JUST START ALREADY

WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DO YOU DO?

I’m Danny Arntz, a freelance front-end developer. Basically, I built websites. But not just any websites, I mostly get hired to build large platforms, or visually striking websites that sometimes get awarded. Although both very different, complexity is a key factor, either having a very creative website, or a platform that needs to scale for millions of users.

WHAT DOES YOUR TYPICAL WEEK LOOK LIKE?

That kind of depends on the project, on larger projects I often pave the way for other developers I work with, I meet with business owners and project managers to stay on top of everything we deliver, I get consulted often and the most fun part is programming of course! On smaller projects, where I am a solo developer, I architect my project and from there plan and develop. With development, trends and tools have always been evolving at a very fast pace (even before AI), so I am always on the lookout for new technologies during the week.

HOW DID YOU START YOUR FREELANCING JOURNEY?

I’ve been working for agencies for many years. And although I loved working or coaching the people there, when the project started to run smoothly, I lost interest. I moved up to bigger agencies, but no matter how big, it did not change. I then realised I just liked architecting a website, set it up for others to join, guide them in, improve, and gradually make myself redundant. From an agency perspective, there’s only so many new projects, so I would run out and job hop. From a freelance perspective, this made a lot of sense. I get hired, hit the ground running and make myself redundant to move on to the next project.

WHAT INSPIRES YOU RIGHT NOW ABOUT THE DIGITAL INDUSTRY?

AI, definitely. For me, this is the golden age. Although I pick up new things pretty quick, sometimes I had a little curve to overcome. That is gone entirely. Another thing is, I no longer need a back-end developer to start a new project, I can build the entire thing. Is it perfect? No probably not, but to start something, building scrappy is perfectly fine if you ask me.

IS THERE A PROJECT YOU ARE SPECIFICALLY PROUD OF?

There is, it never saw daylight and it is under heavy NDA. But it was such a new and refreshing concept visually, that we had to push a lot of limits on the technology to make it work and make it work well. The client was extremely demanding, but we made it work together and that was really inspiring for the team.

HOW DO YOU MANAGE YOUR WORKFLOW?

Currently, I don’t have a single workflow. The involvement of AI in my work is changing things so quickly, the moment I start a new project, my workflow is probably outdated again. Programming used to involve typing a lot of code. But as we speak, AI is doing most of that heavy lifting. I see myself more as an orchestrator of multiple agents. I make sure they have what they need to do the work. Write plans, review them, review the code, but also try to automate these processes even more, me and my little agency with AI agents, hahahaha.

IS THERE SOMETHING THAT STAYS CONSISTENT IN YOUR WORK OVER COMPANIES?

I have an eye for detail which often annoys a lot of other developers, haha. No, that is a bit of a joke, they are not annoyed, but I am very much about little visual details as they matter more than some realize. I’ve been working at two places where I worked with someone who pushed me into those details for a long time, at both places we won awards for the work…

IF YOU WERE TO START YOUR FREELANCE JOURNEY NOW, WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY?

I would invest in my portfolio a bit more, I only recently started with some technical write ups and publicly announce what kind of services I offer. I should have done that years ago.

ANY TIPS FOR REACHING NEW CLIENTS?

Show off, be present and be current, talk to everyone about what you do and how you can help them.

WHAT’S THE BEST ADVICE YOU’VE GOTTEN?

Just start already