I have been freelancing since I graduated college 8 years ago. I've been self employed so long I wouldn't even know what to do with a fulltime job.
I routinely accept projects that are well outside of my programming abilities or have unreasonable deadlines or budgets and always land on my feet.
In my experience you can get away with a lot less competence as a freelancer. Since clients have no access to your methods, freelancers can sometimes get away with awful code as long as they finish the job to spec and on time. I've seen it done many times.
The big difference here is managing yourself. If you're the kind of person that needs a lot of structure and a manager around, then it will be difficult. If you're pretty independent and can live with occasional cash shortages and work overloads, then you're good to go.
I routinely accept projects that are well outside of my programming abilities or have unreasonable deadlines or budgets and always land on my feet.
In my experience you can get away with a lot less competence as a freelancer. Since clients have no access to your methods, freelancers can sometimes get away with awful code as long as they finish the job to spec and on time. I've seen it done many times.
The big difference here is managing yourself. If you're the kind of person that needs a lot of structure and a manager around, then it will be difficult. If you're pretty independent and can live with occasional cash shortages and work overloads, then you're good to go.