Why I have zero regrets going from 2 years of solo dev to contract work

After 2 years of indie development, I took a contract gig (SI work). Here’s why I regret nothing:

•	Went from backend-only to Flutter — running 3 apps now. Not making money yet, but they’re live.
•	Finally learned Rust — had my eye on it for years. Now running 2 services on Axum, 1 on FastAPI.
•	Picked up Terraform — all my infra is now IaC.
•	Went deep on AI coding agents — experimented to my heart’s content.
•	Built a complete solo dev skillset — can ship anything end-to-end now.
•	Decent pay, clear boundaries — just do the work, go home.
•	Familiar territory — C language, HFT environment.
•	Hungrier than ever — focus on nights and weekends is sharper now.
•	Took my family on a month-long US trip.

Sometimes the “step back” is actually the setup for the next leap.