Hit Subscribe Freelancer Q&A

Should a Freelancer Maintain a Portfolio?

A lot of people will tell you that, as a freelancer, you should create and maintain a portfolio that you can show to prospects. But is that really good advice?
 
Link Picks
Local development with PostgreSQL containers
Enterprise Release Management – The Bridge between Corporate Strategy & DevOps
Test Automation from Tricentis
Google Analytics 4 Has Me So Frustrated, We Built Our Own Analytics Service
Puppeteer and waitForSelector: A Guide
Playwright and GitHub Actions: Getting Started

What Should You Title Yourself on LinkedIn or in Business Cards?

As a freelancer, it might not be clear what kind of title to give yourself in "official" venues, like LinkedIn or on business cards. What should you put there to best represent yourself?
 
Link Picks:
A developer’s guide to GitOps
IT Environments: What Are They and Which Do You Need?
Bring quality 360 to Salesforce Customer 360 with Salesforce test automation
High Performance Images: 2023 Guide
ParseHub: What It Is and How It Works
Web Scraping in JavaScript: A Guide

Building a Python Training Business, with Reuven Lerner

This time around in our community speaker series, we talked to Reuven Lerner about starting a Python training business. Hear about how he got into tech, into training, into business for himself, and, eventually into a specific, stable, and profitable niche.
To find out more about Reuven:
Check out his site: https://lerner.co.il/
You might like his mailing list about training: https://lerner.co.il/e-mail-courses/t...
And, finally, he's on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reuvenmlerner
Join us to learn more.
If you like this video and are interested in more business and freelance advice, you're welcome to join our free community. You can sign up and check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?even...
These videos are courtesy of Hit Subscribe, a content agency whose authors are all techies: https://www.hitsubscribe.com/
 
Weekly Link Picks
The CI/CD pipeline: A developer’s guide
Mastering the Art of Cutover Planning: A Step-by-Step Guide
Jira Test Automation
Episode 15: Simple Cookie Based Authentication in ASP.NET Core
Getting Started With Octoparse
Understanding Playwright Selectors: A Guide

Should Freelancers Give Talks as a Way to Generate Business?

Someone in our community asked whether it was worth it for freelancers to gain recognition by giving conference workshops or online workshops. I generalized this to the subject of "should you give talks as a freelancer to generate new business?" Here's my take. Join us to learn more.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you like this video and are interested in more business and freelance advice, you're welcome to join our free community. You can sign up and check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?even...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Link Picks
Sproutward Cast Study
What is Privacy by Design
Learn DevOps testing

Is Freelancing a Lateral Career Move?

There are a lot of factors to consider when leaving a salaried job to go off on your own. One of the perhaps lesser considered ones is what, exactly, does this mean for your career. Is starting to freelance a lateral career move, or is it a career advancing move? Join us to learn more.These videos are courtesy of Hit Subscribe, a content agency whose authors are all techies: https://www.hitsubscribe.com/ -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This week's picks:
Release Management Explained in Depth
Our Super Friendly AI Sloth that Analyzes Your Observability Data
A guide to using Jira for test case management
What is the data pipeline and why is it important?
10 cybersecurity predictions for 2024
Big Tables from Glide
AdsPower browser: What Is It and What Do You Need It For?

Bootstrapping and Evolving a Web Development Agency, with Marg Reffell

n this installment of our community speaker series, we talked to Marg Reffell about her experience starting a web development agency and then evolving it over the course of time. Included in this is how she arrived at a decision to scale in the first place, and how she eventually decided to scale back a bit to make sure it continued to be the business that she wanted to run. To find out more about Marg:Follow her on Twitter (preferred): https://twitter.com/margreffell * Check out her website: https://margreffell.com/ Join us to learn more. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
This week's picks:
Top 5 Container Metrics
How to buy a wildcard SSL certificate like grumpy old men
What is BDD (Behavior-Driven Development)?
The importance of software portability
 

How Can a Freelancer Improve Their Sales Win Rate?

In sales lingo, "win rate" is the percentage of prospects you talk to that eventually become customers? How can freelancers improve the rate at which they close business so that their time doing sales is more efficient? Join us to learn more.
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------
 
This Week's Picks:
What makes a good Test Data Manager?
The Agile Release Train Explained
Automated testing tools
Create and manage an AWS ECS cluster with Terraform
VectorDBBench - A Vector Database Benchmark Tool

Should Freelancers Use ”We” on Their Business Websites?

When you're first starting out and building your website, how should you position yourself? Specifically, should you talk about yourself as "I" or should you talk about yourself as "we," the way an agency or larger business might? I definitely have an opinion on this one.
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------
 
This Week's Picks:
Sand Castles and DevOps at Scale
Measuring Web Performance in 2023: The Definitive Guide
Web Stress Testing All of Your Web & Mobile Applications
Manage networking with Docker Compose
 

Balancing Serious Side Hustles and Fulltime Work, with Swizec Teller

In this installment of our community guest speaker series, we talked to Swizec Teller about balancing serious side hustles with full time employment. He has balanced a career working for startups in Silicon Valley with building info products and businesses on the side.
To find out more about Swiz:
Check out his latest project, defining the senior mindset for software engineers, to help get you ahead in your career: https://seniormindset.com/
He also blogs and has a site at: https://swizec.com/
----------------------------------------------------------------
This Week's Picks:
Check out this useful developer’s guide to containers
Check out this great post on enterprise configuration management
This Tricentis page on test management software
This handy guide on lcp metric
This great guide on bpr meaning, steps, and examples
This interesting page on codeless mobile testing
 

How Do You Vet Clients as a Freelancer?

Not all clients are created equal. Many are great, but some you'd rather avoid. How do you tell the difference ahead of time, in order to avoid the headache of having nightmare clients?
_____________________________________________________________________________
 
This Week's Picks:
This easy to digest post on event-driven architecture
Check out Enov8's Top 10 Cloud Optimization Tricks
This handy guide on quic HTTP/3
This great post on software testing application
This handy guide on Slack auto reply