The tech side was almost irrelevant. In the end it was about helping the client document good requirements.
Which you could only do after getting a good understanding of their business ops/process, and identifying the gaps and the impact to resources.
Then you put down really good requirements (which is hard), and only then use that to engineer a solution that appropriately addressed the risk (balancing cost/disruption vs. mitigated impact).
That said, often the solution is tech agnostic. I was just as happy punting final implementation to either internal teams or doing it myself (which often involved sub contracting to a specialist).
That may sound like a lot, but it often involved travel, tools, specialized coms gear, etc.
You also have to factor in insurance, taxes, and a myriad of other expenses related to running your own business.
The sweet spot for me was 45k/week, but that normally involves subcontractor payments as well.
The tech side was almost irrelevant. In the end it was about helping the client document good requirements.
Which you could only do after getting a good understanding of their business ops/process, and identifying the gaps and the impact to resources.
Then you put down really good requirements (which is hard), and only then use that to engineer a solution that appropriately addressed the risk (balancing cost/disruption vs. mitigated impact).
That said, often the solution is tech agnostic. I was just as happy punting final implementation to either internal teams or doing it myself (which often involved sub contracting to a specialist).
That may sound like a lot, but it often involved travel, tools, specialized coms gear, etc.
You also have to factor in insurance, taxes, and a myriad of other expenses related to running your own business.
The sweet spot for me was 45k/week, but that normally involves subcontractor payments as well.