Web Developer Stephen Adams
About this episode…
WEB DEVELOPER STEPHEN ADAMS
Stephen wasn’t looking to go freelance, but when redundancy came 10 years ago, he took on a contract for a few months. And here he is all those years later, saying he’d never go back.
In between he’s evolved specialisms, written a book that became a course and started working remotely. Stephen takes time out on side projects and courses to always stay on top of trends, tech and skills - thinking about what his clients might want now and in the years to come.
And what about what he wants? As he nears the end of his 40s, Stephen’s now exploring what a future in freelancing will look like for him and his family.
Read the highlights in the next tab.
WRITE THAT BOOK
A few years ago Stephen wrote a book on a particular type of web development. It’s not necessarily made him loads of money, and it was a lot more effort than he thought it’d be, but it has made a difference…
“It's a learning experience writing a book, 'cause you think you know something and then when you start really diving into it, there's so much that you learn.
I think writing a book… helps you have a good understanding. It gives you that level that you are a specialist in that topic. And I think that helps with opening doors to other things eventually..”
KEEP YOUR SKILLS UP TO DATE
Maybe web development changes more than most industries, but it’s good for all freelancers to keep an eye on trends, tech and skills. To spend time developing ourselves…
“If your skills aren't up to speed and you don't know the latest stuff or the things you've done are out of date... you'll find it hard to keep working, to find new projects.
The web development world is always so fast paced, there's new things coming out all the time and it's crazy. So you gotta keep up to speed with what's going on, what trends there are, what technology's being used and what people might want.
So you do have to spend a lot of time learning new things, building side projects that you might not even put out there, but you are just learning how to use a new technology. You're watching a lot of courses, you're watching a lot of stuff on YouTube - you're doing a lot of work about keeping your skills up to speed and that's what most of my side projects are.”
SPECIALISING NATURALLY
Particularly in web development, Stephen thinks it’s important to specialise. But that doesn’t mean you’re stuck being known for that thing forever. You can follow what interests you and evolve your specialism over time.
“I will specialise in this for a little bit and then something else might come up and I specialise in that. But it's making sure that you are saying that this is what you do and this is what you specialise in and everything you are writing about is about that. So you get known as somebody who specialises in something.”
NEVER GOING BACK TO FULL TIME EMPLOYMENT
Stephen might work in 3 months and upwards stints with companies, but in ten years, he’s never been tempted to go back to working permanently for one company.
“No… I see all the things that permanents have to go through. Every couple of months they've gotta say what their targets are and they have to have all these meetings and I think, oh that's such a pain. I don't know how they do it.
And then also as a contractor you can go, well, I wanna do something different. I wanna specialise or learn about something else. So you'd finish a contract, you might take two weeks off just studying, doing some project work and then you can say, right, well now I'm gonna start applying for some of these jobs where I'm using this new technology that I want to get into.
And I think that gives me more control over what I do for my career. So I've never been tempted to go back to being permanent.”
More from STEPHEN ADAMS
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Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and Web Developer Stephen Adams
Steve Folland:
We've got Stephen Adams, who is a freelance web developer. How about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Stephen Adams:
About 10 years ago I was working for a startup in London. They decided to start moving over to the US. And as part of that they got a new tech manager within the company and he started to basically get rid of everybody in London. So I got made redundant there and then I had to find something new to do. I wasn't really looking to go freelance, I was just looking for something. And then I saw a contract role come up for a company down in Camden, applied for the job, got the job, then had to do all the stuff about setting up a business and setting up a bank account while I started working. And then, yeah, I've been doing that ever since. So it's been about just over 10 years now.
Steve Folland:
So when you say it was a contracting job. What does that look like for you?
Stephen Adams:
They usually say it's like three months and then you'll get to the end of the three months and then they say, Do you want another three months? And then you'll find you could be working with somebody for about a year, <laugh>. So it can keep rolling and rolling and rolling. I think I've had some contracts now it's been two years, but that all sort of stopped recently because of the whole way that they tax people (in the UK), so they can't keep people for years anymore.
Steve Folland:
So you tend to work on one project, one client at a time. Like you're fully immersed, you might even go into their office.
Stephen Adams:
Yeah, yeah. I used to be down on site working for that one client for three, six months solid. Just that.
Steve Folland:
How do you cope then with that uncertainty? At the end of that three months, it could be another three months... Or they might have finished and they let you go. How do you deal with lining up the next thing?
