You can make a lot more money as a self-employed software developer. It can really help you build a better life, where you pick the kind of work you do, the kind of people you work with, and can even set the hours you want. While all of this is true (and is said endlessly to developers), there are some downsides to being self-employed. None of them are things that should make you completely avoid self-employment, but they are things that you need to consider if you are thinking about being your own boss. If you don’t, you may get some very unpleasant surprises while working for yourself. We’ve both been self employed at different points in our careers. While the experiences included some of the best experiences of our careers, they also included some of the most boring, tedious, frustrating, and frankly enraging experiences of our lives as well. There’s a lot of stuff about self-employment that most people either don’t realize, or believe isn’t a big deal. This is the stuff that gets you. Whether it is dealing with the obscene amount of paperwork that insurance companies require for you to liability insurance, the way taxes work, cashflow management, or simply the sudden shift in your social dynamics, becoming self employed is not a small change in your lifestyle. In fact, it can be fairly drastic and, if you are poorly prepared, can absolutely destroy your ability to make a living. Being self-employed is a huge step towards financial freedom, and security. It can seriously improve the quality of your life over the long term. However, it does have its downsides that you need to mitigate. It’s something we highly recommend doing, so long as you are prepared for it. Too often, people have a bit of a rose-tinted view of self-employment and quickly get discouraged when they find out that it isn’t what they thought it would be. If you want to do this, be prepared and think about the issues we’ve raised – if you handle them well, it can work for you. Links Join Us On Patreon Level Up Financial Planning