31–40 of 350 posts
What I've seen that has worked in the past is this: Pick an open source project that is in a language that is respectable and commit to contributing to it for three or four months. Full time. Try to make sure that your written English is clear and professional in things like PRs. Try to keep your code as clean and as well tested and linted as possible. Once the core team gets to know you a bit you'll be able to reach…
Possibly an unpopular opinion on Freelancing work, but generally avoid anything that is highly saturated. Become a very deep expert in something older or niche. These can lead to opportunities to maintain older software, or work on very specific projects. I did well updating and maintaining ancient Microsoft Access databases for small and medium size businesses who relied on them for day to day operations. I'm curren…
Being a domain-expert (even an armchair-level one) goes a really long ways.
Niche markets are less efficient. There aren't as many jobs, and when an employer needs you, they /really/ need you; if you go into narrow enough niches, there can be zero competitors qualified for the same position. That gives a lot of leverage. The flip side is there might be zero job openings for months. On the whole, I think that's an advantage, but it can go both ways.
Possibly an unpopular opinion on Freelancing work, but generally avoid anything that is highly saturated. Become a very deep expert in something older or niche. These can lead to opportunities to maintain older software, or work on very specific projects. I did well updating and maintaining ancient Microsoft Access databases for small and medium size businesses who relied on them for day to day operations. I'm curren…
Contributing to open source on github may also help. Just cloning other projects is not impressive to potential customers, but small (perhaps learning) projects of your own offer some verification of your ability.
While it might be possible to start a small business around a web service, it seems to me like it is safer to continually study and improve your skill sets and learn the skill of figuring out what customers need and do that for them.
I have asked and this is at month something that can be built in about a month.
If you want to do a joint venture, I'll be the first paying customer and take care of finding paying customers for the tool.
What I've seen that has worked in the past is this: Pick an open source project that is in a language that is respectable and commit to contributing to it for three or four months. Full time. Try to make sure that your written English is clear and professional in things like PRs. Try to keep your code as clean and as well tested and linted as possible. Once the core team gets to know you a bit you'll be able to reach…
Top notch comment.
It can be hard to find an opening to contribute in a decent OSS project that one can keep up with, especially as a beginner, with many others clamoring to do the same.
these constant posts of how to make money are getting ridiculous. i feel for people and what not, but really at this juncture you can just do a search and go through all the answers to the previous times this has been asked.
This question could be asked again MONTHLY and new answers would still arise, because situations will have changed in one or more verticals in one or more markets.
What I've seen that has worked in the past is this: Pick an open source project that is in a language that is respectable and commit to contributing to it for three or four months. Full time. Try to make sure that your written English is clear and professional in things like PRs. Try to keep your code as clean and as well tested and linted as possible. Once the core team gets to know you a bit you'll be able to reach…
That even crazy in California onsite level and you've seen that in remote?
I liked the part about positioning in your comment, it does matter a lot.
My view is coming from someone who hires people last few years. 1) People hate on Freelancer sites, but get on them and and build a profile. If you are good it will show in time. Expect to work for peanuts at the beginning - consider it advertising. 2) Don't lie about what you can do. Always do a good job. I've tried a bunch of people from poorer countries and those seem to be the 2 main issues. Dont have a mentality…
This is terrible advice.
Don't work for free, all you're doing is allowing other people to take advantage of you... which, they will.
There's plenty of other great advice in this topic; this: "work hard and do a good job, for free and it'll be great experience / advertising / whatever the f" is total BS.
Well, what kind of experience do you have?
I have only worked for a web-dev agency (they clamied some services apart from web, but I have't seen them work on anything else). In unrefined words, it can be said to be an outsourcing hub.
Start small and gradually increase your rate. You probably won't get big projects or a nice pay rate in the beginning. It's fine, in the long term things will work out. You will build a reputation over time.
Impress people with the quality of your work. Even if you are working on a small issue for a low amount, go the extra mile. Write stellar code and work long hours to deliver it quickly. Your effort will pay off, as clients will recommend you to others.
Communicate. I can't stress this enough. A big problem in outsourcing is that it's hard to find engineers who are good communicators. Never disappear, update your clients often, don't be afraid to show up in calls, write detailed answers. This makes a huge difference.
In your free time, study. Practice. Become a better engineer. Don't limit yourself to technologies you are comfortable with. Learn something new every day.
When applying for a freelance gig, take everything I've said above into account. Write a detailed proposal that makes it clear you understand the problem at hand and are more than qualified to solve it. If possible, attach a code sample that demonstrates how you'd tackle the problem. Don't forget to mention you are available for a chat whenever and respond quickly if you get an answer.