A freelance developer had been working with a Berlin startup for nearly two years.
The work was solid. The relationship was good. The developer joined sprint planning, used the company’s Slack, and had access to internal tools. He was integrated enough that the collaboration felt smooth.
He also had other clients—smaller ones, but real. From his perspective, that meant he was clearly selbständig.
The review came through the company, not through him.
The startup went through a broader social security audit. During that process, contractor relationships were reviewed as part of the overall picture. His contract was included.
The question wasn’t “Do you have other clients?” The question was closer to: “How does this relationship function in practice?”
The DRV’s lens tends to focus on patterns such as:
- Duration and continuity of the engagement
- Degree of integration into organisational routines
- External control over working time and workflow
- Economic dependency
- Whether the engagement resembles ongoing availability rather than defined deliverables
In this case, the outcome was not an automatic reclassification. It was a request for documentation and clarification. The company wanted a clean basis for the audit file. The developer had to describe how he worked, how decisions were made, and how autonomy showed up in day-to-day practice.
The interesting part is that nothing about the work had “changed.” What changed was that the relationship was being observed externally rather than experienced internally.
Afterward, the developer adjusted how he structured long engagements. He defined deliverables more explicitly. He reduced language that implied ongoing availability. He kept a clearer paper trail showing autonomy in planning and execution. For new long-term projects, he also considered whether certain engagements would be better handled in a framework where the formal employer responsibility is clearly allocated from the start.
It wasn’t a moral lesson. It was a structural insight: long projects drift. The drift is not always visible from inside the collaboration. In Germany, the way that drift looks from outside matters.
A freelance developer had been working with a Berlin startup for nearly two years.
The work was solid. The relationship was good. The developer joined sprint planning, used the company’s Slack, and had access to internal tools. He was integrated enough that the collaboration felt smooth.
He also had other clients—smaller ones, but real. From his perspective, that meant he was clearly selbständig.
The review came through the company, not through him.
The startup went through a broader social security audit. During that process, contractor relationships were reviewed as part of the overall picture. His contract was included.
The question wasn’t “Do you have other clients?” The question was closer to: “How does this relationship function in practice?”
The DRV’s lens tends to focus on patterns such as:
- Duration and continuity of the engagement
- Degree of integration into organisational routines
- External control over working time and workflow
- Economic dependency
- Whether the engagement resembles ongoing availability rather than defined deliverables
In this case, the outcome was not an automatic reclassification. It was a request for documentation and clarification. The company wanted a clean basis for the audit file. The developer had to describe how he worked, how decisions were made, and how autonomy showed up in day-to-day practice.
The interesting part is that nothing about the work had “changed.” What changed was that the relationship was being observed externally rather than experienced internally.
Afterward, the developer adjusted how he structured long engagements. He defined deliverables more explicitly. He reduced language that implied ongoing availability. He kept a clearer paper trail showing autonomy in planning and execution. For new long-term projects, he also considered whether certain engagements would be better handled in a framework where the formal employer responsibility is clearly allocated from the start.
It wasn’t a moral lesson. It was a structural insight: long projects drift. The drift is not always visible from inside the collaboration. In Germany, the way that drift looks from outside matters.