Stephen Adams:
So I used to give myself about four weeks before it ended and then start talking to the recruitment agency to see if it was gonna be extended or talking to the, if I was getting along well with the people I worked with are the manager there, start talking to them to see what they were thinking. And then if there was no real answer, sometimes I have looked around and they've left it and left it and left it and it's got right to the end and they said, Oh, we'd like to renew you. And I go, Well, I've got something else now lined up 'cause you haven't told me <laugh>. So I have had a couple, where I've said, well I'm gonna do something else now. So I got onto something else.
Steve Folland:
Oh, it's like a relationship.
Stephen Adams:
It is, yeah. <laugh> <laugh>.
Steve Folland:
So via recrutiment agencies, is that how you typically find work?
Stephen Adams:
Yeah, that's what it used to be like when I started it used to be, you would go into like a job serve website, see a job, put your CV on there, fill in a bit of blurb about yourself and send that off. And then you'd get a recruitment agency ringing you back saying you applied to our job and then might give you details about it and you'd go from there and then they put you forward for it and then you go for an interview. But now that's kind of changed. I think a lot more people are finding work direc through Twitter and social media. LinkedIn's getting more and more popular now. I think people are finding you directly as well through things you might make doing outside work. Recruitment agencies are still like my main way of getting work, but a couple of times I've found work directly through LinkedIn and Twitter as well.
Steve Folland:
Where people have found you or you've found it?
Stephen Adams:
Um, one of them was, I was tweeting a lot about something I was doing and then somebody I sort of knew on Twitter worked with a company who were looking for somebody who could do what I was doing and they put me forward and then I started talking to the manager of that place and it went from there. Another one, it was on LinkedIn and you put on there that you're open for work and the internal recruiter for that company contacted me. They said that they need somebody for work for their client. And so I was working for that company on their client's project and that was through LinkedIn.
Steve Folland:
And if you get a job through a recruitment agency - do they simply hand you over and they get a fee from that company or do you work via that agency?
Stephen Adams:
They don't really do a great deal they just get your CV, they get it all arranged for the interview. You go for the interview. Then if you get it, they sort out all the paperwork, the contracts and then that's it. You don't really hear from them until it's renewal time - that's about it. And the rest of it, is just me with the client directly on site or remotely now
Steve Folland:
Is a lot more stuff remote these days then?
Stephen Adams:
Yeah, I haven't worked in an office now for maybe two or three years.
Steve Folland:
How have you found that difference?
Stephen Adams:
I really like working remotely. I used to be down in London and commuting for a couple of hours a day and I hated commuting and I still do. So the whole remote working I think is ideal for me now. I really enjoy it. And I mean, what you used to find is you get developers and they'd come into the office and then you'd sit there with your headphones on for eight hours a day blocking out all the chat that's going on around you <laugh>, and then you'd go, Right, see you tomorrow. And it's just crazy. I didn't talk to anybody. You just sit there coding away all day long and then they go home. So I didn't see the point really of developers sitting around all these managers all the time. I think it's just so people could watch and make sure you're working. I think that's what it was.
Steve Folland:
So you said you got that first gig and suddenly you had to set yourself up as a company. Did you have a company name?
Stephen Adams:
Yeah, so I had to go and make up a company name and then set myself up an account at Company's House (UK institution) and then go to a bank and set up a bank account, all while I was working on this contract.
Steve Folland:
So what name did you come up with on the spur of the moment?
Stephen Adams:
So my company name is CGC Software and the reason I came up with that is my wife's name's Caroline, my daughter's name's Georgia and my son's name's Charlie. So that was the CGC and then Software because it was a bit techy.
Steve Folland:
I thought you were about to say 'and Software' because that was the name of the Guinea Pig <laugh>. That's nice though. Personal.
Stephen Adams:
I have to stay married now or find somebody with a C <laugh>.
Steve Folland:
Oh yeah, that's true. Going through recruitment agencies, did that mean that how you put yourself out there online, your website, stuff like that, was that fairly secondary? Because to a lot of freelancers that feels quite important.
Stephen Adams:
Yeah. I mean if I was a graphic designer or a copywriter, um, I think their website is a lot more detailed, a lot more, this is what I do, this is how I do my work than a lot of web developers - cause web developers, you're kind of employed for what you can do, what you've done before and what technical skills you have now. You could all list that on one page really. When I started it was just like a CV with a list of technical skills and a list of the places I worked at. Now it's getting a bit more that you are using sites like GitHub to show code that you've written or projects that you've worked on. You can put your code in your project on those type of websites and people start to look at those a lot more.
Steve Folland:
So if I go to your website today, would that be quite different then from how it used to be?
