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Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?

#131

Post by badri »

> I'm not looking for massive pay, just something to occupy my time and some side money.

You have two options. Start working on a side project which you find interesting. Apply any new technologies you'd wanted to learn. You can either profit from it, or worst case, you learned something new from that. I don't want to glorify failure, but the most important thing is to ship it.

The less risky option is to build your brand/credibility in a niche area, like offering a lot of value in form of blog posts, free e-books etc. This is more organic, takes time, but builds the trust which makes it easier to find clients.

Both options involve a combination of various skills other than pure technical competence like marketing and project management.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?

#132

Post by badri »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #40

Be careful about taking on too many obligations. If you're single and your day job is not too demanding, you might make it work, but if you have a family, it can be tough. I recently found some work through one of the freelance websites but had to back out. I'm a full time software engineer but I am also a full time dad and husband, and between shopping, cooking (I work from home so these tasks tend to fall to me), g…

I can't agree with you enough on this :) It's indeed hard to build a freelancing career between a day job and life.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?

#133

Post by bhu1st »

ryanjanvier wrote: post #45

Focus on a niche and become the go to person in that field. In my case, I work specifically with non-profit organizations that focus on Native American/First Nation issues. By narrowing down my target, I have been able to build a profitable network because I have specialized in that specific niche. Once you have narrowed down your niche, its just a matter of being in the same room as your potential clients. For me, i…

Curious to know what do you do for non profits?

Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?

#134

Post by nurettin »

goostavos wrote: post #36

> I'm a software engineer with a full-time job, but I have lots of spare time in my off hours. I'd like to monetize this time > I'm not looking for massive pay, just something to occupy my time and some side money. This opinion will change. I 100% guarantee it. A few years ago, I had the exact same reasoning for starting freelancing on the side. I even justified my desire for more paid work as "I'd be programming on…

That happened to me! At some point my 20+ years friend started accusing me of malevolent behavior because he perceived that there were persistent bugs in the system which I couldn't reproduce. Sarcasms turned into personal attacks and we are no more friends.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?

#135

Post by nurettin »

>> I'm a software engineer with a full-time job, but I have lots of spare time in my off hours

I have a contract in my current workplace which lets me bill off-hours (they also pay for my taxi costs when I work late, they also pay double during holidays) so I am happily not taking any side jobs. Your day job can become your night job if you can produce more work off-hours for them.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?

#136

Post by neltnerb »

bbaumgar wrote: post #56
goostavos wrote: post #36

> I'm a software engineer with a full-time job, but I have lots of spare time in my off hours. I'd like to monetize this time > I'm not looking for massive pay, just something to occupy my time and some side money. This opinion will change. I 100% guarantee it. A few years ago, I had the exact same reasoning for starting freelancing on the side. I even justified my desire for more paid work as "I'd be programming on…

It sounds like the issue here is more an issue of work conditions and rates, rather than a problem with the actual work. A counter-anecdote: A couple years ago I decided to freelance on the side, but went the other way - I charged triple my day rate, and set a simple rule: no stress allowed. If the client had tight deadlines or a stressful personality, I didn't pursue them. It's been a massively fun few years, and I'…

Yes, you should charge way more for your off hours for sure, or else you'll never ensure the number of hours is sensible.

When we first started we charged way too little, and they had us doing simple jobs because our cost was lower than an employee. Charge them enough that it's worth it for them to have their own employee to do the easy stuff, especially if you already have a full time job. There's not that much risk of not finding work since there's a built in backup.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?

#137

Post by neltnerb »

dboreham wrote: post #115
tomduncalf wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a very good point here. I too have taken on freelance work that ended up consuming much more time than expected and I found it very draining. Even when you aren’t working on it, the knowledge that you have to work on it hangs over you. These days, if I’m working five days a week for a client, I will only take on small side projects (something that I could probably do in a few days full time work, but I will…

Bill per hour and charge more.

More specifically, don't do fixed cost contracts. They misalign all the incentives, and encourages you to do a worse quality job. And it encourages them to take up your time with meetings and support and new "quick" features to add.

Best is a fixed hourly rate, providing them an estimate, and setting it up so that you won't exceed a maximum (after which you can reevaluate with them whether to continue).

This lets you be flexible on the spec and respond quickly to changes they may want, it lets you get compensated for all those little things that you don't plan for like meetings, and you no longer have to give your time estimate a padding to ensure you meet the deadline.

Although they pay less on average, I think you also make more on average. Consider, for a fixed cost project you need to create rigorous specs that take weeks to develop and then negotiate over how hard different things are. Which of course itself takes lots of time. And god forbid they want to add a new feature or change a spec, necessitating either you just doing it for free or negotiating a whole new add-on project.

Ratios of overhead to actual work? Honestly, probably like 50-50... so by cutting out a good chunk of that first 50% from the process, both sides save time and can do other more useful work. I'd way rather take on two clients and not spend my time negotiating and doing paperwork.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?

#138

Post by amingilani »

xevb3k wrote: post #121
amingilani wrote: post #20

Toptal[1] If you're a really good engineer (like I strongly believed I was) and don't have the network to find gigs (I live in Pakistan) freelance market places are great ideas on paper but never work out... Until I joined Toptal. They screened me to ensure I was a good developer (high quality supply of developers) and then worked with me to find a client that would be a good fit. Since not everyone can get into the…

As a counterpoint, I found their interview process so frustrating and disorganized that I gave up on them and told them I was no longer interested... They do both an online programming test, and an in person “code in front of us” test + whatever else. They don’t make it clear up front what the interview process is, and often drop the ball... miss appointments etc.

Interesting. I did find the process a bit arduous, but my interviewers were fairly professional. They were always punctual. Your experience is also the exact opposite of what Toptal tries to be: incredibly dedicated.

Might I suggest giving it one more go? Your experience is likely an exception, and definitely not the norm.

Personally, once I got through the screening, and started working with clients, I decided the screening process is well worth it.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?

#139

Post by askari01 »

finding freelance work is easy, depends how much and what kind of work you want to do. fiver to upwork & freelance... but you will miss exploring new stuff. but side project will turn you into a machine, if you don't find something interesting or aligning with your interests. Must charge more than normal day time. I do it just for fun and don't charge much but i only do it to buy stuff online as my bank account doesn't support buying books, games & apps online. (i don't take more than an hour work)

Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?

#140

Post by fastbeef »

pleasecalllater wrote: post #16
fastbeef wrote: post #13

Are consultant brokers/agent only a thing in the Nordic countries? I started my own consultancy firm last year and just sent my profile to a bunch of brokers. They all got in touch and presented assignments they had. I selected one, went on 1 interview (!!) and bam - six month assignment. The broker gets 10% of what I make. It’s super convenient and saves me a bunch of stress and time hunting assignments so the 10% i…

10% seems quite a lot, I'm wondering if your hour rate is so high that the 10% doesn't matter.

I make 110€ an Hour, so the agent gets around 1500€ from me each month.

However, a lot of the assignments are available ONLY through agents. So the alternative to 90% with an agent is not 100%, it’s 0%

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