Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig? • Hacker News Board

Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?

#121

Post by jasonkester » Tue, Mar 29, 2011, 11:35 PM UTC

jerryblack wrote: post #43

I have looked at sites like odesk or elance and those just suck for US freelancers as they do not pay shit. No one can outbid some russian company charging $3 per hour. Where do you go to find projects?

It's actually not that hard to get good clients on Guru and the sites you mention. You just need to differentiate from that Russian kid on something other than price.

Back in my eLance days, I charged $75/hour for my time and wrote good thoughtful proposals for jobs that sounded interesting. Those two things set me so far apart from the rest of the field that potential clients would essentially have two piles of proposals on their desk:

- Pile A: 100 broken english canned proposals quoting $14/hr and dripping with flakiness

- Pile B: 1 proposal from the expensive guy who sounds like he knows what he's doing

So the thought process then changes to "do I take a risk, or do I spend the money to do the job right". I'd only hear back from 1 in 10 proposals, but the conversation was always the same from there:

"Wow, you really nailed what we're looking for, but, well, you're a bit expensive. Any chance you can give us a break on price?"

"No."

"OK, well we've talked it over and we think we'd like to give it a shot."

Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?

#122

Post by geebee » Tue, Mar 29, 2011, 11:39 PM UTC

Loic wrote: post #18

Working in the chemical engineering area. Hard science + all the cool technologies you can read on HN => Fun + money. Usually a contract starts at $15k (2 weeks) and goes up to 2 months of work on average. I always advice people to go the hard science way if they like computer science, because there is a really big big lack of people being good at both. I should write about it.

the one thing about hard science - it's a specialty that can distinguish you from general programming, which may increase the rate. however, you don't want to get in the business of competing with graduate students, who are accustomed to doing very difficult work for very little money.

I did a lot of operations-research type programming in grad school, and I thought it would set me apart, but I've found that the jobs that want programming and OR skills don't seem to pay any better than other types of programming. This is jobs, not consulting gigs, though, and I'm only basing this on a few data points.

Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?

#123

Post by kellishaver » Wed, Mar 30, 2011, 12:12 AM UTC

I tend to intentionally take smaller projects, because I find the variety more interesting than working on the same thing for months on end, so it's rare that I get single projects over about $8k (most of them are in the $4-6 range), but that's because I'm not going after bigger ones.

Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?

#124

Post by kaffeinecoma » Wed, Mar 30, 2011, 12:34 AM UTC

I quit my job this year and have been making a reasonable living via Elance and oDesk. Mostly GWT/Google App Engine projects, but starting to dip into Android as well.

On oDesk I was lucky enough to meet a great client almost immediately. I got an ongoing project with him for ~30 hours/week. I think I'm grossly undercharging him, but it's a steady gig that leaves me able to pick up other projects on the side.

For fixed price projects I generally don't even bother considering anything under $5K. I try to stand out by bidding high rates (by Elance standards). So far it's working fairly well. I hope to develop enough happy customers so that eventually I'll be able to move off of those sites and just get clients by word of mouth.

Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?

#125

Post by csomar » Wed, Mar 30, 2011, 12:55 AM UTC

Loic wrote: post #18

Working in the chemical engineering area. Hard science + all the cool technologies you can read on HN => Fun + money. Usually a contract starts at $15k (2 weeks) and goes up to 2 months of work on average. I always advice people to go the hard science way if they like computer science, because there is a really big big lack of people being good at both. I should write about it.

Yeah, please do. And if you can, please, I need to know if it's possible to do it remotely (or with a meeting or two at most).

- I mean, I'm not from a developed country. Is that still possible that I can take advantage of mastering both skills? I'm currently a Medicine student with good programming skills. -

Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?

#126

Post by saturn » Wed, Mar 30, 2011, 1:50 AM UTC

hallmark wrote: post #115

leon_ wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me how once a customer came to me and needed his elance-made-in-russia-iphone-app fixed because it "mysteriously" crashed since apple "broke it" with the new iOS version. (ASAP!) I took a look at the code and ... you know what happens in japan with that nuclear plant right now? Yeah, the app was the fukushima of code. It only hold together because of luck. Luck didn't last till iOS 4 where Apple seemingly cha…

I'm sure you could have eloquently described the code without comparing it to Fukushima. It is an ongoing crisis, part of a larger natural disaster, with many people still actively grieving.

It is a ridiculous analogy anyway. Fukushima failed, yes, but only after a magnitude 9 earthquake, followed by a devastating tsunami, overwhelmed its myriad safety systems. I don't know how any right-minded person could ever form the impression it was only "held together by luck".

Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?

#127

Post by rockorager » Wed, Mar 30, 2011, 2:00 AM UTC

kragen wrote: post #120

Loic wrote: post #18

Working in the chemical engineering area. Hard science + all the cool technologies you can read on HN => Fun + money. Usually a contract starts at $15k (2 weeks) and goes up to 2 months of work on average. I always advice people to go the hard science way if they like computer science, because there is a really big big lack of people being good at both. I should write about it.

I'd also be interested in what you have to write about it. Off-topic: what books do you recommend on chemical engineering? What's the equivalent of The Art of Electronics for analog electronics, or HDL Chip Design for digital chip design, or Code Complete or Algorithms in C or CLRS or The Pragmatic Programmer or SICP or TAOCP for software?

There are very few "sit down and read" type books about chemical engineering. That being said, there are two books that I reference every day: the first physically, the second philosophically.

1) Perry's Handbook for Chemical Engineers (Perry)

2) Conceptual Design of Chemical Processes (Douglas)

Perry's is the end all be all for technical reference.

Conceptual Design is incredibly useful for learning how to quickly and accurately design an entire process. If anything, it'll teach you the best methods to go about "back of the hand" calculations for sanity checks.

Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?

#128

Post by rockorager » Wed, Mar 30, 2011, 2:13 AM UTC

Loic wrote: post #18

Working in the chemical engineering area. Hard science + all the cool technologies you can read on HN => Fun + money. Usually a contract starts at $15k (2 weeks) and goes up to 2 months of work on average. I always advice people to go the hard science way if they like computer science, because there is a really big big lack of people being good at both. I should write about it.

I'm a chemical engineer myself, and often wondered if there were any others interested in programming as much as I am. I'd be interested to see what sorts of marriages you have made between the two fields. Do you have any links you could post or send me?

Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?

#129

Post by BrandonM » Wed, Mar 30, 2011, 2:14 AM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #121

jerryblack wrote: post #43

I have looked at sites like odesk or elance and those just suck for US freelancers as they do not pay shit. No one can outbid some russian company charging $3 per hour. Where do you go to find projects?

It's actually not that hard to get good clients on Guru and the sites you mention. You just need to differentiate from that Russian kid on something other than price. Back in my eLance days, I charged $75/hour for my time and wrote good thoughtful proposals for jobs that sounded interesting. Those two things set me so far apart from the rest of the field that potential clients would essentially have two piles of prop…

Why not "charge" $90 per hour and then offer to "come down" to $75?

Re: Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?

#130

Post by asmithmd1 » Wed, Mar 30, 2011, 2:25 AM UTC

alexg0 wrote: post #85

jtregunna wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best way I've found is to start out on hourly gigs, until you have a sense of how long certain tasks take you. With experience, you get better at estimating your time. EDIT: Oh and when you start out, if you're estimating time, double it.

and then switch to next higher time unit (without changing the number)

This has worked for me. I estimate it will take 8 hours - quote 16 days.