What you say it's so true - team culture and environment can certainly make or break how well we can create that work/life balance for ourselves. Definitely staying in IT broadly or staying in software development and just find a company that can fully support my wish to work less is on the cards for me. Essentially, the real reason behind all this is that I've started volunteering in my community and I'm slowly realising how, while I enjoy coding for a living, there are so many things I could be doing in my community and by coding professionally at the moment I am basically stopping myself from doing those things, because I never have enough time to dedicate both to the community and my family and my job. So, essentially, my alternative plan if I can't find a very comfortable job in IT/software is to stop working in IT/software entirely and find a job in the community. I'm considering going back to university and re-training either as a teacher or in the health sector (I'm volunteering in the health sector as a supporter). I would have to start a new career from scratch. But I'll always be able to keep coding for fun in my spare time!

Thanks Mycroft, Yes it sounds like I should forget it, indeed. Well, that's good to know.

Thanks Sander. I know what you mean, that's exactly why I wanted to ask the question in the first place, just to find out whether by freelancing and taking on just one project or two one could still make some little money. The fact with committment is that actually I do show committment and I can't help but wanting to commit, because I understand that my employer has deadlines and I don't want to let my team down. But at this point in my life I can see that I'm missing out on some many things, by being this committed. It sounds like I should not consider freelancing but rather I should focus on changing my career to something entirely different and just keep coding for fun in my spare time.

Thanks :) Yes, I suspected there might be quite a lot of work to do in terms of defining how much I should quote for jobs. And yes, I have considered perks and stuff - although I am in the UK which at least means the health insurance side is trivial *for now* state health care is free and good quality. Thanks for pointing all of this out, though.

Thanks :) This is very useful, I will check out ContentLab and Upwork and see what they look like. I am considering contracting. In fact I am actually considering even retraining to another profession at the moment! Something that would be more part-time able. I am the bread winner at the moment, but my partner does have a full time job (which doesn't pay a lot, but it's quite secure) so I guess I don't necessarily have to be the bread winner forever. I will see. But again, thanks for your tips :) really useful to get all options down on the table before I make any kind of move.

Hi all, hope everyone is having a good day :) I was wondering, is there anyone on here that does freelance work so that they can work very little? I'm somewhat sick and tired of working for a company and having to show committment - I am not very good at drawing a clear line to separate work and life and I am also not very good at pushing to do mainly stuff I enjoy at work. So, lately I've been toying with the idea of dropping my day job and get my freedom back to define exactly how many days a week I want to work for money and how many days I want to just code, or just be with my kids or help out my local community. But I'm not sure this is actually doable, without starving! Thanks for sharing your thoughts :) Nicole

Yes, I was undecided between the two :)

best answer so far XD lol

Hello everybody, Say you were a .NET dev with 3-5 years experience and you could choose a line to add to your cv, which of these would you prefer? 1 - working in a fully agile environment 2 - developing Saas 3 - an official microsoft certification 4 - javascript 5 - android

ah ok, so I think I should just make some research for the right company, then... Thank you very much for replying!

yes, it's exactly what I'm doing now... turning winforms into wpf and XMLs into sqlite database records ;)

...I guess I've never seen an integer overflow really happening... really sounds like 8 months in hell!! Good luck

I guess he/she left no comments and no readable code, right? We're in the same boat, more or less :)

Well, I'm not saying the intern's code from 2006 is necessarily worst than mine: I'm just saying that, supposedly, in 2014 I have more instruments than what he/she had back in 2006 and, also, it might be the case that stuff he/she used at the time is not working anymore, got lost, et cetera... Also, my IDE is going to complain a lot about this 2006 project, before letting me actually edit it. Software simply gets old (and ugly), it's not the coders' faults.

C#... from 2006

Yay!! Happy monday morning to everyone... I've just started my week editing code written by an intern back in 2006... Is there someone out there who's starting his/her week worst than me?

Eheh XD parent's kitchen is always to be raid, for it's a fabulous place full of mum's cakes ;)

Sorry to hear about your wife :( At least we're young and some day or another we can just run away to some other place with a growing economy where he could find a whatever job. My friends are almost all gone to the UK now... Have you ever thought of moving to a cheaper country and work remotely, so that your salary ends up to be valued like two salaries? They say they have good and cheap hospitals and doctors in eastern Europe, and the cost of living there is ridicolous... (but wait until Ukraine stabilizes :))

Nice! I'd love to work in Cote d'Azur... Yes, one probably doesn't get all the amusements of the big city, but I wouldn't miss them. Is it true that French companies only hire you if you hold a master degree and won't accept a bachelor? Also, do you think it is important to speak French in order to get a job in software development in Cote d'Azur? I might try and look for some opportunity there...

I am one of the few lucky people who still have a job in Italy!! :D My office is in a little seaside town in an old nice building with paintings of ships from the renaissance on the ceiling (no kidding!!) BUT my boyfriend spent the last year looking for a job and I'm paying all the bills alone: we've been living with 1100 euros per month for almost ten months now... Thank you Italy :(