Webmaster’s Rewards and Risks
Wayne Correia had it all--a house, a car and a secure, well-paying job on a software development team with Apple Computer Inc. But when he discovered a little-known computer network called the World Wide Web, he decided to quit his job and strike out alone as an independent Web page designer.
Two years later, 29-year-old Correia is still a freelancer, and he’s not disappointed. And he’s the rule rather than the exception.
Although some large firms have highly paid Webmasters on staff and other Web page designers have banded together to form small firms, most of the people who program in hypertext markup language for a living are freelancers. There are no reliable statistics on the proportion of Web page designers who are self-employed, but self-reliance is a major part of the Webmaster culture.
Career experts have long been predicting that the steady job of yesteryear will become increasingly rare. But the multimedia industry is especially prone to freelance work because technology makes it easy for individuals to work from remote sites--often homes--with little overhead. And little security.
“High-tech jobs are often the most volatile and least secure in the business,” said Paul Saffo, a director and technology analyst with the Institute for the Future, a Menlo Park-based think tank.
Correia knows about volatility. After “killing” himself last summer on a lucrative three-month contract, he took the rest of the year off to sleep in and socialize. He started working again in January.
From his loft in San Francisco--equipped with a high-speed connection to the Internet that he shares with a neighbor down the hall--he works on a consultant basis and spends up to 20 hours a week drumming up new business and taking care of other office duties.
Most people in Web design are between the ages of 20 and 35 and pull in about $40,000 a year working on freelance projects, according to an informal survey conducted by an HTML discussion list on the Internet. Correia said his income is about the same as when he worked for Apple although his cash flow varies widely.
“There are definitely dry spells where I wonder how I’m going to afford my rent this month or how am I going to pay my Visa bill,” Correia said. “I’ve let my credit cards slip a month if I have to. It happens to everybody.”
That’s why Zoe Heimdal, who recently started designing Web pages on a freelance basis, hasn’t quit her day job as a graphic designer at a law firm.
“I don’t feel at all that it is a stable enough market to risk my rent on,” Heimdal said. “One week, you’ll be staying up until 2 a.m. cranking out several projects at once, and the next week you’re lucky to get a business card to design.”
But for the most part, Web page designers are embracing the freedom that comes with being one’s own boss.
“I like to say I’m going to take a two-hour lunch break and go sit by the water and read,” Correia said. “I can do my job at midnight when the phone stops ringing.”
