Freelance Again

Time to dust off the old blog.

For the better part of two decades in technology consulting, I've been a member of a great team at Soliant Consulting. Prior to joining Soliant, I spent four years freelancing. Admittedly influenced by The Big Quit, I made up my mind in the first half of 2022 to return to the freelancer life.

It's not a decision that I made lightly, for a number of reasons.

At the top of the list, financial stability. It's hard to overstate the appeal of a generous salary and benefits that appear as if by magic every month.

Another big draw was being part of a team that allowed me to not just work in the business, but on the business. Freelancing is essentially a solo sport, whereas being on a team is a much richer meta project of inventing, defining, and refining best practices that give the team unity and polish.

As a member of a team that has been named a Best & Brightest Company to Work For in the Nation for the past four years in a row, one of my biggest concerns was exiting in such a way as to not screw over my long-time teammates.

Ultimately, I realized that my Fernweh only had one cure, and admitted to myself that my path had diverged from Soliant's; I needed more control over my own time.

As it turns out, Soliant was more flexible than I had any right to expect, and after some months of discussion we designed a new working relationship.

So, effective January 1, 2023, I am technically a freelancer, but with Soliant as my anchor client. This means that I get some of the best from both worlds: more control over my own time, but with a steady income, strategic work on the business, and membership on an awesome team.

I have resigned my full-time position as Director of Engineering, and my new part-time consulting relationship is as Principal Technology Strategist for Soliant Consulting, Inc.

As far as what I'll be doing with the rest of my time, that is a story for another time, though I will state here that I'm not planning on taking additional clients in tech at this time.

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