
Check it out [here](https://css-tricks.com/fixed-background-effect/).



Before we dive in the discussion, fun fact, see that bridge in the image on the right? It's in my college town.

It's much longer than it seems in the image. Wind makes it dwindle and I've only crossed it once because I'm genuinely afraid of heights.

Back to the topic, the software engineering field is an amazing [field to be in](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm).

The demand for good engineers is high and going up. The average income is high, the unemployment is low, you can work remote, you can freelance/contract.

Also, it’s a field that allows for a lot of pivoting either within it (full-stack to frontend) or to other engineering fields (sysadmin, network, cybersecurity, web3).

But, one thing I questioned once was...

> What if we were in an economical crisis?

There hasn't been any data looking at software engineers (avg income, unemployment) in a real crisis. I'm talking the bad kind, not like 2008.

I'm thinking something like the 1930s depression era.

We can't see how **software** engineers would fare in such a crisis, but we can see how engineers in general have done in that era.

## Life as an engineer in the Great Depression

I have aggregated data from quite a few places (including a book!) and this blog post has lived in my iCloud notes for a while now, so you will have to take my word with these numbers. Sorry 🤷🏻‍♂️.

Anyways...

In 1929 to 1934 (worst of the depression), engineer unemployment was at most 10,1%. Whereas the general average unemployment reached a peak of 24,9% at one point.

So, if you were an engineer you were doing observably better than the average person from this regard.

Also, I'm sure at least some of that 10,1% were unemployed by choice.

The ones that weren't unemployed by choice, I'm willing to assume that at least some of them weren't that greatly skilled to begin with.

My point? **If you were good at your skill & willing to work, you'd likely have kept your job or found another.**

Let's talk about average income as well:

The average yearly income in the 1930s was $1.368, whereas an average engineer with 2 years of experience would earn around an average of $2.000 per year.

Adjusted to official inflation, that today would have been [$22.235](https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1929?amount=1368) and [$32.508](https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1929?amount=2000) respectively.

Side note: I urge you to [reconsider the validity of official inflation numbers](https://inflationchart.com/spx-in-m3).

## My conclusion?

Even in a major economical crisis, if you are an engineer you will be ok. Even more so if you are a software engineer, I recon.

If you are in tech, you are in an amazing position. You will likely always have a good income so long as you are willing to work.



I've been wanting to make a case study of this website for a while now.

It's, I believe, a good piece of proof that I can handle decently large production projects.

And when I say large I mean high six figures in revenue and about 1,400 people actively using the membership side of the website.

## Short Recap of the project

Generally, I believe my client's words are worth more than mine regarding our work together, so [here's a link to Stirling's video testimonial + my recap of the project](https://youtu.be/OpHEtX50HHc).

That said, if you prefer reading, here's the cliffnotes:

- We started working in December 2020, launched the brochure + membership site successfuly in January 2021
- I was a bit under time pressure since Stirling pre-sold his course that needed the website's membership area to be delivered to users
- We kept on building on the website throughout the year (admin dashboard which allowed Stirling to add/remove users, functionality to host more than 1 course)
- I've built this with PHP on a Linode VPS, altough now I've transitioned to Typescript and Next.js as my favorite stack
- I was supposed to build Stirling's new site, but I quit freelancing since I'm transitioning to a new field

Why did I quit freelancing? [Read here](https://alexlazar.dev/posts/why-i-quit-freelancing).

## What have I learned from this website?

Over the 1 year I've worked on this website, I have learnt 2 major things.

1. Stick to a framework (welcome Next.js 🥰)
2. Whenever time allows, implement testing

It's unfortunate that we've had a few situations where I've deployed with bugs solely because I was inexperienced and didn't know anything about TDD.

Stirling was super understanding and I evidently worked overtime to fix it all.

I remember at one point, when we were adding functionality to host more than 1 course, I went to sleep only to wake up at midnight to a bug report and fix it, half asleep, in 1 hour 🤯😂.

