Famine Cycle?
Anyone who has hung out their shingle to freelance has likely encountered the so-called "feast or famine" cycle. What is this, why is it suboptimal, how do you get out of it, and how long does it take to get out? Link of the week: The Pros and Cons of Test Data Synthetics (or Data Fabrication)
Feb 7, 2024
What Do Freelancers Do When They Get Sick?
Sick time is pretty straightforward for employees. But how does this work when you go off on your own as a freelancer? How do freelancers handle it when they get sick? Link Picks Check out Tricentis Tosca: Intelligent test automation Ever wondered why distributed apps need dependency management?
Jan 24, 2024
Should You Build a Business in Your Own Name or Pick a Brand Name?
You're thinking of starting a business or a freelance practice. Should you name the business and website after yourself, or should you create a separate brand for it? Links of the week: What Makes a Good Enterprise Release Manager? Understanding Playwright Selectors: A Guide Microservice tools: The top 10 for monitoring and testing Apex Triggers in Salesforce: A Beginner’s Guide Learn Data integrity Android emulator vs. real device testing: Key differences Android testing: An easy introduction with examples
Jan 17, 2024
Managing Context Switching When You Have Multiple Clients
If you're working on significant projects in parallel for multiple clients, you might find yourself mentally "thrashing," or struggling with the context switching between the different projects. How do you handle that? Links of the week: Get started with GitHub Actions Test Environments: Why You Need Them and How to Set It Up Playwright and GitHub Actions: Getting Started How to Call Batch Apex in Salesforce, the Quick and Easy Way Learn Regression testing
Jan 10, 2024
What’s the Difference Between a Freelancer and a Consultant?
People toss around the terms "freelancer" and "consultant" a lot -- often interchangeably. But what does each really mean, and what's the difference? Link picks: Learn to create a Kubernetes cluster in AWS What does bimodal mean in the context of release managment? Need to create multiple Facebook accounts? Proxyrack has a guide for that. A tutorial to help you get started with Salesforce QA and Testing Check out our friend Tricentis for all your test automation needs
Jan 3, 2024
Is It a Problem for a Freelancer to Have Just One Large Client?
Is it a problem for you, as a freelancer, to have just one or two large clients? The short, easy answer is "yes," but I've got a much more detailed explanation in this episode. Links of the week: Get started with Kafka and Docker in 20 minutes Data Compliance: A Detailed Guide for IT Leaders Web Scraping in JavaScript: A Guide
Dec 20, 2023
What is a Retainer in Consulting and How Does It Work?
You may have heard the term "retainer" as a modifier to describe a kind of consultant. What is a retainer, exactly, and how does it work? Join us to learn more. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * I couldn't actually find where Jonathan Stark talked about the stages of problem solving. Happy to update with a link if someone knows where that is. In the meantime, here's a link to his site: https://jonathanstark.com/ Picks: Learn about data pipelines Exploratory Testing 101 An excellent post about test data management Web scraping in JS
Dec 13, 2023
How Does a Freelancer Get Started with Content Marketing?
You'll hear a lot of conventional wisdom that anyone with a business should do content marketing. Is that right, and, if so, what do you need and how should you get started doing it? Picks: Learn what a production environment is Check out this blog post on how to define enterprise IT environments Proxyrack offers global rotating datacenter proxies This is a great guide for learning the world of performance testing
Dec 6, 2023
Should Freelancers Run Ads to Get Business?
As a freelancer, should you enlist paid advertising to help you get work? The answer, in most cases, is no, but tune in to hear why and what the exceptions might be. Join us to learn more. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * The E-Myth Revisited: Amazon Link Picks: A guide to getting started with the Terraform Kubernetes provider Sand Castles and DevOps at Scale Improve your online gaming experience with Proxyrack proxies Considering stress testing? Check out Neoload
Nov 29, 2023
How Do You Quit a Gig or Fire a Client?