Stephen Adams:
Yeah. It used to be very boring and a lot of, I've done this, I've done that and then I spoke to uh, what was her name?.. Sophie... And she was on one of your episodes once and she was talking about the copywriting and the work that she did and what she did for people's websites. So I contacted her and then she sent me loads of questions about what I do, how I work, all that type of stuff. And she came up with the copy that's on that website and she gave me sort of like a structure for it. I sort of said what I want to try and get out of it. And then she sort of gave me the ideas and structure, so I put it all together. So now it's a lot more divided into what I've done, what services I can offer, you know, why would you come to me? What else have I done outside, like some of the other projects I've done that type of stuff. So it's more of an all over, if you want to work with me directly kind of website.
Steve Folland:
And do you find that works for you?
Stephen Adams:
It has and it hasn't. I haven't got loads of direct work through it. I've got more through LinkedIn and social media I'd say. But I think what happens is people may see me, and then go to the website and read through it to see what else I've done and get a better idea. But it doesn't really get a lot of work directly. But I don't really do a great deal of blogging on there, which is something I should do more regularly. Cause that's quite a good way of getting in work cuz you are starting to write regularly, people start to read your articles, it gets more promotion that way. Somebody will forward something you've written and then people start seeing you as a specialist in something and then it slowly snowballs and gets bigger and bigger until you're finding that people say, Well I need somebody who can do this and then your name's on top of the list or higher up a list of people, you know, it springs to mind. That your name's somebody they could contact to help out or you've written about something that they've got that problem with. So they might come to you and say, Well we know you wrote this about fixing something, we've still got that problem. Can you help us? And you get work that way. So it's definitely something I should spend more time on and build up some more, but I just haven't at the moment.
Steve Folland:
But you wrote a book right?!
Stephen Adams:
Yeah. Few years ago. This very big technical publishing house came to me - I think it's because I was writing about a specific mobile app development framework - and they came to me and said, would you write a book on it? We've got an idea of something. And they sort of gave me a title and then I started doing it. But they want you to do it really quickly, so they get the book out. And I was a little bit slow cuz it's the first time I'd written a book. So I was spending a lot of time on it as well as working full time and then they sort of said, well, can you just do this bit instead? So they cut it down, changed it a little bit, and then I was nearly finished and they said, we're not gonna release it, but you can keep all the content. So then I went on to Lean Pub, the self-publishing site. And I released it through that. Because I'd done all of that writing for it. But yeah, it's a learning experience writing a book, 'cause you think you know something and then when you start really diving into it, there's so much that you learn. But, I think finding the time and putting in the effort... It's a lot more work than you'd think. But I did enjoy it.
Steve Folland:
It clarified your thinking. But have you got anything else out of it? Like, does anybody mention it? It's called Getting Started with Angular. Now, I don't know really what that means, <laugh>, but I'm imagining if you use Angular, then that would make you go, Oh wow, well he must really know what he's talking about with Angular. So, yeah. Has it helped you?
Stephen Adams:
It has a bit. After I did it, I went into interviews, technical interviews and when I was chatting to clients I thought I knew a lot more and I felt more confident and so I could go in there and I knew that any question they'd ask me, I'd probably be able to answer it, you know. So I had a lot more confidence in talking about Angular than I did before. I think cuz I'd, I spent all that time researching it and writing about it. So that helped. And I think that came across in my interviews. I knew as soon as I went for that interview and I came out of it, I felt confident that I was gonna get that job. So that definitely helped. I think it also did help when people were looking at a list of candidates and then they go on there and they see that I had written that book about it. So yeah, I must really know what I was talking about. So I think that helped. I don't think I ever got anybody sort of saying, I've read your book, will you come and work with us? So that never really happened. But I think writing a book as a developer helps you have a good understanding. It does give you that level that you are a specialist in that. And I think that helps with opening doors to other things eventually.
Steve Folland:
And did you then take that 'getting started with Angular' and turn it into a course?
Stephen Adams:
Yeah, so that was a company and they contacted me and said we'd like to turn it into this course. They took all the content in there and just created a course and they sell it through their site. And yeah, I get a little bit from it every once in a while. That's not a great deal of effort. So I spent all the time on that book, but I think the course has done better. Probably <laugh>. So yeah. That did well.
Steve Folland:
So actually reflecting on it, you're glad you wrote that book.
Stephen Adams:
Yeah, and I am thinking of doing another one as well because, like I said, it gives you that specialism. You really focus on a topic and if you want to work with something, I think spending that time writing it really gives you a good technical grounding in it. You've kind of got to learn all of it to talk about it and it's the best way of understanding something is by teaching it. So yeah, I think I would definitely do another one on a different topic, but I would do it myself and not through a... Well I say that, but if a publishing company said to me, we'd like you to write one and they didn't say we want it done by next week... Or else I'll publish it myself.
