[dirtybirdnj]

> I started contracting instead, billing hourly

This is a huge struggle for me. I have difficulty estimating tasks I don't know how long it will take. Then I can't provide cost estimates to customers who want pricing on things they don't understand to begin with. If I am lucky to deal with technical people its ok but I find intense social pain and failure when it comes to getting these important details across to people with a financial interest in not understanding or negging me down.

I really wanted to make consulting a thing for a while but the pain of working with non-technical people makes it almost unbearable.

[tymerry]

I am very lucky, I don't have to do much estimation. I am just a cog in a machine, more senior people break apart work and I execute it. I tried to get a client who has a team in place and just needed extra velocity.

Non-technical people are part of the job, I try my best to explain the tradeoffs of different implementations and let their internal people make those calls. Long term problems are theirs so if they cut corners that is on them in 2 years.