Sometimes it just isn't working out, and it's not you -- it's them. When you decide you have to part ways with a client, how do you go about doing that? Picks: Need a proxy? Check out this list of free HTTPs & Socks proxies If you use Snowflake, this might check out this data integrity product from Tricentis A guide to serverless computing for dummies A useful guide to react environment variables
Nov 22, 2023
What Software Do You Need for Your Freelance Practice?
What pieces of software do you need in order to start out as a freelancer? CRM? Accounting Software? Etc? I take you through the ones that I would recommend in this video. Link Picks; Test environments: Everything you need to know Top 10 Cloud Optimization Tricks What Is SessionBox? End-to-end mobile testing
Nov 15, 2023
Should I Start a Business Bank Account to Freelance?
In this edition of the freelancer Q&A series, I take on the subject of whether or not you should start a business bank account in order to freelance. I think you ought to, and I'll tell you why, and what else I think you should do for finance when getting started. Link picks: Deploy your Django app with Docker HIPAA vs GDPR vs PCI Proxies for Twitter - A Complete Guide API testing for everyone and every app
Nov 8, 2023
Building a Hibernate Training Business with Info Products and Consulting, with Thorben Janssen
This time around in our community speaker series, we talked to Thorben Janssen about building a Hibernate/JPA training business with info products and consulting. Hear about made the transition over time from employed as a software engineer to building and selling online courses and consulting around his area of expertise. To find out more about Thorben: You can check out his site: https://thorben-janssen.com/ Or go to https://persistencehub.com/ to join his community Link Picks: What the heck is event-driven architecture? What Is Proxy Switchy Omega? How Data Breaches Happen? Tosca – Cross Browser Testing
Nov 1, 2023
What Motivates Companies to Hire Freelancers Instead of Employees?
If you're a freelancer, you may be tempted to apply to job openings looking for employees so that you can convince them to hire you instead. Is that a good idea? And, more generally, why do companies hire freelancers versus employees? Weekly Links: What is a staging environment? Data: What Is DevSecOps? Learn Load Testing Proxyrack Residential Proxies
Oct 25, 2023
Should a Freelancer Maintain a Portfolio?
A lot of people will tell you that, as a freelancer, you should create and maintain a portfolio that you can show to prospects. But is that really good advice? Link Picks Local development with PostgreSQL containers Enterprise Release Management – The Bridge between Corporate Strategy & DevOps Test Automation from Tricentis Google Analytics 4 Has Me So Frustrated, We Built Our Own Analytics Service Puppeteer and waitForSelector: A Guide Playwright and GitHub Actions: Getting Started
Oct 18, 2023
What Should You Title Yourself on LinkedIn or in Business Cards?
As a freelancer, it might not be clear what kind of title to give yourself in "official" venues, like LinkedIn or on business cards. What should you put there to best represent yourself? Link Picks: A developer’s guide to GitOps IT Environments: What Are They and Which Do You Need? Bring quality 360 to Salesforce Customer 360 with Salesforce test automation High Performance Images: 2023 Guide ParseHub: What It Is and How It Works Web Scraping in JavaScript: A Guide
Oct 11, 2023
Building a Python Training Business, with Reuven Lerner
This time around in our community speaker series, we talked to Reuven Lerner about starting a Python training business. Hear about how he got into tech, into training, into business for himself, and, eventually into a specific, stable, and profitable niche. To find out more about Reuven: Check out his site: https://lerner.co.il/ You might like his mailing list about training: https://lerner.co.il/e-mail-courses/t ... And, finally, he's on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reuvenmlerner Join us to learn more. If you like this video and are interested in more business and freelance advice, you're welcome to join our free community. You can sign up and check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?even ... These videos are courtesy of Hit Subscribe, a content agency whose authors are all techies: https://www.hitsubscribe.com/ Weekly Link Picks The CI/CD pipeline: A developer’s guide Mastering the Art of Cutover Planning: A Step-by-Step Guide Jira Test Automation Episode 15: Simple Cookie Based Authentication in ASP.NET Core Getting Started With Octoparse Understanding Playwright Selectors: A Guide
Oct 4, 2023
Should Freelancers Give Talks as a Way to Generate Business?
