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Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#21

Post by ushakov »

Lucasoato wrote: post #7
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…

> Don’t underestimate how good a stable, big company job is right now. This. Also don't underestimate how hard it is to get the money from a client if they decide not to pay you, even if you did a good job.

find better clients, ask for money first and never share the source code before you got paid

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#22

Post by nicoburns »

Talk to someone else who contracts and get advice on what a sensible day rate is. Then simply contact recruiters and say you are a contractor and are looking for a contract.

I got into it by mistake when I applied for a short term position without even being aware of the concept of contracting. Turns out getting contracts is typically easier than getting a full time position as there’s less risk on the part of the employer. They can just get rid of you if you turn out not to be good.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#23

Post by iainctduncan »

It depends what you mean by contracting - which can be anything from "an employee who gets no benefits so a bit more money" to freelancing.

If you're looking for ongoing part-time contracting, I have successfully landed multiple contracting jobs by applying to places that were looking for full time work, for whom my skills were an exceptionally good fit, and saying "I know you weren't thinking of part-time remote contractors, but I'm a really good fit, would you consider it?"

Lots of places have just never seriously considered it, but faced with a hot prospect, will do so. And lots of places out there are actually wrestling with the issue of needing extra work, but not having enough to justify the obligation of hiring permanent full time.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#24

Post by akerl_ »

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…

I’m not sure why you think a company that wanted to hire you for a leadership role would pay you as a free-lancer to do that role. Generally consultant and full-time hiring pipelines and roles are fully separate, for a variety of reasons.

Also, just in case it wasn’t obvious, this comment does read as extremely arrogant. A company wanted to hire you, you didn’t want to work there because they’re “average/mediocre”, so you’ve decided w/o engaging with them that it might be fun to pop in and just solve all their problems for them.

As parallel comments have pointed out, networking is crucial to contracting, because it’s the primary way that clients connect with you and decide to work with you. If your mindset is that you’re a rockstar saving crappy companies from their mediocrity, you’ll quickly find yourself with a poisoned well.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#25

Post by nickjj »

Lucasoato wrote: post #7
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…

> Don’t underestimate how good a stable, big company job is right now. This. Also don't underestimate how hard it is to get the money from a client if they decide not to pay you, even if you did a good job.

> This. Also don't underestimate how hard it is to get the money from a client if they decide not to pay you, even if you did a good job.

It's not too bad in my opinion. I've been freelancing for close to 20 years on my own with no 3rd party platforms. I've had assorted clients from around the world.

I've only been legit ripped off once out of issuing hundreds of invoices and working with a bunch of individuals and businesses.

The amount I got cheated out of was 2 hours of work where the client requested work, agreed to pay but didn't pay. Other than that one time it's been smooth sailing where mostly everyone pays on time without issues. I've only had a handful of cases where someone forgot to pay within 30 days and a single follow up email resulted in them apologizing and paying. In some cases they even gave an unrequested tip because they genuinely felt sorry for missing the first email. These were all cases of people being busy and forgetting by accident.

I'm also very lax with how I request payments too. I send out an invoice at the start of every month because it's more convenient for everyone involved. Sometimes with new clients this means doing let's say 5 hours of work on the 3rd of the month but not invoicing them until the following month.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#27

Post by jollybean »

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…

$300/hr is the same as $600K/year.

As a manager, who are you going to pay that kind of rate to?

Why would someone hire a contractor at that rate, when they could hire the top tier Google Engineers?

$200-300/hr rates are usually for 'expertise' style inputs - it's where you have industry leading or arcane knowledge in your field, and you bill for your insight, which might just be a few hours.

A lawyer who specializes in IP, and is intimately familiar with the Texas IP legal circuit and all the judges, would bill some 'very high rate' per hour, but probably only for limited number of hours.

If you have a full time job, and want to do some 'evening consulting' - you could bill $300/hr if you prepare a training package and are training a team on how to do something, i.e. a 4-hour course for $1200. That kind of thing.

Or if you really have some super DevOps knowledge, you're 'The K8 Man' and they call you because they are stuck on a problem, and you always have a solution - you can bill them $300/hr.

But being a bit more senior than their regular devs and helping them out doing regular work, then it's going to be tough to get a huge billing rate.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#28

Post by BurningFrog »

iainctduncan wrote: post #23

It depends what you mean by contracting - which can be anything from "an employee who gets no benefits so a bit more money" to freelancing. If you're looking for ongoing part-time contracting, I have successfully landed multiple contracting jobs by applying to places that were looking for full time work, for whom my skills were an exceptionally good fit, and saying "I know you weren't thinking of part-time remote con…

Employers face the mirrored version of OPs question.

They'd be happy to hire contractors for some things, but have no good way to find them.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#29

Post by ushakov »

iainctduncan wrote: post #23

It depends what you mean by contracting - which can be anything from "an employee who gets no benefits so a bit more money" to freelancing. If you're looking for ongoing part-time contracting, I have successfully landed multiple contracting jobs by applying to places that were looking for full time work, for whom my skills were an exceptionally good fit, and saying "I know you weren't thinking of part-time remote con…

why do the employers prefer hiring rather than contracting?

Re: Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

#30

Post by ushakov »

akerl_ wrote: post #24
leros wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I’m not sure why you think a company that wanted to hire you for a leadership role would pay you as a free-lancer to do that role. Generally consultant and full-time hiring pipelines and roles are fully separate, for a variety of reasons. Also, just in case it wasn’t obvious, this comment does read as extremely arrogant. A company wanted to hire you, you didn’t want to work there because they’re “average/mediocre”, s…

yeah, pretty hypocrite that the author doesn’t work to work for a company, because it’s not his caliber, but then accepts a freelancing gig

if you don’t want to work for a company for any reason, why did you accept the offer?

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