Expectations of a Coder 101

So you want to be a coder or a coder/designer? What is your level of expertise? Their are so many levels to choose from these days. With the advancement of computers, mobile phones, tablets, and the list goes on and on. How do you choose what you want to dedicate your time too?

You can be an expert in
1. Design
2. HTML/CSS
3. Javascript
4. Java
5. PHP/mySQL
6. ASP
7. NET
8. Flash
9. Mobile Apps
10. Tablet Apps
11. C#
and the list goes on!

The point here is that some people are professionals in probably 1 or 5 of these tops. So if you don’t make it clear to your clients what it is you’re capable of up front, they will think you know how to do everything on every platform and it will look good too…And this is the problem!

In short, you need to make it clear to your clients up front what is your offering on what platforms based on your expertise or it may come back to bite you in the end.

For example. “I am making this website for you, and it will work good on your desktop computer and laptop computer. Any other devices will cost this much.”

Making these points as clear as possible and definitely having a contract that states these things are a must for even small companies or even the individual coder. This will save you tons of phone time explaining or even correcting the client as to what you services include.

Here is an amazing set of contracts I would recommend from Arsenal called the Freelance Survival Kit.