Full time or freelance? Permanent employee or contractor? Cubicle or home office?
Freelancer website for App Developers
I have tried all these employment options. For me, there's a clear winner. After spending a couple decades at corporate powerhouses like Intel Corp, Tektronix, and Mentor Graphics, I dared to convert my small time moonlighting into full time contract work as a freelance web application developer. When I went freelance for good, I was fortunate to be in my seventh-year sabbatical at Intel Corp. This meant I had an extra two months of paid vacation. I used the time to round up clients, and I have never wanted to go back. No more commute, no more TPS reports, and no more pro forma meetings. I now had complete control over my career and my success.
I am often asked if I miss the cubicle world. Absolutely not! Perhaps the greatest enjoyment of contract work is the appreciation I receive from my clients. In the corporate world, the overlords take for granted that you will do their bidding, and they rarely ask for your opinion. But to my contract clients, I am the expert engineer. My advice and experience are valued. After I fulfill the clients' business needs on time, under budget, and with quality panache, they express gratitude!
My favorite scenario is a greenfield web application project for which I have carte blanche to assemble the proper technologies and architecture. I can design for the near- and long-term needs of the client. This is where my experience as an engineer pays off; I have completed enough projects, using best-in-class technologies, that I can speak with authority when designing a new system.
Of course, nothing is perfect, and freelancing has a large downside (and I'm not talking about the lack of paid benefits!). A contractor must keep the work "pipeline" full. That requires a significant amount of time and effort. Establishing a consistent pay rate that matches your market value is difficult, because not all clients can afford a senior engineer. Sure, there are lots of job boards that act as dating services between contractors and clients, but they have about the same success rate as real dating services.
The job boards simply haven't figured out the correct business model yet. The better way to connect clients with contractors is to have a pre-vetted pool of contractors and retain them with repeated project success. Vetting a new contractor must be technically thorough, and done by other engineers. It can't be the slipshod qualifying that is done by the typical, technology-illiterate headhunter. That's where Toptal comes in. Toptal is a broker for clients and contractors, like the job boards, but Toptal maintains a community of elite engineers and developers that have qualified themselves with multiple levels of skill tests. This formula is a win-win for clients and contractors. Clients have a higher probability of project success, and contractors have a steady supply of work at consistent rates.
To answer the question I posed at the beginning of this article: as a Toptal member, the clear winner in the choice of permanent employee or contractor is me!
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Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Monday, May 20, 2013
Jolla Revealed
The First Look of Jolla Phone Launches Today!!
"The Other Half is gonna be awesome!!"
Price: 399€
Configurations:
"The Other Half is gonna be awesome!!"
- Jolla original design with ample 4.5” Estrade display
- Dual core and 4G
- Keep it and share with 16GB + microSD
- 8MP AF camera
- User-replaceable battery
- The Other Half
- Gesture based Sailfish OS
- Android™ app compliant
Pre-order a limited edition Jolla and get an exclusive limited edition Other Half and cool Tshirts.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Android Studio
The wait is Overrrr!!
Introducing Android Studio: An IDE built for Android
Get Android Studio !!
Today at Google I/O we announced a new IDE that’s built with the needs of Android developers in mind. It’s called Android Studio, it’s free, and it’s available now for you to try as an early access preview.
To develop Android Studio, we cooperated with JetBrains, creators of one of the most advanced Java IDEs available today. Based on the powerful, extensible IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition, we've added features that are designed specifically for Android development, that simplify and optimize your daily workflow.
This new build system allows you to build your projects in the IDE as well as on your continuous integrations servers. The combination lets you easily manage complex build configurations natively, throughout your workflow, across all of your tools. Check out the preview documentation to get a better idea of what the new build can do.
Smart editing features such as inline resource lookups make it easier to read your code, while giving you instant access to edit code the backing resources. Advanced code refactoring gives you the power to transform your code across the scope of the entire project, quickly and safely.
We added static code analysis for Android development, helping you identify bugs more quickly. On top of the hundreds of code inspections that IntelliJ IDEA provides, we’ve added custom inspections. For example, we’ve added metadata to the Android APIs, that flag which methods can return null and which can’t, which constants are allowed for which methods, and so on. Android Studio uses that data to analyze your code and find potential errors.