Needless to say, that was very stressful for me.

That's why now, especially since I'm making the transition to the crypto world where bugs can result in BIG money losses, I want to focus more on testing.

## About Stirling

He doesn't know I'm writing this & I'm not sure if he will ever read this, but I wanted to dedicate a section to him.

He is an amazing client. Super easy to work with, always has his copy & assets ready before I even need them, pays on time, knows what he wants and listens to expert advice.

I'll be honest, he's my best client yet. If I had 5 guys like him, I might not be [quitting freelancing](https://alexlazar.dev/why-i-quit-freelancing) 😂.

To whomever works with him, if you do a good job and are serious about your work, I'm sure you'll find yourself very happy to have him as a client.

P.S.: He already has a new web developer so don't try that angle 😂

P.P.S.: While you're here, check out some of [my other articles](https://alexlazar.dev) or, even, check out [my YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBTlMP2ODwm0_Apy4wMoy5g).



## I made almost $20k this year and I'm quitting 🤯

If you've read [this article](https://alexlazar.dev/posts/about-me) you already know a bit about how I got here and you know that I made almost $20k in 2021 freelancing as a web developer.

Which is shit if you live in New York, but it's pretty cool if you are a 24y old in Romania were the average person earns like $12k.

_Yes, I know on paper Romania's average income is $5,7k but that's just wrong. A lot of people in this country do not report their income or pay taxes._

There's a few caveats though:

1. I spent some of that $20k on business stuff (a new macbook, programming courses, software, referral commissions, etc)
2. I didn't work full time. I had about 3 months where I didn't actually get ANY paid work.

That said, it was a pretty good year, and I had good prospects/leads for next year.

So...

## Why did I choose to quit freelancing? 🧐

There's a few reasons. Let's recap them at first, and then dive into each of them.

- There are higher paid fields than web, like crypto & web3;
- It's a grind to find new clients and negociate rates with them;
- It kinda gets boring to build the same landing pages & blogs time and time again.

## I can make more in web3 💸

Probably the first reason to quit freelancing is that I could earn more as a software engineer in the crypto/web3 field.

And it's very important to note that, unlike web development, the crypto field has more opportunities for employees or long-term contractors than for freelancers.

According to [CryptoCurrencyJobs a Solidity dev earns $80k a year on the low end](https://cryptocurrencyjobs.co/salaries/solidity-developer/).

Isn't that great?

The reality is, even if I'd work full time as a web dev freelancer, I'd probably still fall short of that. Unless I'd hire people and scale, but then you have the issue of finding enough work to keep them all busy.

Marketing & sales **IS NOT EASY**...

## Finding clients & negociating deals is a grind, especially when...

Especially when you also need to fulfill the work.

It's far easier to do one or two things within your business than to handle: web design, frontend development, backend development, deployment, sales, marketing, lead generation, creating content, etc.

By getting a job, I can focus on far fewer things and it makes my life easier & less stressful.

## I'm bored 🥱

Web3 problems are novel to me. Therefore, more interesting than building a landing page or blog or eCom store.

These are things that I have done already quite a few times and it really does get boring.

## Drawbacks?

Freelancing obviously gives me the most freedom & flexibility in terms of how much I work, when I work, how I work, etc.

A job can be more restrictive, but it's not necessarily that way.

In fact, in the world of crypto where most companies are DAOs (decentralised autonomous organisations) there's a lot of freedom.

It's a bit like the wild west. They don't ask for a college degree, they don't require you to be available 9-5 within a certain timezone and there is little bureaucracy.

So long as you get your work done, you're more or less good in most crypto companies.

Which means there isn't that much of a freedom drawback IF I stick to crypto/web3 companies.

Which is what I intend to do.

## Conclusion?

More money, more stability, funner challenges and similar freedom.

In theory it sounds great, right?

That's why I'm giving it a shot. I'm in the middle of learning & building a web3 portfolio and DMing companies.