Someone in our community asked whether it was worth it for freelancers to gain recognition by giving conference workshops or online workshops. I generalized this to the subject of "should you give talks as a freelancer to generate new business?" Here's my take. Join us to learn more. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you like this video and are interested in more business and freelance advice, you're welcome to join our free community. You can sign up and check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?even... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Link Picks Sproutward Cast Study What is Privacy by Design Learn DevOps testing
Sep 20, 2023
Is Freelancing a Lateral Career Move?
There are a lot of factors to consider when leaving a salaried job to go off on your own. One of the perhaps lesser considered ones is what, exactly, does this mean for your career. Is starting to freelance a lateral career move, or is it a career advancing move? Join us to learn more. These videos are courtesy of Hit Subscribe, a content agency whose authors are all techies: https://www.hitsubscribe.com/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This week's picks: Release Management Explained in Depth Our Super Friendly AI Sloth that Analyzes Your Observability Data A guide to using Jira for test case management What is the data pipeline and why is it important? 10 cybersecurity predictions for 2024 Big Tables from Glide AdsPower browser: What Is It and What Do You Need It For?
Sep 13, 2023
Bootstrapping and Evolving a Web Development Agency, with Marg Reffell
n this installment of our community speaker series, we talked to Marg Reffell about her experience starting a web development agency and then evolving it over the course of time. Included in this is how she arrived at a decision to scale in the first place, and how she eventually decided to scale back a bit to make sure it continued to be the business that she wanted to run. To find out more about Marg: Follow her on Twitter (preferred): https://twitter.com/margreffell * Check out her website: https://margreffell.com/ Join us to learn more. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This week's picks: Top 5 Container Metrics How to buy a wildcard SSL certificate like grumpy old men What is BDD (Behavior-Driven Development)? The importance of software portability
Sep 6, 2023
How Can a Freelancer Improve Their Sales Win Rate?
In sales lingo, "win rate" is the percentage of prospects you talk to that eventually become customers? How can freelancers improve the rate at which they close business so that their time doing sales is more efficient? Join us to learn more. -------------------------------------------------------------------- This Week's Picks: What makes a good Test Data Manager? The Agile Release Train Explained Automated testing tools Create and manage an AWS ECS cluster with Terraform VectorDBBench - A Vector Database Benchmark Tool
Aug 30, 2023
Should Freelancers Use ”We” on Their Business Websites?
When you're first starting out and building your website, how should you position yourself? Specifically, should you talk about yourself as "I" or should you talk about yourself as "we," the way an agency or larger business might? I definitely have an opinion on this one. -------------------------------------------------------------------- This Week's Picks: Sand Castles and DevOps at Scale Measuring Web Performance in 2023: The Definitive Guide Web Stress Testing All of Your Web & Mobile Applications Manage networking with Docker Compose
Aug 23, 2023
Balancing Serious Side Hustles and Fulltime Work, with Swizec Teller
In this installment of our community guest speaker series, we talked to Swizec Teller about balancing serious side hustles with full time employment. He has balanced a career working for startups in Silicon Valley with building info products and businesses on the side. To find out more about Swiz: Check out his latest project, defining the senior mindset for software engineers, to help get you ahead in your career: https://seniormindset.com/ He also blogs and has a site at: https://swizec.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- This Week's Picks: Check out this useful developer’s guide to containers Check out this great post on enterprise configuration management This Tricentis page on test management software This handy guide on lcp metric This great guide on bpr meaning, steps, and examples This interesting page on codeless mobile testing
Aug 16, 2023
How Do You Vet Clients as a Freelancer?
