How I'm Finding My Freelance Dev Niche After 14 Years Full-Stack

TL;DR

• I spent 14 years as a full-stack generalist — versatile, but invisible
• Generalists struggle because companies hire expertise, not flexibility
• Specialists win: easier to trust, refer, hire, remember, and earn more
• AI automates shallow tasks; deep expertise grows more valuable
• The solution isn’t less breadth — it’s anchoring it with depth (T-shaped)
• I used these 6 filters: Freedom, Profit, Pain, Proof, Passion, Access
• I’m testing my niche through real conversations, 30-day content, and portfolio work
• Your niche isn’t fixed — it evolves with you over time
• Niching down doesn’t restrict you — it gives direction

My 14-Year Generalist Story

For 14 years, I was the guy who could build anything — but wasn’t known for anything.

I built everything from enterprise software to ad-games, marketing websites, chatbots, APIs, and random internal tools.

If someone needed it, I learned it. If there was a gap, I filled it.
I was the Jack-of-all-stacks.

It made me versatile, but versatility doesn’t get clients — clarity does.

Now, for the first time, I’m deliberately niching down and I’m documenting the journey while I’m still in it.

Ready to dive in?

Why I Stayed Broad

It wasn’t stubbornness or a lack of direction.

There were real reasons I stayed broad for so long:

1. I didn’t want to miss out on opportunities.
2. I feared getting “stuck” with one specialty.
3. I wanted to be fully self-sufficient for building my own products.

That last one was a biggie.

To build anything, I felt I needed to know everything: UX/UI, frontend, backend, APIs, databases, DevOps, deployment, hosting, automation… the entire vertical stack.

That instinct was the early seed of being T-shaped:

I wanted breadth to build independently.

The problem wasn’t breadth itself but trying to be known for all of it.

The Generalist Trap

Being a generalist feels great… until you need clients.

For years, I believed breadth made me flexible, adaptable, valuable. And in some ways it did. I could pick up almost anything.

But when I looked at how companies actually hire freelancers, something became obvious:

Companies don’t hire freelancers for flexibility. They hire them for the expertise they don’t have.

They’re not looking for someone who “can figure it out”.
They’re looking for someone who already knows the shortest path.

Most freelance work exists because:

• the team lacks one specific skill
• they need help with one kind of problem
• they want someone who delivers quickly and confidently
• they don’t want to hire full-time for it

That’s where specialists win.

Generalists, meanwhile, run into predictable problems.

1. Generalists Lose When the Problem is Specific

If a company needs:

• a Sanity CMS migration
• a Shopify Hydrogen storefront
• a performance overhaul

…they won’t gamble on a “maybe”.

They want the person who does that exact thing weekly.

Specialists feel safer, move faster, and create certainty.
And certainty is what companies buy.

2. Generalists Can’t Build a Memorable Brand

A generalist portfolio looks like a buffet:

• a React project here
• a CMS migration there
• a chatbot experiment
• a design mockup
• some random backend thing

People can’t summarize you because there’s no single thread tying it together.

If someone can’t say, “Oh, you’re the person who does X”,
they won’t remember you and they won’t refer you.

3. Generalists Struggle to Create Content

When your skills are spread across everything, you never know what to talk about.

One day it’s React, the next it’s performance, then freelancing, then databases — nothing connects, nothing compounds, and nothing builds a recognizable narrative.

Specialists don’t have this problem. Their niche automatically gives them a clear content lane.

When I was a generalist, this lack of clarity is honestly one of the reasons I never posted consistently.

Content needs focus. Generalism doesn’t give you one.

4. Generalists Are Nearly Impossible to Refer

Broad positioning leads to referrals like this:

“… [silence] …”

There is none. If people can’t describe you in one sentence, they won’t introduce you.

Specialists make referrals effortless:

• “Talk to her, she does Shopify.”
• “Ask him, he’s the Sanity guy.”
• “You need accessibility? This person.”

Clarity creates referrals.

5. AI Hits Generalists Hardest

AI doesn’t replace deep expertise. It replaces the shallow, repetitive, generic tasks that generalists rely on:

• CRUD
• boilerplate
• integration glue
• scaffolding
• routine code patterns

AI accelerates specialists.
But it commoditizes generalists.

If your value is “I can do many things decently”, AI eats that alive.
If your value is “I deeply understand this one field”, AI becomes leverage.

My Conclusion

Breadth isn’t the problem. But specialization wins in the market because specialists are easier to:

• trust
• hire
• recommend
• remember
• position
• market
• pay premium rates for

Generalists have to prove themselves every time.
Specialists show up already trusted.