There is, of course, a chance I might not like working as an employee in a DAO and I end up coming back to freelancing. That's fine, I still feel I need to take this shot.

**Fun fact:** I am actually DMing these guys. The primary means of communication in the crypto world is Discord. No email or anything corporate.

P.S.: Check out [my first ever smart contract right here](https://github.com/lazaralex98/voting-contract).



## My first PC 👨🏻‍💻

I remember having my first PC when I was 5 and the internet when I was 7. This was back in the early 2000s in Romania when most people didn't yet have a PC nor an internet connection.

(Thanks mom & dad!)

While I was primarily using it only to entertain myself or my friends, I believe that becoming 'computer literate' is the first prerequisite towards becoming a software engineer.

Having a PC & an internet connection was also the start of me learning English. Which is also a major part of me being where I am at today.

## My first encounter with computer programming

I remember first coding back in 7th grade in school. Our IT professor was supposed to teach us a bit of PASCAL, among other IT skills like Excel and whatnot.

I had an inclination for it and was first in my class at it. It was super fun to create logical sequences of if/else statements which would make the terminal do what I wanted it to do.

What happened though is my family, which was pretty wealthy **at the time**, pulled me out of school for a few weeks so we could go on a ❄️ winter vacation.

We went to Dubai ✈️ for a week and then we visited a few ⛰ mountainous cities/towns in north Romania.

_As a side note, I was as priviliged & spoiled as you could be in Romania at the time. Altough my parents were very strict regarding my school grades, I was given everything I wanted._

The point is, by the time I got back to school, the class was so far ahead on PASCAL that I couldn't catch up to them.

My little flame of interest towards programming estinguished and I took up boxing.

## Years passed, the wealth was lost & I had to figure something out

Over the years my father was imprisoned, my family lost a big chunk of its wealth and I found myself in my early twenties not knowing what to do next.

I was 'groomed' to inherit and take over the familiy businessess, but these businessess did not exist anymore.

So, I had to set out & blaze my own path.

I've wandered a bit. A few things happened:

- a car crash where I caused the death of a person (it's a hard topic for me still and it's also what got me on probation)
- I quit boxing for the most part
- many drunken parties & a lot of wasted time
- a short stay in the UK where I hoped I would find better opportunities
- a layman job in construction job under my father's company (what was left of it)

Eventually, in October 2019, I happened upon my now good friend [Abuamerican](https://twitter.com/abuamerican). We were strangers, he mentioned on Twitter that he needed a website & I emailed him saying I could do it for him.

I didn't know much besides being able to set up a basic WordPress website. But I figured that was still better then the broken Wix website he used to have at the time.

And that's how I got into web development...

## Being a web freelancer 🤑

At this point, I figured that for the first time in my life I'm onto something. I had the hope that I might be able to build a business of my own.

So, I started doing 2 things:

1. I learned more about building websites
2. I emailed more people to offer my services

In my first 12 months I made like $2-3k. Which is kinda shit, but I saw progress so I stuck with it.

_It's important to note that, even with my family being far poorer, I still didn't have to worry about rent, utilities or food. For the most part, I could spend most of my money on my desires._

In my second year I made somewhere around $20k, but I also learned a ton from a technical aspect.

It's also of note that I never really worked full time... at least not for long periods.

Whereas at the beginning of my career I was a WordPress 'developer' after 1 year I was building custom web apps with plain PHP. And by now, December 2021, I have already graduated to Next.js, testing and Github 🤯.

I can only now honestly call myself a real software engineer to be honest.

## What's next?

I'm learning Solidity and web3 and I'm looking to break into this industry and have my first real job. 👨🏻‍💼

Wish me luck! 🍀



I've put in a good 3 days into building this .md file based blog, and I actually really like it.

I'm too spent to write anything right now though.

But... **hello world**, welcome to my blog.

Cheers!

P.S.: I actually still need to integrate ConvertKit in that newsletter form you see, but whatever. Aaaand I need to deploy to my domain which I'm having transfer issues with 😅🤯


I'm Alex