Not all clients are created equal. Many are great, but some you'd rather avoid. How do you tell the difference ahead of time, in order to avoid the headache of having nightmare clients? _____________________________________________________________________________ This Week's Picks: This easy to digest post on event-driven architecture Check out Enov8's Top 10 Cloud Optimization Tricks This handy guide on quic HTTP/3 This great post on software testing application This handy guide on Slack auto reply
Aug 9, 2023
What Do Freelancers Do for Benefits?
If you're used to salaried employment, especially in the US, you're used to having a lot of stuff taken care of for you when it comes to benefits. Medical, dental, vision insurance covered and mostly paid for, retirement savings, and more. But what do you do when you go freelance and this goes away? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This Week's Picks This handy guide will get you up and running with Django using Kubernetes. This useful guide to healthcare data compliance This episode of the Request Metrics podcast on tweaking systemd services with Ansible is super useful for setting up systemd service environments This guide to QA testing tools This great post on SOC 2 Trust Services Principles Check out this page by Tricentis on End-to-end mobile testing
Aug 2, 2023
When Should You Quit Freelancing?
I get a lot of questions about freelancing, but this is both one of the most interesting that I get and the least-asked. When should you quit freelancing? People set out with nothing but plans for success, so the "when do I do something else" is infrequently considered until things are ugly. I'll walk through how to assess what you should do when things are ugly, but also encourage you to have a quitting scenario from the outset. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------Show notes: The blog post about freelancers and profit: https://daedtech.com/freelancers-arent-yet-business-owners/ The series about freelancers and business: https://daedtech.com/category/business-of-freelancing/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- This Week's Picks: Jira Ticketing System: An Introductory Guide API testing for everyone and every app Episode 11: Connecting to Redis in .NET Core 3.1 Preprod Done Right: The Definitive Guide Creating microservices in Nest.js
Jul 26, 2023
Invoicing Basics for New Freelancers
Invoicing Basics for New Freelancers ------------------------------------------------------ This Week's Picks Deploy a Django app with Kubernetes in 20 minutes Data Compliance: A Detailed Guide for IT Leaders Episode 15: Simple Cookie Based Authentication in ASP.NET Core Tricentis Tosca: Mobile application testing A Guide to Integrating Slack and Zendesk
Jul 19, 2023
From Employment to Freelancing Collective, with Cory Koehler
In this installment of our community guest speaker series, we talked to Cory Koehler about how he went from being an employee to running a collective of application development freelancers. A lot of folks in our community are interested in exploring models like this, so tune in to hear about Cory's journey. You can find out more about Cory: * Reaching out to him through LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-koehler/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- This week's picks: Master Terraform: A cheat sheet for infrastructure automation What is Release Management (an ERM & SAFe Perspective) Using the Beacon API Tosca – Cross Browser Testing 21 Slack Tips and Best Practices You Haven't Seen Before
Jun 12, 2023
When Should a Freelancer Start Paying People to Do Other Things
Subcontracting? Bringing on a VA or a bookkeeper? As a freelancer, when does the time come to start hiring people to do other things? Join us to learn more. This weeks picks: This Appium tutorial that explains how Appium helps with cross-platform mobile testing, and how to get started with it Guide to columnar databases How to create a Kubernetes cluster in AWS: A walkthrough IT Environments: What Are They and Which Do You Need? Enterprise Salesforce Testing at Lightning Speed User Experience Monitoring from Request Metrics How to create a job requisition approval process
May 26, 2023
What To Do When Freelance Clients Won’t Pay
If you're a new or aspiring freelancer, this is probably one of your worst nightmares. What do you do when a client won't pay? What options do you have and what recourse? Picks ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This offering from Tricentis that provides ServiceNow test automation And this offering from Tricentis, that provides Salesforce test automation
May 25, 2023
Pricing When You Start Your Freelance Practice
In this video, I field a specific question about how to structure pricing for an offering around legacy code remediation. But because that's very specific, I lead up to it, spending most of the video talking about the different pricing models and options available to you as a freelancer. Picks ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This comprehensive guide to building Slack workflows . This Make Me a Programmer post, exploring the difference in nomenclature between software engineer and developer .
