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Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?

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Re: Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?

#81

Post by snarf21 »

All jobs are about convincing someone you are worth it. If you have good examples, that helps to convince them. If you are looking to improve your skills as much as make some cash, you can get some stuff for $15/hr. If you expect to get $50/hr from someone you need to be an "expert" in something or be able to convince them you are at least the perfect person for the job.

I have a bunch of side projects and had some college kids that were interested in a paid internship kind of thing. I spent time and money getting them set up and explaining the project, etc. They totally flaked out and just didn't follow through. You have to understand that time and energy is expended on the other side. I've always taken a "prove myself" perspective. "Yeah, I'll do a little work at $10/hr but then we need to reevaluate things based on my value". You aren't locked in to a bad contract and have the ability to move up. I'm sure there are people on here who will give you a chance, including me if you have any web experience.

Re: Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?

#82

Post by nolemurs »

whoami_nr wrote: post #64
throwmenow_0140 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it is possible to build hardware projects with low level stuff to show your expertise regardless? This story sounds a bit depressing. I hope you will find a way to do what you love. Maybe there are some hardware startups where you can work.

I don't exactly work that close to hardware. Sure, I have done hardware projects involving arduinos and other micro controllers however, I would like to get into/work on the systems level. I am currently teaching myself reverse engineering(I play CTF's sometimes), systems programming etc but the opportunities for such stuff in India seems to be non existing(at least for a non CS graduate). Also, adding to the fact th…

> Also, adding to the fact that I am entirely self taught I sometimes wonder maybe I am missing out on a lot of theoretical stuff they teach in a CS degree.

A CS degree is useful for a software engineer, but most of what you learn is only tangential to software engineering. Many of the best engineers are self taught.

That said, some of the basic stuff from CS is pretty useful. I'd definitely encourage you to learn data structures and algorithms. Just pick up a good textbook and go through it! (I like to recommend this one: https://www.amazon.com/Algorithm-Design-Manual-Steven-Skiena...).

Another suggestion I have is to seriously think about why you want to do work in lower level stuff. The large majority of jobs are in web development right now, so trying to avoid that really limits your options. There's really nothing more sophisticated or interesting going on at the low levels. I've seen a lot of people come into a software engineering career with preconceptions about exactly what sort of work they want to do, and at the end of the day, I don't think those preconceptions have made any of them happy.

Re: Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?

#83

Post by nkoren »

Think longer-term. Don't over-focus on the money. Unless you're already living independently, you're in a privileged position wherein your expenses -- while still annoying, I'm sure -- are far lower than they will be at any other point in your life. You can take advantage of that by adjusting your priorities. Rather than having a primary goal of earning money, your primary goals should be building up your expertise, your portfolio of work, and (especially) your passion -- (since passion can carry you farther than just about anything else in life).

So, first and foremost, look for projects/companies/organisations where the work is both maximally interesting and maximally personally challenging. There's a lot of living-on-the-edge startups and NGOs that can't pay very much, but wouldn't care about your age if you've got the skills they need. The monthly Hacker News "who's hiring" threads are littered with such companies. The best hire I ever made was via a "who's hiring" post -- I had a scrappy but exciting startup, and was thrilled to find an incredibly talented developer who wanted to work on it at way below market rate. Took me almost a year to find out that he was 19. Really didn't matter, given his competence. He's now accumulating a co-founder's worth of equity, so hopefully the investment will ultimately pay off for him.

Tl;dr, here's your sort algorithm, in order of priority:

1. They don't ask and/or care about your age. (You don't need that BS.)

2. Company/organisation/product is something you actually feel quite passionate about.

3. The role you'd be given is very challenging and would do a lot to develop your skills.

4. Last and least: salary.

Re: Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?

