1. FREELANCER INSIDES
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Leonardo Soares –
JAVA JEE Developer
5/11/2015 info@freelancermap.com

2. After reading Timothy Ferriss book “The 4-
hour workweek” and learning about how
to escape the rat race and how to live
more and work less, Leonardo Soares
decided to become a freelancer. So far it
worked out quite well and even though
the diligent JAVA/JEE Developer isn’t
earning $40,000 per month yet, he
enjoys the newly gained variety of his
work. And let’s be honest, being able to
do what you love is already pretty
amazing and as we all know: money
does not buy you happiness…
5/11/2015 info@freelancermap.com

3. 1) First off, can you tell us a bit about yourself?
My name is Leo, I am 34 years old and live in the sunny Rio
de Janeiro.
Currently I am involved in some personal projects (one of
them is a platform for waste recycling) and always looking
for a challenging new projects to work on.
I’ve been freelancing for about one year.
5/11/2015 info@freelancermap.com

4. 2) If you would search for your profile on Google, which are
the three keywords you would type in the search bar?
Positive, self-starter and persistent.
Besides working home-office based most of the time, I like to
solve problems, and having a team to share my successes
and doubts is very grateful.
5/11/2015 info@freelancermap.com

5. 3) What was your inspiration and when did you actually
decide to become a freelancer?
Some time ago I read a book by Tim Ferriss (“The 4-hour
workweek”) and it helped me realize that you can get
more out of life than spending all of your time working in
the same business or company.
Nowadays, I can’t work only 4h per week, but I do try to
choose what to work on, which is a big plus!
5/11/2015 info@freelancermap.com

6. 4) What kind of services have your clients asked you to
provide?
Demands vary a lot but project technical design and JEE
development are common demands.
I've been involved in some very specific technical projects for
telecom and the banking industries also.
5/11/2015 info@freelancermap.com

7. 5) Do you use other freelancers or companies to provide
skills that you don’t possess?
I’ve been managing some projects and was responsible for
IOS deliverables, which is not my strongest skill, for
example. So, I can manage and deliver third party
solutions as well. However, I do prefer to work on my own
deliverables.
5/11/2015 info@freelancermap.com

8. 6) Now tell us, how do you find new clients that are
interested in your services?
This is a tough one.
Here in Brazil we do have a very traditional 9-7 work culture
and it is not easy to find specific and interesting projects to
work on as a freelancer.
So basically what I do is, contact potential clients through my
own professional network or at tech conferences that I
attend.
5/11/2015 info@freelancermap.com

9. 7) What about freelancermap.com? Can you tell us a little
bit about your experience with our IT-network?
I’m very impressed with the projects available on the
platform. They seem to be very challenging and,
technology wise , very interesting.
I’m new to the platform but I do believe that I will be
involved in a nice project soon.
5/11/2015 info@freelancermap.com

10. 8) How do you set yourself apart from your competitors?
What makes you special?
Besides my technical expertise based on JAVA/JEE projects I
have developed non-technical skills during my career. I’ve
managed projects and teams thus I developed leadership,
negotiation, problem solving and estimation skills as well.
These skills are necessary when you have a scrum master role
in a project, for example.
I also have some experience on digital marketing and
business development.
5/11/2015 info@freelancermap.com

11. 9) What are the top three books, blogs or magazines you
read to stay up to date in the IT-market?
I am digging Scala programming language right now so I am
reading Martin Odersky’s book.
For tech news I read wired.com, tnw.com, washable.com and
lifehacker.com. For more IT business information I read
CIO.com and infoworld.com and more development
oriented: infoq.com and stackoverflow.com forums.
5/11/2015 info@freelancermap.com

12. 10) Freestyle! Is there anything you would like to tell our
readers?
If you have a technical problem on a project or a challenging
new project that needs to be done right away, don’t
hesitate to contact me.
This is exactly what I am looking for and I am sure I can help
you out.
5/11/2015 info@freelancermap.com

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5/11/2015 info@freelancermap.com