How can engineers get freedom of life?

How can engineers get freedom of life?
I used to be a freelancer in my childhood. I felt like a hero in a few meters of comics. I have tried many times in my career for many years, but I have no choice but to be brave enough to fall in love with the high salaries of large companies. Today I think about this topic carefully.

In fact, the so-called "freelancer" seems to focus on "freedom" (most people are running here). What actually implies is "Making Money"-in the novel "tired travel, the days of Idle Work also require money to support. So it depends on how you make money. Here are several common channels for programmers to make money:

1. Traditional offline access projects
There should be many programmers who have similar experiences of "taking private jobs". Companies of friends or friends may want to do some publicity websites, background management systems, etc, the fee ranges from several hundred to several tens of thousands.
This kind of activity is mostly issued by non-IT companies, with low technical content, but high communication costs. The boss doesn't understand the Internet and users, and the business changes over time. Today, we say IT will change tomorrow, some have done it for a month and told you that the project is not done, and some have decompiled your code for others to do-there are all strange things, the early contract is not used, and the mid-term business is capricious, late payment arrearage is severe.
Programmers who intend to maintain a "free career" in this way must have two characteristics: either luck or strong business capabilities (not technology, in the business field involved in the project, we should step in front of the customer, know what the customer really wants, think what the customer can think of, and include communication skills ). Of course, there is also a need, that is, there are many friends and there is a job.

2. Emerging online connection projects
In fact it is not too emerging, foreign http://Freelancer.com domestic pigs are such. This method is similar to the previous one, but has the following advantages:
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2) compared with offline bosses who do not understand the Internet, the average quality of people who can post here is slightly higher.
3) Global Pay can be obtained from foreign customers -- although the dollar is currently weak, it is still more than in China.
Programmers here also need to possess the previous characteristics: good luck and strong business.

3. Connect pure R & D tasks from big online platforms
For example, TopCoder should be known to anyone who has worked on algorithms. Most of the above tasks do not need to focus on the overall business situation. They only need to pull down small tasks, such as writing unit test cases for a piece of code or completing a small algorithm. One of my friends wrote this for two days every weekend, and there were nearly a thousand knives each month. If I had done well to get a prize or something, tens of thousands of knives would have arrived.
Programmers who maintain a "free career" in this way have low requirements for business capabilities and Global Pay. The disadvantage is that there are high technical and standardization requirements, English communication, and time difference. (Eat youth meal :))

4. Consult with the company
One is a temporary consultant. In my early years, I published some technical articles related to video conferences on the internet and received various emails. Many of them volunteered to provide paid guidance.
The other is a consultant from a resident company. I am surrounded by a friend who has been working for more than 10 years and is hired as a consultant for the company of my friend (who also serves as a consultant for several companies). Now I bring my children at home every day if I have nothing to do, every month, I went to my friend's company to show my face three or four times and gave guidance on the technology and business direction. The last week of work in a month was very easy.
When consultants have high requirements on technology, business, and communication skills (because they want to guide others), they also have certain requirements on the resources around them. Of course, the income is also high. I personally think it is not suitable for young programmers.

5. Make your own products
Okay, this is what I am doing now. Generally, you like to say "start a business ", but now, my Partner and I are basically freelancers-I went out to play when I had no company or had a bad mood to write code, went to bed at night, woke up in the morning, and played games two weeks after I went online for the first two weeks. I went home one month ahead of the Chinese New Year, and then drove FaceTime to the cafe downstairs to write code ...... It should be a bit like a freelancer in a novel. Thanks to Apple for providing an App platform that is so friendly to individual developers (compared with the domestic Android Market ......).
In this kind of free career, I personally think that it is very important to select a platform. In the Web Age, I would never do this.
Requirements for programmers: Understand products, users, and mobile development. Earning more and earning less depends on your skills.