I've been using Protel98/99SE for the past 5/6 years working for large companies on in house projects. This has involved taking designs from concept through to production and support. Recently my current employer has decided to stop all Hardware R&D (my primary role) hence making my job redundent. It's not the best time of year to be hunting for jobs and the responses have been minimal. So if anyone out there has any advice on going down the contracting route of PCB design I would be very interested in
hearing from you.
It's a tough row to hoe. As a solo free-lancer, you might get lucky and get some large, steady contracts; more often it is feast and famine. Here's the way it works. You are desperate for work, running out of money, so you are selling like crazy. (Don't like to sell? Don't be a free-lancer, at least don't depend on it for long-term support.) Finally some work comes in. And more comes in. All at once. You are working long hours, burning out. You start to make mistakes, and/or your customers start getting upset because the jobs aren't getting done. You did not want to turn away any of the work because you needed the money.... For the same reason, you did not want to subcontract any of it.
You get the jobs done, some late. Some of the customers leave because of the late work. The others finish their design cycle. You are now out of work again....
It's not for everyone. I did find an answer, but it does involve some risk-taking, being willing to give something up in order to gain something.
Basically, though, if you don't like selling, if you don't think you can cold-call engineers and sell design services to them, don't think you can make it as a free-lancer, no matter how good a designer you might be.
Having said that, however, if you are out of work, you might as well try to sell design. You'll be talking to the same people.
And this brings me to the solution. Once you are selling design, you might as well sell it for *others*. Designers, in fact, make the best design salespeople. And this has some interesting side-effects. If you sell a design, you have a choice. You can do it yourself, or you can give it to another designer. If you wait until you are overwhelmed with work, *you'll be too busy to qualify a subcontractor.* But selling design has one very important difference from *doing* the design. Essentially, when you are doing design, you are (by competitive forces) working by the hour. When you sell design, you are making a percentage or cut; and reselling design is much easier than the first sale, yet you may make the same margin. Essentially, the potential for income is much greater selling design than doing it. You are still free to actually do the design yourself if you have the time. But you are no longer limited by how much time you can yourself devote to design. No more feast and famine.
Obviously, there are some problems. First of all, particularly if you need the money quick, sending the job out means giving up a good chunk, it's a risk. What if no more work shows up? What if the subcontractor steals the customer? What if they do a lousy job? However, succumbing to this fear is exactly what will keep a designer in the feast-and-famine trap. What can I suggest? I'll just note that you are not the only competent designer in the world, and that while, I'm sure, you will do the best-possible job, the next-best-possible job is probably quite good enough for the customer; and most designers are honest and will honor agreements as long as they are fair and reasonable. (A desperate designer might make an agreement that later becomes an onerous burden, one would want to avoid creating a conflict like that.)
Details like what to charge, what percentage to take for selling, etc., I'm going to consider trade secrets. But I'm sure you could work it out. And working with Lomax Design Associates is a possibility. Finding good designers is not so difficult -- which is not at all to devalue designers, just to note that the world is a wide place -- but finding people who can *sell* design is not easy. And, as I mentioned, if you are out of work, you might as well try selling while you seek a job. If you get the job and can't deliver on the work for that reason, there are others who can do it for you. And if you don't get the job, you can do the design yourself.... and when you get busy enough, consider how you are going to subcontract. Just don't wait until you are caught in the vicious circle. It's hard to get out of it.
And don't stop selling just because you have some work. If you are too busy to sell, you are too busy. Send some of the work out.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax LOMAX DESIGN ASSOCIATES PCB design, consulting, and training Protel EDA license resales Easthampton, Massachusetts, USA (413) 527-3881, efax (419) 730-4777 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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