It is an exciting time, as I have been quitting my high-rank day job for pursuing a different way of working. I am currently preparing self-employment, which should start around july.

Not everyone, certainly not my boss, understood why I am choosing this path. During the last months at 1&1 I was responsible for two teams with 20 developers in Munich and Bukarest. Since starting there, we have created some of the most successful mobile applications for the german market. I had a lot of great colleagues and also friends at work. Why did I look for something new? There were some good reasons for me:

• The salary did not reflect this and there was no way around it because of company policy.
• While being responsible for all these people and projects, I was not empowered to decide anything. Even small technical decisions had to be signed off by multiple committees, gatekeepers or just molesters in the company.
• My career had peaked at the company. There was realistically no other role to move into or further climb the corporate ladder.
• Losing my personal time, especially for Paragliding, because of important projects, meetings, etc…

Overall, the career was a pretty good one, but also very limited. This might be adorable again, when I have kids and other priorities in my life. At this moment, I feel the need to take on more risk in exchange for better opportunities.

Working self-employed is something I always wanted to do, but have set back because my career as an employee went too well and was a good time so far. While there are obviously more risks and not everyone likes this style of working, I hope it is the right thing for me. What I specifically hope for is:

• More freedom to organize work and play time, as well as choosing tools and projects.
• Getting paid better.
• Getting to know many more companies and people. A 3 Month inhouse project is worth much more than a great interview, because people will perfectly know how you work.
• Becoming more diversified skills and not depend only on a single company/boss.
• Be closer to the business side of software development. When you are self employed, it is much simpler to start a project and try to monetize it, because you already have the legal setup.

Let’s see how it works out 🙂