WeAreDevelopers Logo WeAreDevelopers
Sign in
For You LIVE
World Congress 2026 Europe • Jul 9, 2026 • Session details

Why Great Developers Stay Poor

Jawed Sahebjan

Jawed Sahebjan warns that pristine code alone will never make you rich. Transition from a basic task executor to a strategic partner using value-based pricing.

Pause
Mute Enter Fullscreen
#1 about 2 min

The limitations of relying solely on technical excellence

Focusing exclusively on coding and new technologies limits the financial stability and client appreciation of talented developers.

#2 about 1 min

Shifting from a task executor to a strategic partner

Transitioning from basic task delivery to value-driven solutions enables freelancers to charge significantly higher rates.

#3 about 1 min

Overcoming sales reluctance by building a strong developer brand

Establishing a solid market position helps developers overcome their reluctance to sell and attracts better business opportunities.

#4 about 3 min

Consolidating project platforms to bypass costly tech recruiters

Centralizing project acquisition through a custom CRM eliminates middleman fees and simplifies client management for independent developers.

Matching moments

5:24 min

The current state of freelance contracting in tech

Chris Heilmann +2 · LIVE

5:11 min

Navigating independent consulting and tech career growth

Gil Zilberfeld · LIVE

3:18 min

Career background and the intrinsic rewards of mentoring developers

Oliver Sturm · Coffee With Developers

3:13 min

Navigating developer side hustles in the modern economy

3:15 min

Establishing an independent online developer identity without frameworks

Chris Heilmann +2 · LIVE

2:19 min

Marketing products to developers without aggressive sales motions

Chris Heilmann +2 · LIVE

More from World Congress 2026 Europe

Building the Nervous System of AI - Michael Kagan (NVIDIA) thumbnail
29:17
about 1 month ago

Building the Nervous System of AI - Michael Kagan (NVIDIA)

Michael Kagan, Sead Ahmetović

Five Things in Tech that Matter Now - WeAreDevelopers World Congress 2026 Closing Keynote thumbnail
19:41
about 1 month ago

Five Things in Tech that Matter Now - WeAreDevelopers World Congress 2026 Closing Keynote

Christian Heilmann

The Sound of Your Secrets: Teaching Your Model to Spy, So You Can Learn to Defend thumbnail
32:06
about 1 month ago

The Sound of Your Secrets: Teaching Your Model to Spy, So You Can Learn to Defend

David vonThenen

Super scaling for the Super Bowl: How to survive 30 million users hitting your backend in 30 minutes thumbnail
35:13
about 1 month ago

Super scaling for the Super Bowl: How to survive 30 million users hitting your backend in 30 minutes

Irina Branovic

Running Secure Life Science Research at Scale using Hybrid GPU HPC and Kubernetes 🧬 thumbnail
24:23
about 1 month ago

Running Secure Life Science Research at Scale using Hybrid GPU HPC and Kubernetes 🧬

Jeremy Murray

Angstfreude - AI and Corporate Culture - The Thrill and the Threat thumbnail
30:26
about 1 month ago

Angstfreude - AI and Corporate Culture - The Thrill and the Threat

Axel Ebert, Karin Krobath

Upcoming sessions on this topic

Open session

World Congress 2026 North America

Lessons from 20 Years of Bootstrapping an Open Source Business to $50M+

Peter Farkas

Percona, Founder

Peter Farkas
Open session

World Congress 2026 North America

How to generate business value through performance optimizations

Nikolai Sidiropulo

Software Engineer at Meta

Nikolai Sidiropulo
Open session

World Congress 2026 North America

The Broken Rung: How AI is Rebuilding Software Development from the Ground Up

Tomislav Tipurić

Chief Technology Officer, Nephos

Tomislav Tipurić
Open session

World Congress 2026 North America

public void saveMoney(AI): The Developer's Guide to Unit Economics

Hrushikesh Pokala

Senior Software Engineer Lead at Equifax

Hrushikesh Pokala
Open session

World Congress 2026 North America

Culture Doesn't Scale Itself: Leading Engineering Teams Through Hypergrowth and the AI Transition

Thanos Baskous

VP of Engineering and Co-founder of Cogent Security

Thanos Baskous
Open session

World Congress 2026 North America

Agentic Drift: keeping pace with your agents

John Coghlan

Senior Director, Developer Advocacy at GitLab

John Coghlan

Related videos

Emergency Discussion: Can’t Hire the Right Developers? Here’s What Everyone Else Misses thumbnail
54:20
Cappuccino with HR • 10 months ago

Emergency Discussion: Can’t Hire the Right Developers? Here’s What Everyone Else Misses

Rudi Bauer, Ana Gospodinova, Chris Heilmann

WeAreDevelopers LIVE – AI, Freelancing, Keeping Up with Tech and More thumbnail
1:17:51
LIVE • 7 months ago

WeAreDevelopers LIVE – AI, Freelancing, Keeping Up with Tech and More

Chris Heilmann, Daniel Cranney, Anselm Hannemann

Stop Wasting Money on Ads: How to Actually Reach Developers thumbnail
54:45
Cappuccino with HR • 6 months ago

Stop Wasting Money on Ads: How to Actually Reach Developers

Christian Heilmann, Ana Gospodinova, Benjamin Perlzweig

Why Developers Don't Care About Your Employer Brand and How to Fix it thumbnail
49:19
Cappuccino with HR • 11 months ago

Why Developers Don't Care About Your Employer Brand and How to Fix it

Rudi Bauer, Chris Heilmann, Ivana Spiridonovic

You’re a great coder? That alone won’t get you far: The soft skills secret in IT success thumbnail
28:38
WWC 2024 • almost 2 years ago

You’re a great coder? That alone won’t get you far: The soft skills secret in IT success

Gigi

Coffee with Developers thumbnail
50:44
LIVE • over 4 years ago

Coffee with Developers

David Levai

Related articles

From learning to earning

Jobs that call for the skills explored in this talk.