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Ask HN: 6-figure freelancers of HN, what do you do?

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Re: Ask HN: 6-figure freelancers of HN, what do you do?

#71

Post by TomMarius »

metaloha wrote: post #62
TomMarius wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you get into this kind of work?

Front-end JS? Need, mainly. Most of the UI/UX people I worked with have not maintained their skills, and I was getting tired of knowing more and doing better work than them in their own field. As it happens, there's a much better market for that work than for the back-end and architectural work I've been doing the past couple of decades. Oil-and-gas? Luck - I live in a city with a lot of head offices. Eventually almo…

Yeah, meant oil and gas. It seems pretty difficult to get in direct contact with such client to me.

Re: Ask HN: 6-figure freelancers of HN, what do you do?

#72

Post by otakucode »

mcv wrote: post #57
GhostVII wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software? An entry level developer position in the bay area can be a fair bit higher than $100k

Silicon Valley is fairly unique, and not remotely comparable to the rest of the world. In most of Europe, a senior dev makes less than that. Freelancers are a bit more likely to make more.

Sure, but that's cost of living. $100k/yr is needed in Silicon Valley just to cover your portion of rent for the above-garage apartment you share with 8 other people.

Re: Ask HN: 6-figure freelancers of HN, what do you do?

#73

Post by mod »

zulln wrote: post #47
troels wrote: post #29

Six figures is a pretty useless distinction these days. It's like how every homeowner is technically a millionaire. The term sticks though. In any case, freelancer is a vague term. Working on smaller, ad-hoc tasks it is probably harder to make a big payday, but working longer contracts (also called a contractor) can pay very well.

Every homeowner is far from a millionaire in the US.

Guy hasn't seen my home--I paid about 6% of that!

Re: Ask HN: 6-figure freelancers of HN, what do you do?

#74

Post by quickthrower2 »

King-Aaron wrote: post #50
quickthrower2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could probably buy a house on that salary at a reasonable commute distance to Perth CBD.

You can get into some off-the-plan garbage in an extremely far away suburb on this sort of money, but right now I don't think it's the right time for me to get into property. So I rent about five minutes from Mount Lawley :)

Ok well that you can rent in such a good location on a 70k income (assume USD?) means lifestyle in Perth IS much more attainable than on SFO which might require a 150k income.

Rents seem to be 300/W AUD for an appartment there. Nice. Here in Sydney it's double that. 300 gets you a room in a decent location.

Re: Ask HN: 6-figure freelancers of HN, what do you do?

#75

Post by imhoguy »

diehell wrote: post #20
bruno2223 wrote: post #16

Back-End Dev here (Node). I do integration between Brazillian mobile carriers and international Apps (content providers in general) who wants to get into Brazilian market, usually to bill users on their mobile plan instead of paypal or inApp Purchase. The funnil gap is much lower when you Bill users in mobile plan. Brazilian carrier has a tough and slow integration process and, without a local IT support is almost im…

Interesting! How can i start something like this for my own country?

First you need to get a job in some telco company and work on related projects. That knowledge is not available on github or books. Actually it is the same with other high-pay integration areas like finances, banking, logistics etc. Once you gain some expertise and see a niche you start freelancing.

Re: Ask HN: 6-figure freelancers of HN, what do you do?

#76

Post by imhoguy »

mcv wrote: post #56

What exactly counts to count as 6-figure? My hourly rate is €80. Working 32 hours per week, 45 weeks per year, my yearly revenue would just be 6 figures. Of course after I deduct some costs and retirement savings, my taxable income is in the high 5 figures. I'm not doing anything special, other than having 15 years of experience and not being terribly bad at my job. I do notice that to get more than this, I need to m…

Really nice schedule. I think the thread is about scores. Once debt free I would prefer to get more private time than trashing my life for 6 figures in somebody's sweat shop projects - the more than I can eat.

Re: Ask HN: 6-figure freelancers of HN, what do you do?

#77

Post by imhoguy »

richardknop wrote: post #52
chi17 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also benefits from living in certain locations that don't factor into living expenses but just affect quality of life. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/quality-of-life-f...

Yes and there are a lot of other factors like healthcare, education (if you have kids) etc. For a healthy young single person a country with very low taxes such as Singapore might be the best choice. For somebody older who is married with kids Germany would be better (taxes are high but you get a lot of value back for the money you to in like cheap/free education).

Also timezone difference may be the factor depending of what level of presence and availability is negotiated.

Re: Ask HN: 6-figure freelancers of HN, what do you do?

#78

Post by hilti »

1) Do networking and listen. It's not about how great you are in your wildest dreams.

2) Deliver a little bit more than expected. That'll help to get you some recommendations.

3) Don't follow every new tech stack, framework whatsoever hype.

Choose your toolchain where you are feeling comfortable with.

4) Raise your hourly rate. There's nothing wrong with it, if you're doing a great job based on past projects.

5) Say "No" to nasty, time consuming and time wasting clients.

6) Build your own brand to be proud of.

Re: Ask HN: 6-figure freelancers of HN, what do you do?

#79

Post by jaredcwhite »

jv22222 wrote: post #31

@thr2178008 Hey there. I'll give you a proven roadmap to six figure freelancing right now. 1) Pick a new up and coming language or framework. Something like elixir or pheonix or something else that is really hot and just starting out. 2) Learn it. As you learn, write a series of really awesome tutorials and articles on your blog about that stack. 3) Help people out on SO and other forums that talk about that tech. Po…

To a certain extent I agree, only in some respects I'm the opposite regarding point 1. I still work exclusively on Ruby on Rails projects (on the backend, frontend is trending towards Vue.js usage now), and that's actually proven quite successful lately. Clients that aren't super tech-savvy don't really care what I'm using as long as it works and I can get it done in a speedy fashion (which I can because I know Rails like the back of my hand), and the tech-savvy clients that come to me do so because they have an existing Rails codebase that needs upgrades, enhancements, etc. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "man, I'm so glad I found you...it's hard to find any Ruby programmers!" Makes me wonder if the death of Ruby as a career path is greatly exaggerated...

Re: Ask HN: 6-figure freelancers of HN, what do you do?

#80

Post by bruno2223 »

imhoguy wrote: post #75
diehell wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting! How can i start something like this for my own country?

First you need to get a job in some telco company and work on related projects. That knowledge is not available on github or books. Actually it is the same with other high-pay integration areas like finances, banking, logistics etc. Once you gain some expertise and see a niche you start freelancing.

Exactly!
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