Wait for the "April 2019" thread:
"Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (March 2019)"
Ask HN: How does one find contract work in data science/analytics?
11–16 of 16 posts
Re: Ask HN: How does one find contract work in data science/analytics?
#12(Is she doing biology-specific work? or more general analytics? My response below is for the later. I know nothing about the life science industry, but I have employed several people with similar phds.)
I run a data science/analytics team at a large us-based tech company, so I'm on the buy-side of this. The bulk of contract work in the industry is run through staffing companies that market themselves as 'consulting' companies.
As a hiring manager, it's just too much of a hassle for me to individually source a good contractor. These staffing companies provide some level of screening & sourcing to make it easier for me.
However, if she really wants to try to contract directly... I would recommend searching linkedin for ~directors of analytics and data science at companies in the area/industry she's focused on. and then just ping them directly. I would guess the response rate would be in the 5-10% range, and then only a small fraction will convert to an actual contract.
Someone else mentioned it, but don't do this on an hourly basis. Daily or monthly.
Re: Ask HN: How does one find contract work in data science/analytics?
#13There are some work on upwork.com, but in many cases you have to be careful. If you provide too much info then you never get paid
Too much of what info?
Re: Ask HN: How does one find contract work in data science/analytics?
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hit the pavement how? How does one find people with data analysis needs?
There's no magic here. I too am an engineer, and find sales work yucky. If you want to make more than 5$ an hour on upwork and you're not about working a "real job" sales work is going to be an unfortunate fact of life. Given that a contract is probably worth 50k+ to your wife, traditional sales approaches are probably a good fit. Unless she wants to do data-set building, I would assume that her target businesses are…
But hasn’t someone solved this inefficiency? Hasn’t someone created a marketplace for buyers and sellers of PhD-level data analysis to find each other?
Re: Ask HN: How does one find contract work in data science/analytics?
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no magic here. I too am an engineer, and find sales work yucky. If you want to make more than 5$ an hour on upwork and you're not about working a "real job" sales work is going to be an unfortunate fact of life. Given that a contract is probably worth 50k+ to your wife, traditional sales approaches are probably a good fit. Unless she wants to do data-set building, I would assume that her target businesses are…
But hasn’t someone solved this inefficiency? Hasn’t someone created a marketplace for buyers and sellers of PhD-level data analysis to find each other?
You don't want to participate in such a market even if it exists. Your wife is a human being and a professional, not a faucet. Participating in an undifferentiated labor market commodifies her and turns her into the latter rather than the former.
In those types of market places, the primary way for participants to differentiate themselves is price. It's not like you can exercise a lot of control over how any given platform is going to let you market. A bunch of people competing on price without being able to effectively differentiate in any other way is going to have predictable and unpleasant results.
So yeah, doing sales work sucks. But it doesn't suck as bad as the alternatives.
If you/your wife go down the road of trying to source hourly contracts from such markets, you're setting her up for a working situation that's almost strictly shittier than working a "real job." It's basically impossible to rack up 40 billable hours a week on a consistent basis. 25-30 is much more realistic. If she's charging 50/hr, that'll work out to about $58,000 gross a year assuming 75% utilization and that none of her clients ever flake out. Nevermind that the work is more precarious than a "real job", doesn't have insurance or other benefits, and you get slammed with self employment taxes. Also, you/she don't even get to count on a paycheck at any particular interval. If you provide net 30 (I don't recommend, but it's fairly standard,) you have to have enough of a financial buffer to deal with clients cutting you all of your invoices at once instead of as you bill them. Enjoy praying for the mailman to come before the bank closes so you can pay rent.
Finally, I assume your wife didn't spend 6-10 years of her life grinding out a PhD so she can make 58k a year in the most precarious possible way. Get off of this freelancer mentality, start a business, deliver real value, and get her the income and respect she deserves. If you/she bill yourself out like a commodity, people and businesses are going to treat you like one.
Re: Ask HN: How does one find contract work in data science/analytics?
#16I am a data science freelancer/consultant (background story and motivation: http://p.migdal.pl/2015/12/14/sci-to-data-sci.html ). But in my case, it's purely recommendations and people contacting me (it takes some time to build it, though). Freelancer websites look like a race to the bottom. Some links I gathered: https://pinboard.in/u:pmigdal/t:freelancing . Plus, price negotiation is super important (way more than…
Piotr, Thanks for the info. I find some of the informative links in your pinboard link. Bookmarked them.