Return to contracting!
Monday, May 31st, 2010Well, after almost two years of working with Money Dashboard working with them building their excellent Personal Finance Management tool, I’m returning to contracting.
Why am I bailing from a full time job and returning to contracting? Lots of people have been asking me this over the last few weeks and I thought I’d actually put my thoughts out into the world – at least that way, it will hopefully stop me having to explain it time and time again! (And, I’d hope, it might help a few people who find themselves in a similar situation make the leap).
First up, it’s not as if I have never been contracting before – it’s something that I used to do when I lived in the South East, and I did enjoy it. But with the hassles of moving, a “steady” job was far more enticing, so I left contracting when returning to Scotland. That was a good five / six years ago. In that time, the regular pay cheque was lovely, but it lacked the stimulation and freedom that I wanted.
A number of things changed in my personal life, as well as my outlook on various things, in the past six months – and it’s in that time that I started actively looking at returning to contracting. The flexibility as well as the time to pursue some ideas of my own appealed to me. That, and a contract opportunity in Hawaii.
Anyway, the long and short of it is that I’m now contracting, trading under Wildfire Software, and will be working on developing a number of applications – some industry focused, some security related (I know, I seem to have developed a thing for security!), but generally, keep your eye out. Oh, and why not follow my “work” twitter account?
Contracting is not for the faint of hearted – you never know when your next job is (let alone your next pay cheque!), but the rewards (and freedom!) are amazing – I’m so looking forward to actually having time off!
This isn’t to say that I’m escaping from Money Dashboard … I still have the need (actually, probably more than ever now!) for Personal Finance Management … and can’t wait to see how the application matures and grows. Now I’m wanting some more contractor friendly tools to appear in it 
Expect some pictures from Hawaii to appear 