The Solution: The T-Shaped Dev

It finally clicked:

My breadth was perfect for building my own ideas.
But depth was the missing piece for positioning myself in the market.

The solution wasn’t to abandon my breadth.
It was to anchor it with depth — the vertical bar of a T-shaped developer.

Breadth Gives You:

• creativity
• autonomy
• adaptability
• range
• the ability to ship end-to-end

Depth Gives You:

• authority
• trust
• a clear identity
• stronger referrals
• higher pricing
• better clients

Clients don’t buy hours. Clients buy certainty.

Depth gives them confidence you can solve their exact problem.

And with AI taking over more and more generalist tasks, depth matters more than ever.

6+1 Filters to Validate Your Niche

I discovered Jamie Brindle’s 4 filters (Profit, Pain, Proof, Passion) and expanded them with 2 more that matter to me: Freedom and Access.

Score your niche on each filter from 1–5.

1. Freedom — Does It Give Me My Desired Lifestyle?

   Can I work from anywhere, on my own schedule, without being tied to a client’s team?

2. Profit — Can They Pay?

   Industries without budgets are uphill battles.

3. Pain — Is the Problem Urgent?

   No real pain → no real sales.

4. Proof — Do You Have Credibility?

   You only need one project, story, or experience.

5. Passion — Can You Stick With It for 1–3 Years?

   Will it energize me long enough to build momentum?

6. Access — Do You Know People in the Space?

   Do I already know people here, or can I easily meet them? For example, through referrals?

7. Bonus: Alignment Filter

   Would I choose this niche even if my income didn’t increase next year?
   This one kills illusions fast.

How I’m Choosing My Niche

Here’s the niche I’m exploring right now and the process I’m using to test it.

Where My Niche Currently Sits

I’m helping…

• Startups hitting the limits of their initial, messy infrastructure

To achieve…

• better performance
• better workflows
• future-proof growth

Through…

• Modern Tech Stack (Next.js, Tailwind)
• Headless CMS
• API Integrations

Here’s My Pitch

“I help SaaS startups migrate away from WordPress and rebuild on fast, scalable headless platforms that unlock better performance, better workflows, and future-proof growth.”

How the 6 Filters Pointed Me Here

This niche scored strong across the board:

1. Freedom (4/5)

   Work is fully remote and mostly asynchronous. Some projects will require regular communication — so not perfect, but good.

2. Profit (5/5)

   Scaling SaaS companies have real budgets for speed, conversions, and upgrading their marketing sites.

3. Pain (5/5)

   Slow sites, messy CMS setups, and publishing bottlenecks hurt daily.

4. Proof (5/5)

   Years of fixing performance, cleaning chaotic CMS structures, and rebuilding content systems.

5. Passion (4/5)

   I enjoy building fast, structured, composable platforms. Writing about this stuff feels natural.

6. Access (3/5)

   My founder network is still small, so this is my current bottleneck to fix.

In Short

It’s not random. It’s not forced. It’s not “I’ll do whatever someone needs”.

It’s the overlap of:

• What I’m good at
• What companies pay for
• What I can see myself doing for the next 1–3 years

That’s all a niche needs at the start.

Narrowing by Industry

I could niche down to the health sector, I have strong contacts there, but that would mean restructuring my entire portfolio today.

For now, I’m intentionally keeping it broader.

Over time, I might reposition myself more tightly around health startups and become the person who does this narrow, valuable thing for this specific type of company. But I’m not there yet.

How I’m Testing My Niche

“No plan survives first contact with the market.”

You only know if a niche works once real people react to it.

Here’s how I’m testing mine.

1. Have 10 Conversations

   Talking to founders and marketing leads running WordPress sites and asking about their struggles.

2. Publish for 30 Days

   Sharing insights about performance and headless CMS to see what resonates.

3. Update My Website Lightly

   Refreshing my pitch and removing unrelated projects from the homepage — no full rebrand yet.

4. Build a Portfolio Piece

   freedomfirst.dev is my showpiece for modern headless best practices.

5. Let Real-World Feedback Guide the Way

   Follow the pain signals. Lean into what people struggle with most.

Final Thoughts

You’re not marrying your niche — you’re simply choosing a starting point.

As you publish, ship projects, and talk to clients, your niche will refine itself.
You’ll naturally move toward what energizes you and away from what drains you.

And once you give yourself a clear direction, everything gets easier:

• better clients
• stronger referrals
• higher pricing
• a clear personal brand
• a foundation for digital products

Your skills can stay wide.

Your message becomes sharp.

Niching down isn’t about boxing yourself in.
It’s how you build a career with options, ownership, and real autonomy.

It’s not a cage — it’s a compass.