Steve Folland:
Do you still do side projects? Not the book, but as in coding?
Stephen Adams:
Yeah, cause basically as a freelance web developer, if your skills aren't up to speed and you don't know the latest stuff or the things you've done are out of date... you'll find it hard to keep working to find new projects. Cuz in a web development world it's always so fast paced, there's new things coming out all the time and it's crazy. So you gotta keep up to speed with what's going on, what trends are, what technology's being used and what people might want. So you do have to spend a lot of time learning new things, building side projects that you might not even put out there, but you are just learning how to use a new technology. You're watching a lot of courses, you're watching a lot of stuff on YouTube, so you're doing a lot of work about keeping your skills up to speed and that's what most of my side projects are. And then every once in a while I might do something like that book. That was a big one.
Steve Folland:
Now I introduced you as a freelance web developer. Already the word angular is being thrown around like I know what it means. Which makes me think actually, do you have a specialism, is there a niche? Did you just get me to call you a web developer because you were being kind to me or is that how you portray yourself online?
Stephen Adams:
So yes and no <laugh>. So I would say I would go for a job as a 'front end developer' or 'web developer', but then when you look through what they want you to do, they will say we want you to be X, we use this tech stack to build our projects and that could be angular, that could be react, that could be something else. So I decided to focus on Angular cause I'd used it a lot and then I did the book and I spent a lot of time on that. So that was the sort of avenue I went down as an Angular developer. But it does change over time. You do specialise, but what I found is I've specialised in about four different things over my career and probably, I think now I'm looking to do something completely different from angular, so I might move away from that but still do web development in a different tech stack. But then you specialise in that. So I could say I am an Angular developer or I could say now I'm a Vue JS developer cause that's the new thing I do. But it all comes under this, being 'a web developer' .
Steve Folland:
When you say you've changed specialism four times... Is that just kind of natural, like you don't necessarily consciously change what's written down online and things like that? Or you just see where the wind takes you and just start applying for those things?
Stephen Adams:
Yeah, it's pretty much been like that. Yeah. Every time I sort of change specialism it's just because, so like for now I've done Angular for the last few years. This current project I'm using something called Vue js, which is another framework for building websites and web applications. But I quite like it. So I think in, I might start specialising in this for a little bit and it's because I've just got exposure to it from the current project I'm on. And so what I have found is it's never been like I have really set out to change to do something. I get exposed to something, I'm starting to use it and I think, oh I like this, I like the way this works. I will specialise in this for a little bit and then something else might come up and I specialise in that. But it's making sure that you are saying that this is what you do and this is what you specialise in and everything you are writing about is about that. So you get known as somebody who specialises in something.
Steve Folland:
How have you got on with like the business side of freelancing? Was it kind of dictated to you by agencies?
Stephen Adams:
I think at the beginning it was agencies just sort of sending me off to work on projects. And I think now as I've been doing it longer and longer, the business side has become more and more important to me. Before it was just, uh, I needed a bank account, I needed a business name, I've gotta invoice. And that was it. But now it's more, I think as I've gone along and I'm starting to do different things, like I said the book and the course, maybe doing another book and things like that. The business side's coming more important to me. Especially as I'm getting older as well and you're thinking about, I don't wanna be just one of these people who just goes and sits somewhere for three months working at somebody's desk and then going somewhere else. I might wanna build it into something that's a little bit more varied and might be better for the long term as well. So the business side I'm beginning to look at and build upon and maybe look at different things to try and, you know, build more of a business that can support me longer term than just something that's a company name and a bank account.
Steve Folland:
What does that look like for you? You're thinking long term. How old are you?
Stephen Adams:
I'm 48.
Steve Folland:
So you're in your later forties. So how does that change the way you're thinking?
Stephen Adams:
I think now as I'm older, when you go for, say you go for jobs now, there's a lot more younger web developers there who may have been their mid twenties and thirties. And so they go work in a startup. A startup might want, somebody's gonna be there, you know, all odd hours and just work really hard. And as I've got older, I just think that's not for me. I would like to work remotely all the time. I would like to eventually maybe not be working on one project from Monday to Friday. I might like to do three days a week on one thing, two days a week on something else. Or more consulting than just development. So that could be, you know, a couple of hours with one person, couple of days with somebody else. And then maybe the last couple of days or the last day a week doing my own thing. So lmy own projects, open source development work is quite popular and something that I'd like to get into, writing more as well. That's definitely an avenue I'd like to build upon and converting those into courses as well. So moving away from just being a developer, sitting at a desk coding away all day long but expanding it into other areas because I think as I get older I don't really wanna be just going down, sitting at somebody's desk for eight hours coding away with my headphones on.
