The State Of Tech Freelancing in The Netherlands: The superhuman engineer paradox
By Wietse Boersma, Recruiter.
This post first appeared on LinkedIn on the 26th of March 2020.
This is where the curveball enters the field. One would presume that being in such high demand, working varied projects for big money, means bliss for freelance engineers in IT. Surprisingly, workers in IT are among the least engaged workers in the country, says Dr. Schaufeli of Utrecht University, a leading scientist in the field of organisational psychology. Entrepreneurs’ (freelancers’) engagement in the general sense is quite high, but low IT-worker engagement is a surprising outcome nonetheless.
This is where the curveball enters the field. One would presume that being in such high demand, working varied projects for big money, means bliss for freelance engineers in IT. Surprisingly, workers in IT are among the least engaged workers in the country, says Dr. Schaufeli of Utrecht University, a leading scientist in the field of organisational psychology. Entrepreneurs’ (freelancers’) engagement in the general sense is quite high, but low IT-worker engagement is a surprising outcome nonetheless. Work engagement, as he puts it, is a state of vigor, dedication and absorption that results in positive personal and organisational performance. Work engagement is a result of factors such as autonomy, support & coaching, feedback, opportunities to learn and develop, variety of work, and responsibility.
Countering engagement is the professional woe of our century: burnout. A burnout is typically caused by pressure, demand and conflict. An individual’s personal (psychological) dexterity or robustness may moderate between job demands on the one hand, and engagement or burnout on the other. What is very apparent from my years of discourse with freelance software engineers is that demands are often exceptionally and unrealistically high, resulting in suboptimal personal and organisational performance.
As far as I’m concerned, there’s not an organisation, or software development team for that matter, that’s uninterested in optimal flow, trust, (team) cohesion and performance. Freelance software engineers are hired in a variety of situations. Perhaps a junior is hired and needs training through pair programming, perhaps the backlog has exploded, perhaps new requirements are added or perhaps an entirely new client is on the schedule with a new application. Whatever the reason: a freelancer is in many cases expected to be up and running fast, so that impact is delivered swiftly and, consequently, the high hourly rate is offset.
With this often comes immediate (implied) pressure. In order to make ultimate use of the freelancer as a ‘resource’, the engineer may be tasked to do different things for different teams. It’s not unusual for this to happen impromptu and without proper prior discussion. In fact, I’ve seen many a recruiter or project manager sugarcoat a project, only to end up with a disillusioned freelance engineer. What’s worse, perhaps, is overtaxing a freelancer with unreasonable, or at least unrealistic, (business) requests. Alas, the freelancer is often seen as a separate entity from the permanent team, adding to the demands and making for a situation lacking in (social and organisational) job resources, resulting in burnout-related complaints. Contrary to the goal of hiring a freelancer to increase performance, the overtaxed freelancer may actually pose a detrimental factor through stressed-out emotional contagion and increased proneness to error. The superhuman engineer paradox has become a disappointing reality.
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