Easy access to Google services
We wanted to make it easy for you to harness the power Google services right from your IDE. To start, we’ve made it trivial to add services such a cloud-based backend with integrated Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) to your app, directly from the IDE.
We’ve also added a new plugin called ADT Translation Manager Plugin to assist with localizing your apps. You can use the plugin to export your strings to the Google Play Developer Console for translation, then download and import your translations back into your project.
Note: This is an early access preview intended for early adopters and testers who want to influence the direction of the Android tools. If you have a production app with a large installed base, there’s no need to migrate your development to the new tools at this time. We will continue to support Eclipse as a primary platform for development.
If you have feedback on the tools, you can send it to us using the Android Studio issue tracker.
Introducing Android Studio: An IDE built for Android
Get Android Studio !!
Today at Google I/O we announced a new IDE that’s built with the needs of Android developers in mind. It’s called Android Studio, it’s free, and it’s available now for you to try as an early access preview.
To develop Android Studio, we cooperated with JetBrains, creators of one of the most advanced Java IDEs available today. Based on the powerful, extensible IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition, we've added features that are designed specifically for Android development, that simplify and optimize your daily workflow.
Extensible build tools
We know you need a build system that adapts to your project requirements but extends further to your larger development environment. Android Studio uses a new build system based on Gradlethat provides flexibility, customized build flavors, dependency resolution and much more.This new build system allows you to build your projects in the IDE as well as on your continuous integrations servers. The combination lets you easily manage complex build configurations natively, throughout your workflow, across all of your tools. Check out the preview documentation to get a better idea of what the new build can do.
Powerful code editing
Android Studio includes a powerful code editor. It is based on the IntelliJ IDEA, which supports features such as smart editing, advanced code refactoring, and deep static code analysis.Smart editing features such as inline resource lookups make it easier to read your code, while giving you instant access to edit code the backing resources. Advanced code refactoring gives you the power to transform your code across the scope of the entire project, quickly and safely.
We added static code analysis for Android development, helping you identify bugs more quickly. On top of the hundreds of code inspections that IntelliJ IDEA provides, we’ve added custom inspections. For example, we’ve added metadata to the Android APIs, that flag which methods can return null and which can’t, which constants are allowed for which methods, and so on. Android Studio uses that data to analyze your code and find potential errors.
Smoother and richer GUI
Over the past year we’ve added some great drag-and-drop UI features to ADT and we’re in the process of adding them all into Android Studio. This release of Android Studio lets you preview your layouts on different device form factors, locales, and platform versions. Below you can see a multi-configuration preview side by side XML editing.
Easy access to Google services
within Android Tools
We wanted to make it easy for you to harness the power Google services right from your IDE. To start, we’ve made it trivial to add services such a cloud-based backend with integrated Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) to your app, directly from the IDE.We’ve also added a new plugin called ADT Translation Manager Plugin to assist with localizing your apps. You can use the plugin to export your strings to the Google Play Developer Console for translation, then download and import your translations back into your project.
Open source development
Starting next week we’ll be doing all of our development in the open, so you can follow along or make your own contributions. You can find the Android Studio project in AOSP athttps://android.googlesource.com/platform/tools/adt/idea/Try Android Studio and give us feedback
Give Android Studio a try and send us your feedback! It's free, and the download bundle includes includes everything you need, including the IDE, the latest SDK tools, the latest Android platform, and more. .Note: This is an early access preview intended for early adopters and testers who want to influence the direction of the Android tools. If you have a production app with a large installed base, there’s no need to migrate your development to the new tools at this time. We will continue to support Eclipse as a primary platform for development.
If you have feedback on the tools, you can send it to us using the Android Studio issue tracker.
(source)
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
The Google I/O 13 Countdown Begins!
Google I/O kicks off this Wednesday, May 15th at 9AM...
Streaming Live: https://developers.google.com/live
Live stream Google I/O content: developers.google.com/io
Get the Google I/O 2013 Android app.. click here
Watch All Actions LIVE!!
