I'm full-time Web Developer at NYC digital agency. Currently I'm making $55K, but tired of the agency environment. Is it worth to become freelancer?
Ask HN: Freelance or Full-time?
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Re: Ask HN: Freelance or Full-time?
#2Without knowing any details aside from what you provided, it sounds like you are being seriously underpaid.
Re: Ask HN: Freelance or Full-time?
#3I think the first step is to realize how much NYC digital agencies charge and how much they're taking advantage of you at $55K. The agency environment is also the most demanding in that there is always an endless queue of projects to be done and the developers are interchangeable with a hot swapping of projects being quite common in which projects are just shuffled around between developers requiring you to quickly pick things up and become familiar with the codebase in order to fix bugs handed off to you.
On the other hand, finding a next gig as freelance can be a royal pain in the ass unless you have a lot of connections, but if you do, having a queue of projects and working remotely is the ideal situation imo as long as you maintain a decent social life.
For full-time, you can just pick something either based on the size of the company or what they do.
Re: Ask HN: Freelance or Full-time?
#4y, sounds like you are underpaid but depends on your skill set and what you're working on. I'm in the midwest and that's probably avg. web developer position around here but would expect NYC jobs to pay 2x that due to the cost of living.
Freelance/Consultant is lots of work keeping the pipeline full finding good clients.
If you haven't already I would work on leveling up your skills learning full stack web application development (Rails or Laravel) the rate/fees are better ($50 to $100+/hr) if you enjoy that kind of work the projects are more interesting too.
Keep leveling up.
Re: Ask HN: Freelance or Full-time?
#5What is your skillset besides HTML?
Edit: Based on your website, it appears you are based in Uzbekistan. Is that correct? If so, what is the typical rate for Uzbeks at the same skillset and experience?
Re: Ask HN: Freelance or Full-time?
#6From one native of Uzbekistan to another: you are massively underpaid. You could make 80k easily
Re: Ask HN: Freelance or Full-time?
#7Based on your portfolio, I would suggest seeking some design training if you seek to freelance - as a front-end developer you should be owning the latest design standards such as proper content spacing, font combos that compliment, simple colour palettes, interaction animations & loaders, etc etc etc - none of which I see in your portfolio. You really need to impress and to also learn to sell yourself as a freelancer (you know, fake it til you make it, all that).
Re: Ask HN: Freelance or Full-time?
#8Why not try for yourself on the side? Set up a bizo and see about getting some moonlighting jobs happening. If you find you're getting work you can chase more. If you realise your not up for the hustle of client chasing and dealing with them in general, look for option 3.