You always talk to the same person.

What I did before

I’m Thomas Collot. I taught myself to code years before it became my job. Then I built business applications: tools used every day by whole teams, lots of data and no tolerance for slowness. In recent years I was technical lead: I made the calls, reviewed the work of four developers, and answered for it when a project went off track.

That last part is what matters to you. A project that goes off track is almost never a technical problem. It’s a fuzzy scope, a decision put off, a client who discovers at delivery that it wasn’t what they had in mind. I spent years avoiding that. It’s why my offers also say what they don’t include.

Why I’m going independent

I wanted to work with businesses I can meet, talking directly to the person in charge, without four layers of sign-off. In-house software nobody can change any more, a website that brings in nothing, hours lost every week: the problem is clear, the result shows.

I work alone. You always talk to the same person, from the first call to the follow-up. I visit clients around Roanne, France. Everywhere else, in France or abroad, I work remotely.

What I turn down

If what you need is outside what I do well, an online shop with three thousand products or a technology I don’t master, I’ll tell you on the first call rather than in the third month.