Don't focus on people who have already made technology choices and are just looking for staff augmentation. Focus on the business value you can create, regardless of the tech stack, and seek out prospects who have the problem you solve, and care more about having the problem solved than about mandating a tech stack. Ideally, you want to be talking to LoB (Line of Business) leaders and executives, more than IT people.…
Ask HN: How to freelance with niche programming languages?
11–18 of 18 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to freelance with niche programming languages?
#12I guess legacy tech will help here. I know that a lot of businesses still run on COBOL and will probably be willing to pay well. Anyone with experience in freelancing for legacy tech ?
I can't speak to COBOL-based businesses, but I work for a large company that uses primarily RPG ILE. Five of our eight programmers have passed retirement age, but are still holding on. Once they decide to leave the company, we'll will be in a tight spot. I can only imagine its the same way at a lot of other RPG shops. All this is to say, +1 for consulting/freelancing for legacy tech.
Re: Ask HN: How to freelance with niche programming languages?
#13Don't focus on people who have already made technology choices and are just looking for staff augmentation. Focus on the business value you can create, regardless of the tech stack, and seek out prospects who have the problem you solve, and care more about having the problem solved than about mandating a tech stack. Ideally, you want to be talking to LoB (Line of Business) leaders and executives, more than IT people.…
On the other hand, business people who don't care about their tech stack often have BIG blind spots in their conception of their desired solution, such as IT leaders that will slam the brakes on your solution if it doesn't fit into their vision of the technology world, who come out of the woodwork in the final hour and doom your project after a bunch of incorrect technology choices were made because the business folk…
Re: Ask HN: How to freelance with niche programming languages?
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't speak to COBOL-based businesses, but I work for a large company that uses primarily RPG ILE. Five of our eight programmers have passed retirement age, but are still holding on. Once they decide to leave the company, we'll will be in a tight spot. I can only imagine its the same way at a lot of other RPG shops. All this is to say, +1 for consulting/freelancing for legacy tech.
Could you hint which company ? I would like to give a shot in case the company ends up with outsourcing something.
But there seems to be a lot of other companies that rely on legacy RPG. "The Four Hundred" from IT Jungle seems to be a good resource to IBM i-related information.
Re: Ask HN: How to freelance with niche programming languages?
#15I would suggest start with writing your insights about the language in the form of blog post which would be a good start point of attracting audience who are into this niche. This may lead to some folks reaching out to you for work. If you're consider doing full-time consulting work in future then this strategy could lay a good ground work to build credibility in the niche.
Re: Ask HN: How to freelance with niche programming languages?
#16Re: Ask HN: How to freelance with niche programming languages?
#17Re: Ask HN: How to freelance with niche programming languages?
#18You can try this as well https://functional.works-hub.com/jobs/