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

Don't let age get to you, my best hire was someone who'd just graduated high school.

I was in the exact same situation as you a few years back. I started freelancing on my 19th birthday (literally) after finding out eLance existed. At the time, I had advanced HTML/CSS skills and could barely build a WordPress theme.

My first 2 projects on eLance were the worst. Effectively doing copy and paste work for what ended up being less than $5/hr. I did get some good reviews though. From there I actually got some good clients, some of which I still work with today. My focus was getting projects the final 20% of the way when hiring cheap work overseas didn't work out for them. Clients were more willing to hire a local (USA) contractor and at higher rates to solve their problem, remember this.

After about 6 months, I stopped using eLance. The model is skewed against high quality work and creates a race to the bottom pricing wise. I was able to find enough work to sustain me through local networking (Meetups are awesome) and a coworking space and I haven't looked back.

I'm 24 now, and I have grown a small freelance gig to my full time income. I have multiple Fortune 1000 companies relying on my services for their performance on search engines, and I have the luxury of working on projects/clients that are a good fit (rather than taking on bad clients because I need to).

My best recommendations: - Focus on what problem you can solve for a business rather then what technologies you use (you're an artisan, not a tool). - Network. Network. Network. This can be in-person or virtual. - Don't focus on your age, clients care about your ability to get work done. - Keep honing in /learning new skills that can make you better serve your clients more efficiently. - Don't be afraid to ask for the sale, or to ask clients for referrals to others

If you'd like email me (in my bio) and i'd be more than happy to pass your resume along to some people in my network.

Good luck!

Would you care to put an email or other contact info in your profile, in case someone wants to reach out to you?

I see someone also mentioned Patrick (patio11), you would do very well to follow his advice. TONS of value in his stuff.

Look into making hacks for games or rotation bots using C#. Or go into advance HP/UI scanning for FPS. Bunch of teenage hackers charge $30-$60 a month for those services. Use http://selly.gg for setting up digital shops

Can only speak of 10-15 years ago - but if you know anyone who knows anyone at a (probably smaller) company in your area, that might work - an introduction can be enough to get a shot. I do think smaller companies are better for this than big ones, but ymmv. Also, meetups. But I guess they've in general changed a lot and I don't really too many really young people (who are not studying in college or similar already).

join a tech meetup, ask to help someone out and pair program and if you're trusted they might give a few projects or tasks to you.