Steve Folland:
So actually that long term picture is more about how your week looks, how you spend your time. It's interesting you say about consulting cuz I must say when you were talking about the book and the specialism and the course I was thinking, this actually kind of reminds me of the episode of this podcast with Jonathan Stark. He was a developer. He wrote a book about a specialist subject and then became a consultant about that subject..
Stephen Adams:
Yeah, I remember the Jonathan Stark episode and it does seem like a lot of people now don't just develop for eight to ten hours a day on one project. There's a lot of other things that people are doing as well, like open source projects where they're coding on libraries and projects that help that other people are using. That becomes quite big. And I think web developers now have a lot more avenues to doing other things now. And I think as I'm getting older I don't wanna, yeah I wanna start getting into different things and maybe, you know, changing the, the way my working week is cuz I got more time now I think cuz my family's older, I've got more time to sort of build a business that's gonna support me when I'm older. So then I could quite easily, you know, take a week off but still be getting an income in at the same time, you know, through books and courses and things like that.
Steve Folland:
You mentioned holiday though. Is taking time off something you've struggled with?
Stephen Adams:
At the beginning. Yes, because you have your company, you've gotta build up money in your company to pay yourself. I think what I found at the beginning is there wasn't a great deal there cuz you've just started. I think now after 10 years it's a little bit easier for me, so I could take a week off and it doesn't hurt too much but I know that when I come back I'm doing something, I've got work to carry on with so that helps. So it's a little bit better than it was. Definitely. Yeah. But it takes a long time I'd say.
Steve Folland:
Another thing I was wondering was you know you're talking about Twitter and LinkedIn and things like that when you're working on those longer term contracts, but also you're now thinking about, you know, perhaps transitioning from that, how much time you spend staying 'visible', like marketing yourself I guess.
Stephen Adams:
That is something that you do have to spend more and more time on now. I think I do have to do more, especially on LinkedIn. I think LinkedIn's become quite popular and quite useful now, it can be quite powerful but you have to put the effort in. You know, say you do a full day's work and then you finish and you think, well I don't really wanna sit in front of a computer now and then start writing big posts on LinkedIn? But you do have to start doing that stuff. But again, it's like, you start off slow and over time it takes the effort and then eventually things start to pick up. But it is a lot of work up front that you have to do. But it is, I think it's so much more important now than it's ever been this whole self-marketing for freelance web developers and web developers in general. Really, even if you are working for somebody, a lot of people now are still out there writing, doing open source work and they're still working full-time for companies. That's how companies find web developers now. They might find them through their open source work, their Twitter, their LinkedIn and then they go to one permanent company to another. And they're not freelance. So it's very important I think now.
Steve Folland:
Have you ever been tempted to do that? To go in house? I guess you see a job that comes up, takes your fancy, but it's not freelance, it's permanent. Have you been tempted?
Stephen Adams:
No, because 1) I could work on a project and I could be working with full-time developers, you know, permanent developers and contractors and I see all the things that permanents have to go through. So there's like all these, every couple of months they've gotta say what their targets are and they have to have all these meetings and I think, oh that's such a pain <laugh>. I don't know how they do it. And then also 2) I can go, well I'm not really enjoying this now I wanna try something else. So I'll just get to the end of my three months and say thank you, I'm gonna go and do something else. But with the permanent, it's so much harder to change and if you are working on the same sort of project all the time, your skills can get stale, cuz you'll say at that one level - as a contractor you can go, well, I wanna do something different.
Stephen Adams:
Oh I wanna specialise or learn about something else. So you'd finish a contract, you might take two weeks off just studying, doing some project work and then you can say, right, well now I'm gonna start applying for some of these jobs where I'm using this new technology that I want to get into. Then you can start going for interviews and you've got the knowledge through all this study that you've been doing to go for it and you might get this new job and move on to something else. And I think that gives me more control over what I do for my career. So I've never been tempted to go back to being permanent.
Steve Folland:
Okay. Stephen, if you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Stephen Adams:
I think it would be to specialise in something. That's fine if that specialism changes over time, but I think specialising is so important now cuz it you can just start to set yourself differently from other people. All your marketing around it as well can be focused around that. And I think that really helps you set yourself apart from others even though others are doing something similar. But you can be really, 'this is what I do and if you need somebody to help doing that, I'm the person for that'. So I would say specialising.
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