May 24, 2023
How to Avoid Bad Clients as a Freelancer
As a freelancer, winding up with bad clients can be the bane of your existence or even drive you back to the salaried world. So what can you do to avoid having bad clients? I walk you through my tactics to help toward this goal. Picks ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This new offering from RequestMetrics, around user experience monitoring . The VERA offering, from Tricentis , that assists with compliance concerns in quality assurance. I'll throw a homer pick for our business, Hit Subscribe .
May 23, 2023
Building an Audience for Your Business or Practice
How do you go about building an audience to help with your marketing efforts for your business or freelance practice? I'll go through all sorts of things that you can do in general, but the most powerful thing you can do is find a niche and be specific about what you offer. Picks ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This post, from Architect, summarizing CI/CD best practices . This detailed guide to data compliance , aimed at IT leadership.
Apr 17, 2023
Interviewing, Negotiation, and Sales as a Freelancer
How do you go about closing the deal as a freelancer? Do you agree to interviews? Do you have some kind of sales that you do? And, in either case, how does negotiation work during the process? In this video I walk you through how all of that good stuff works. Picks ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This post, teaching you to use Google forms to implement a ticketing system . This tool, TubeRipper is cool, and it's what I'm using to repurpose livestreams into podcast audio.
Apr 17, 2023
Freelancing vs Salaried Employment: Is Freelancing Right For You?
Have you historically been a salaried employee, but are curious about dipping your toes in the water of freelancing? In this video I take on a "compare and contrast" of freelancing and salaried employment, and how to figure out which makes the most sense for you. Picks ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RequestMetrics has this cool tool that's an HTTP cache checker . Tricentis and their stress testing offering.
Apr 17, 2023
Incorporating as a Freelancer: Your Options and How to Choose
It's near universal to wonder whether and how to incorporate when you start a freelance practice. In this installment of the freelancer Q&A Facebook Lives, I walk through the options that you have, and weigh in on what I'd recommend, base on my experience (starting 4 different business entities of 3 different varieties over the years). This video walks you though how things work in the US, but some of this might apply in other countries. Caveat emptor, outside of the US, though. Picks ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This post from Architect, about production environments . This post, from Enov8, about deployment planning .
Mar 16, 2023
Should Freelancers Use Upwork?
Another episode from our Q&A series, where I take on Q&A about business and freelancing from authors in our author pool. If you're going to moonlight or go into business for yourself freelancing, should you use Upwork or sites like it? I think there are certain specific situations make this a good fit for you, but generally and on a long timeline, I'd avoid sites like this. Picks ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jonathan Stark, The One and Only A guide to dealing with CSS image effects The fact that Tricentis does test automation for Salesforce This post about building Slack workflows , which is great for minimizing the time I have to spend in Slack
Mar 16, 2023
Making Your Website as a Freelancer
If you're going to freelance, do you need to make a website, and what should that website look like? I actually don't think it's a super high priority for a new freelancer, and you honestly don't need one to get started. But you will need one, eventually, so I talk about when and how to make one. Show Notes ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jonathan Stark Laser Focused Positioning Statement The DaedTech About page (I think that copy is about 4 years old) Picks ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This post, from Architect, about the portability of software resonates with me. Shameless plug for my recent post about tool-user keyword research . Here's a post from friend of the show, Carlos, about release management in detail .
Feb 14, 2023
A Guide to Moonlighting as a Freelancer
Moonlighting is a specific flavor of working that involves working in addition to a normal, full time job. In this episode, I take on a question about how to get started with moonlighting as a freelancer, and what to consider. Join us to learn more. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Picks: I just learned that risk-based testing was a thing, so here's a piece on risk-based testing . I'll throw some love to our community site , aimed at answering questions that mid-career transitioners might have about programming. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These episodes are courtesy of Hit Subscribe , a digital marketing partner in the tech space.
