EL Interview 1- Freelancer’s POV

Interviewee: Mr. Ali Lal Din

App Developer
Talha: Good Morning dear Ali, its a pleasure having you here. I am here to talk
about your journey in IT as a product developer without relying on a full time job.
For the context, Ali has been working as a a freelancer for more than 7 years now.
He has worked directly by catching clients through social media and also by working
at the freelancing platforms.

So, Ali, How has your journey been and what are the challenges that you are
currently facing?

Ali: Thankyou so much for having me here its a pleasure. Talking about product
development I picked it up as a discipline 7 years ago which is critical to note
because the market was very different 7 years ago. People were still somewhat not
interested in becoming an IT graduate. Doctors and engineers were on peak. When I
graduated, I started working with a friend who used to outsource me his projects.
With time, I learned and switched to getting buyers myself. Every day, thousands of
new businesses are starting and 70% of them atleast, need an app to start. The
digitalization has really boosted product development in IT. Therefore, IT is the
number 1 growing field. But, that being said, challenges are quite visible. There
is a GAP between what people require and what our graduates are capable of. This is
due to a number of reasons but as I also work with recent graduates, i have seen
that their skill not being upto the mark is the biggest issue.

The challenges that I faced were quite a lot. First, even I was not at par with the
skill requirement of the freelancing market as most of the freelancing market is in
Europe and USA. I had to relearn for an year before I started working on other
people’s projects that were outsourced to me. It was hard to develop the skill but
once I got it, it was easy to go ahead.

Talha: That is true, so despite the trend change and more and more students opting
for IT and product development, why is Pakistan not a giant in product development?

Ali: Well, you see the quantity has increased for sure but what about the quality?
Most of the IT graduates are not at par with the skillset that I require for my
clients. Apart from one or two universities, generally, the skill is not there. I
don’t have the time to train those people first to hire them. I am a freelancer and
this is what differentiates me and a product development company. They identify the
talent and have the resources to polish it. I cannot take up such a responsibility.

Talha: True but as you said, there are some capable people which can develop a new
app over the course of a week and a productive app but why is not any of the
Pakistani products a global giant?

Ali: Yes there are some brilliant product developers in Pakistan. Me and my team
recently developed an app for garbage collection that is now being used in a town
in New Jersey. The point is that even if we want to launch this app in Pakistan, we
cannot because of lack of intellectual property rights. 3 days later our app would
all over be linkedin with 3 different spellings and logos. One of the biggest
reasons that I have also experienced is the reputation of Pakistan in the global
market. Pakistanis dont have a positive image and that is due to lots and lots of
scammers trying to make money with shortcuts. This is 2023, reputations spread
overnight thanks to social media. Once a reputation is formed, things go sideways.

To summarise, the issues lie in the skill of the students, laws of Pakistan, and
the most important, the global image that is not very good about pakistan.

Ali: Yes, exactly, and the solutions are so obvious but require commitment which is
absent at the moment.