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Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#11

Post by PragmaticPulp »

leros wrote: post #4
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #3

Finding clients is basically the hardest part. Not going to lie: Most of my clients come from my network and their referrals. Most of my freelancer friends’ clients come from their network and their network referring clients to them. While it is possible to find clients organically through advertising, it’s much easier if you can build a network to pull from. You can start by simply contacting people you know and ask…

Is it mostly finding your own clients? I did a bit of asking around last year and I found several opportunities where companies have small average quality engineering teams who need someone to lead an effort in something like a product manager and engineering architect role. Those sounded interesting, though I did not follow up. My main fear is pay. Ideally, I'd like to be able to make at least $300/hr. I have no ide…

> I did a bit of asking around last year and I found several opportunities where companies have small average quality engineering teams who need someone to lead an effort in something like a product manager and engineering architect role.

Interesting. It’s not exactly common for companies to want contractors to be in leadership roles. Leadership roles generally warrant full-time employees who can be more invested in the company.

Unless this was a company that tried to treat everyone as contractors while expecting them to behave as full-time employees. That’s not true contracting/freelancing. That’s just companies abusing labor laws.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#12

Post by castr0 »

Don't bother contracting. In the United States almost all software contracting companies fall under two categories:

1.) Money laundering of some sort or another. 2.) Groups of people who have figured out they can create fraudulent projects and then contract them out to "friends". These are the worst as they are gaslighting festivals where you're forced to buy from certain places or people start purposely breaking software until you pay up.

If you dig deep enough you'll find out exactly how fraudulent most contracting companies are. It's almost all illegal activity.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#14

Post by couchand »

I started contracting at about the same point in my career. I'd been at four different companies, two of them pretty big places where I took on mentorship roles. Over time I'd built up a list of colleagues (a rolodex, if you will) who would come to me with system design and architecture questions, both for work and for side projects. Eventually, some of those side projects grew serious, and I transitioned to freelancing gradually during a period when I was otherwise taking a break.

I've never done sales, and I'm deathly afraid of the need to do that some day. But my colleagues and friends keep hiring me and keep getting promoted, so we're good for now, I guess.

Not sure if I have any concrete advice beyond: take those coffees every time,and keep in touch with talented colleagues.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#16

Post by fioan89 »

contrucked wrote: post #9

What type of contracting? There's a wide range, from project based to placements within a team. Placements into a team (i.e: you join a team for a few months) are very easy to come by (just speak to any recruiter on LinkedIn) and don't require any sort of network. A typical rate (in my area anyway) is roughly 2x what you'd get per day as a salaried employee (i.e: 180th of the yearly salary). Generally, this type of w…

! 33Z

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#17

Post by leros »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #11
leros wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it mostly finding your own clients? I did a bit of asking around last year and I found several opportunities where companies have small average quality engineering teams who need someone to lead an effort in something like a product manager and engineering architect role. Those sounded interesting, though I did not follow up. My main fear is pay. Ideally, I'd like to be able to make at least $300/hr. I have no ide…

> I did a bit of asking around last year and I found several opportunities where companies have small average quality engineering teams who need someone to lead an effort in something like a product manager and engineering architect role. Interesting. It’s not exactly common for companies to want contractors to be in leadership roles. Leadership roles generally warrant full-time employees who can be more invested in…

Those companies were willing to hire me. Hopefully this doesn't arrogant, but those companies can't hire someone of my caliber. They're mediocre companies that can only hire average/mediocre people. I wouldn't want to join a company like that full time, but I could see it being fun to hop in and help them out with a big project.

For example one company was a media company that you've probably heard of. For their next growth phase, they have two separate legacy PHP systems that they need to integrate and they need to modernize their front end. Their development team isn't capable of doing that project. They've been spinning their wheels for a few years. I thought it might be fun to go in to that company, understand their systems, architect the new solution, lead/coach their team through building it. I could also help them set up automated build systems, introduce React and coach them through learning that. Maybe help them hire some more modern developers as well. That kind of thing.

I've got a lot of experience doing complex architecture and also training up junior developers, so it sounds like projects like that could play to my strengths.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#18

Post by joshgachnang »

When I switch to freelancing, I started with Toptal while trying to build my network. They run you through a standard startup-type interview process, then once you're in, they take care of the finding clients and managing payment part. They sell the client on a rate, you set your rate, and they take the (unknown) difference. The clients went from being put on an existing team to building a team and launching a startup product. Overall it was a mostly positive experience. You can email me (in my profile) if you have questions.

Then, while doing that, I worked my network and found a couple good clients. I also posted in the monthly Freelance thread here on HN. I found two great clients through that!

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#19

Post by PragmaticPulp »

leros wrote: post #17
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I did a bit of asking around last year and I found several opportunities where companies have small average quality engineering teams who need someone to lead an effort in something like a product manager and engineering architect role. Interesting. It’s not exactly common for companies to want contractors to be in leadership roles. Leadership roles generally warrant full-time employees who can be more invested in…

Those companies were willing to hire me. Hopefully this doesn't arrogant, but those companies can't hire someone of my caliber. They're mediocre companies that can only hire average/mediocre people. I wouldn't want to join a company like that full time, but I could see it being fun to hop in and help them out with a big project. For example one company was a media company that you've probably heard of. For their next…

> Hopefully this doesn't arrogant, but those companies can't hire someone of my caliber.

Well obviously if they can’t pay market rates, and you didn’t even think it was worth asking, then it’s not exactly a great example of a consulting client.

I’m not sure what these hypothetical contracts that you didn’t even pursue because you don’t think the companies could have afforded add to the conversation, though.

It doesn’t sound like these clients were typical or even remotely competent.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#20

Post by svorakang »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #11
leros wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it mostly finding your own clients? I did a bit of asking around last year and I found several opportunities where companies have small average quality engineering teams who need someone to lead an effort in something like a product manager and engineering architect role. Those sounded interesting, though I did not follow up. My main fear is pay. Ideally, I'd like to be able to make at least $300/hr. I have no ide…

> I did a bit of asking around last year and I found several opportunities where companies have small average quality engineering teams who need someone to lead an effort in something like a product manager and engineering architect role. Interesting. It’s not exactly common for companies to want contractors to be in leadership roles. Leadership roles generally warrant full-time employees who can be more invested in…

I will chip in here.

I have had several lead roles as a freelancing consultant over the last few years. Product owner, software architect, software lead. I try to communicate a lot, write down my strategies and thereby make myself replaceable. This way I can change assignments when conditions change (project entering new phase, change of directions, or purchasing goes for a drive to cut expenses) and the client gets improved progress, process, culture and way of working in return, without fears of making them too dependent on a consultant.

People reach out to me on roughly weekly basis with new leads, so finding a new gig is easy. I treat new contacts with mild distance and careful interest, and greet old colleagues that know me well with greater warmth and interest. But I also make it clear that when I'm on a contract, I want to leave the current client with some firm usable deliverables before I consider any other options. Typical assignments are 6-24 months.

Typical rate: currently roughly 100 EUR/h, increasing by roughly 10% annually. 12 years experience in my field (embedded software, specialized within automotive). Western Sweden.

For info, labour laws are pretty strict in Sweden, so employing somebody is a great expense and risk for the employer. Contracting has thus become pretty common (often 30% of the workforce; sometimes more).

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