Jan 26, 2023
How to Market Yourself as a Freelancer
If you're a relatively new freelancer, how do you go about marketing yourself? The answer is simple, but not easy. Marketing is about being memorable, and being a generalist isn't memorable, so one of the most powerful things you can do is identify a niche. But, if you haven't done that or don't know how, I have some tips you can use while still in generalist-land. Join us to learn more. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Picks: As someone who (reluctantly) spends a good bit of time in Slack, I like what Wrangle has to offer, which is automation around Slack ticketing and workflows . In producing this podcast, I've been getting a lot of mileage out of this free tool , that you can use to extract the audio from YouTube videos. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These videos are courtesy of Hit Subscribe , a digital marketing partner in the tech space.
Jan 26, 2023
Dealing with Lawyers as a Freelancer
If you're just getting started as a freelancer, you might wonder what you need a lawyer's help with. Do you need a contract? Help setting up an LLC? In this video I offer a take based on my experience setting up multiple businesses of what you do and don't need a lawyer for. Join us to learn more. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Picks For the content work we do, web performance is an important subject, so check out this guide on synthetic testing and real user monitoring . Speaking of content, shameless plug for my DaedTech series about, well, SEO, called " SEO for non-scumbags ." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These episodes are courtesy of Hit Subscribe , a digital marketing partner in the tech space.
Jan 26, 2023
How Do Taxes Work When You Start a Business?
Are you thinking about hanging out your shingle and don't know how taxes work? Maybe you've never thought about how taxes work (you should, though). In this video, I walk you through how taxes work for freelancers in the US. Join us to learn more. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Picks this episode: A while back, one of our authors, Carlos, wrote an article about Git statistics , which I, as a connoisseur of static analysis, can appreciate. Speaking of which, if you're a .NET engineer and like you some static analysis, check out NDepend . ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These episodes are courtesy of Hit Subscribe , a digital marketing partner in the tech space.
Jan 26, 2023
How Do You Get Clients for Your New Business?
Are you just starting out as a freelancer or moonlighter, and wondering how to go about finding clients? In this video I lay out a series of fairly specific tactics freelancers can use for finding clients. Join us to learn more. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Picks this episode: This is a little older, but here's an article from a Hit Subscribe author about the test data manager role . If you ever need a good way to automatically filter out background noise when recording audio, give krisp.ai a look. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These episodes are courtesy of Hit Subscribe , a digital marketing partner in the tech space.
Jan 26, 2023
Setting Your Rate as a New Freelancer
How do you set your rate as a freelancer? I offer two things in this video: A detailed explanation of the philosophical with the idea of "having a rate" A super actionable piece of easy advice for setting it, if you insist on doing this. Join us to learn more. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Picks this episode: I'm always one for a little orchestration, so check out this guide to orchestrating microservices . I've been enjoying using ClickUp for quick and easy documentation of my personal SOPs. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These episodes are courtesy of Hit Subscribe , a marketing partner in the tech space.
Jan 26, 2023
Starting a new Freelance Business: Dos and Donts
In this edition, I tackled the subject of dos and don'ts for starting a new business. Join me for a list of things that I think you ought to do, and a list of things I don't think you should bother with -- some of those might surprise you. Join us to learn more. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Picks this episode: One of HS's longest established authors, Peter Morlion, created this guide on iOS unit testing . In a self-referential, meta-concern, I'm really enjoying Podbean , which I'm using to generate this podcast. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These episodes are courtesy of Hit Subscribe , a marketing partner in the tech space.
Jan 19, 2023
Should You Incorporate to Moonlight or Freelance?
I tackle the question that everyone asks sooner or later: should I create some kind of business or just do business as myself? These episodes are courtesy of Hit Subscribe , a content shop.