#84

Post by apapli »

brandon272 wrote: post #8
saluki wrote: post #7

Don't use UpWork or similar. The rates are low even for a teenager. The best projects and rates are through your network. Family friends, businesses your family uses like you mention. So start asking around who needs a website or web application. Those will be your best gigs, projects and clients. Look for ways to setup recurring revenue. Maybe a business needs a website offer to build them a basic website, maintenan…

>Maybe a business needs a website offer to build them a basic website, maintenance, hosting, backups and updates for $99/mo set it up with Stripe or Paypal recurring payments. I did this as a teenager and it ended up being a nightmare because you become a magnet for people who want thousands upon thousands of work done for no upfront cost and a low monthly fee. And it puts you in a terrible spot as you are strongly i…

I agree. Never sign up clients on a monthly arrangement until you have a decent amount of IP available that is readily re-useable.

That way your value proposition for a monthly fee is that it effectively acts as an extended warranty, and saves the upfront costs for a client. But you need to be confident they will sign a term agreement (24+ months) and they need to be confident they can depend on you to fix things when/if they break over that long period of time.

I've seen plenty of scenarios where money has been left on the table for a client who was willing to pay upfront and the contractor did themselves out of a nice fat cheque by talking the client into a monthly arrangement (which just gives them a debtor issue).

Re: Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?

#85

Post by eof »

icelancer wrote: post #23

>but software companies are not willing to hire people my age for good reason I doubt it. I've hired two 18 year olds to work remotely for me, one of whom does excellent quantitative analysis I've yet to see out of anyone I've employed with an advanced degree. Companies are by and large very stupid. Don't devalue yourself or your skills. Craigslist is decent. One of the best things you can do is invest in a Github or…

Sure, but what if he's 16?

Re: Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?

#87

Post by musgrove »

snarf21 wrote: post #81

All jobs are about convincing someone you are worth it. If you have good examples, that helps to convince them. If you are looking to improve your skills as much as make some cash, you can get some stuff for $15/hr. If you expect to get $50/hr from someone you need to be an "expert" in something or be able to convince them you are at least the perfect person for the job. I have a bunch of side projects and had some c…

You'll get to a point (with lots of hard work and good decisions) where selling yourself isn't the hard part of the job and you don't have to spend as much time and energy marketing yourself. Juggling time and projects and choosing who to work with and who not to and also finding time to study to get better is the tough part for me. And also having a life. You'll figure out how to manage your rates and increase them as your skills warrant, but if you're good people will hunt you down. You can only handle so many clients at a time as a sole proprietor though, so it's important to focus on the best clients and lose the duds. I only have 5 clients, but charge $135/hr. (I also have an MBA and lots of business experience) With that few clients, it's important to not let all your eggs end up in 1 basket, which is tricky sometimes since the client mostly determines the project timeframes.

Re: Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?

#88

Post by scott00 »

I think most advice on how to start freelancing applies to you despite your age; it's just going to be a little harder for you than for a more experienced and/or older person. There's a ton of advice on this topic in previous discussions here. See https://www.google.com/search?q=start+freelancing+site%3Anew.... I think it's very doable though.

I'd also caution you not to focus on freelancing to the extent that it hurts your schoolwork. If you want to program as a career, graduating from a top 10 CS school will open a lot of doors for you, and I would make laying the groundwork for that your primary goal.

Re: Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?

#89

Post by [deleted] »

eof wrote: post #85
icelancer wrote: post #23

>but software companies are not willing to hire people my age for good reason I doubt it. I've hired two 18 year olds to work remotely for me, one of whom does excellent quantitative analysis I've yet to see out of anyone I've employed with an advanced degree. Companies are by and large very stupid. Don't devalue yourself or your skills. Craigslist is decent. One of the best things you can do is invest in a Github or…

Sure, but what if he's 16?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?

#90

Post by icelancer »

eof wrote: post #85
icelancer wrote: post #23

>but software companies are not willing to hire people my age for good reason I doubt it. I've hired two 18 year olds to work remotely for me, one of whom does excellent quantitative analysis I've yet to see out of anyone I've employed with an advanced degree. Companies are by and large very stupid. Don't devalue yourself or your skills. Craigslist is decent. One of the best things you can do is invest in a Github or…

Sure, but what if he's 16?

I don't care if he's 14.
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