[fishpudding]

to piggyback on one of your points: I see a lot of the same, regarding the rushing in and taking over from quitters. A surprising amount of companies have data platforms with a bus factor of 1.

On the data/analytics side it's a lot of documentation (though clients are often very hesitant to pay for that, which leads to more billing when I have to train replacements), trying to understand data flows, and rewriting band-aid solutions that have stacked up over the years. A fair bit of work goes into balancing what the client wants (new features/reports, new environments etc.) with what the client needs (stability/reliability work, documentation, scalable code).

Consulting freelance is more profitable than working for a firm, but also a lot harder. How will you find clients that have problems you can fix, how will you convince them to take you on, what kind of portfolio/experience can you sell them, etc. It dances this very interesting balance of being a salesperson, a technical expert, and a good communicator (I've often found that these are skills that are NOT positively correlated with one another). Unless you are confident that you will be able to sell yourself, it's easier to start with a firm to learn the role and build a network, but you know your own situation best