I'm a bit late to this thread, but also wanted to express my thanks to Jeff for mise. I have a lot of different projects in my ~ directory in various languages and with various task runners. Migrating dependency management and wrapping tasks in mise's task runner has removed so much cognitive overhead getting spun back up on projects I haven't touched in a while. Great work!
glad to hear! I got more flak than praise when I launched tasks 2 years ago since people didn't want mise to get too complex but I'm glad I stuck with my guns and pushed it anyways. I thought bringing tasks and tools together made a lot of sense and I'm glad you're seeing the value of it
I've had good luck with Keepgo (no affiliation) for low-cost backup eSIMs. Once you add the initial data, it's good "forever" as long as you add something to it once every year. I bought 10GB just over a year ago to have a backup on a different network than my primary plan. Recently added $3 to keep it alive for another year.
I left my job (Senior Developer at an Agency) a little over a year ago. I did have a plan in that I've always wanted to build a SAAS product, but I knew going in that it was very unlikely to be successful enough to make a living at.
It's been overwhelmingly positive experience for me. Caveat is that I have no children, no debt outside of student loans, and had several years of living expenses saved if I needed it.
The peaks:
- I built a SAAS product I'm proud of that a few companies are using and paying for. This has been on my bucket list for a decade or more.
- I have total control over how I spend my day, which has mostly (see valleys) been a tremendous boon for my mental health.
- I've had a healthy amount of time to spend with my partner and loved ones (although Covid obviously complicated this pre-vaccine).
- I've had more time to focus on my hobbies, and have made more progress on music in the last year than ever before.
- I've managed to contract with some great companies and individuals to cobble together a meager living while still having a lot of control over my time.
The valleys:
- Some days can feel directionless. Sometimes I can turn this into a positive and take a meandering walk and think about things, sometimes it makes me feel unproductive and down on myself.
- Even though I've barely tapped into my savings, I'm frequently concerned about money / unplanned expenses.
I run a SAAS product that helps digital agencies scan/monitor/remediate sites for accessibility issues, and unless one of their clients was recently sued I have a pretty low success rate getting them to start a trial.
There could be a lot of other factors at play (I'm terrible at sales, my landing page isn't good enough, etc), but my sense is that it's not something that is on the radar for most small/medium agencies and freelancers.
These are the folks that are building a whole lot of the web, including the local businesses that people using assistive technologies would really like to be able to access easily.
Perhaps your marketing efforts are directed in the wrong place. You are trying to convince digital agencies that they will be able to convince their customers of the value of accessibility. This sort of second order education is hard to pull off.
You might have more luck trying to raise awareness among businesses directly. If businesses start asking their agency/developer about accessibility, you'll probably see better uptake rates.
Definitely a possibility, as it not a route I've tried. As I mentioned I'm terrible at marketing and sales ;).
My own experience working in a digital agency was pretty much the same though. If a client was sued or received a demand letter, they came to us asking about accessibility. When we brought it to the client, they often just saw it as us trying to upsell them.
In the end, we just shot for WCAG AA on everything whether the client asked for it or not and built the additional testing into our costs.
I'm a senior developer with over a decade of professional experience building things for the web.
I spent the last 7 years at digital agencies, where I had the opportunity to work with an extremely wide variety of technologies and companies. Late last year, I left to build a bootstrapped software company and have been filling out time with consulting engagements.
Strengths:
* Application architecture.
* Working in legacy codebases.
* Strong UX instincts.
* Bridging the communication gap between technical and non-technical people.
* Teaching and mentoring junior developers.
Most recently built/designed everything you see at https://tidydom.com/ (Laravel & Node). Additional examples of work I've done for clients is available upon request.
I have up to 20 hours a week available starting June 1 for either retainer or ad hoc work.
Hope this isn't considered spammy by anyone, I certainly have no incentive (financial or otherwise) to recommend it, but there's a company called "Life Extension" that allows you to order blood tests online.
They email you paperwork, you take that to a local lab and then get your results online. It looks like Vitamin D is $47.
I used it for a while when I was suffering from a health issue that required regular blood tests, since it ended up being cheaper than a doctors visit + co-insurance for the lab fees.
The biggest downside is there's nobody to explain the results to you, although the report they provide does show if you are outside the normal range of whatever they are testing.
I second this. I use Life Extension. However, I've been paying out of pocket. I'm interested if there's a way to get it covered at all.
By the way, this is really just using LabCorp, and you can order similar tests directly via LabCorp. Might be worth price shopping between them, and checking out their different test options.
I do worry about aging out of this industry and my long-term plan is pretty similar to the path you have taken. My hope is that I can participate in the agency/startup ecosystem for another 10 years before I have to find something else to do. Hopefully that will still be in technology, and will probably be in Higher Ed or at a Nonprofit for a less money but more intrinsic rewards.
I haven't observed specific instances of ageism towards me or others (people being passed over for promotions or treated differently than younger employees), but I also haven't worked with many people 50+ since I started in this sector. I'm not sure how much of that is that people in that age group are looking for a more balanced lifestyle and how much comes from the companies that do the hiring.
