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Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

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Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#1

Post by bettycf »

I started working as freelancer since Sep 2014, the new year is here and I'm not in the situation I was hoping to be. I leave my day job to get better income but more important to get more interesting projects to work with, I always felt that I was stuck in the same tasks the same tech and with no opportunity to get any new stuff to do, and been more real with no opportunity to have a career, there was not other job position to take, so I resign and start doing freelancing and It starts really well, I have to make efforts speaking english and sending detailed reports, but all went well, good ratings, good feedback, great clients, months later I'm not doing the projects I was expecting, I feel the same that in my past day job that I'm stuck in the 40$us 100$us kind of projects, with no new things to do and I want to do more, I know I'm starting and I need reputation and maybe be more patient, but is hard to see myself in a better situation in the future.

My current work history is great, I have only five stars ratings, but my clients just contact me to small short projects, I want it to change, I tried to apply for different projects, and start learning new tools, I'm really getting into Ansible and Docker, but I'm getting no responses and I'm not sure what clients are looking for.

HN, how would you deal with this situation? What can I do to get better opportunities?

This is my first post but I search into HN to look for experiences, I read great advices here I can say I had been motivated to leave my work because of some comments.

Maybe I'm anxious and need to be patient, but I would love get some advices to get a new 2015 start, and be proactive about the things I can change and learn to be in the position I want so much.

Love and Happy Reyes Magos for all.

~ Betty

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#2

Post by jcr »

Thanks for the unknown "Reyes Magos" greeting; by looking it up, I got to learn something new.

As for improving your situation, on the first day of each month there are three automated posts made by the HN user 'whoishiring'. You can find all of the automated posts in the HN user profile under the "submissions" link:

https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring

The first of the three is the "Who is hiring?" post and it contains comments by employers looking to hire people. The most recent is from a few days ago on the 1st of January:

Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2015) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8822808

The second is the "Who wants to be hired? post, and it contains comments by people looking to be hired.

Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (January 2015) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8822810

The third post is for freelancing, both people looking to hire freelances and people looking for freelancing jobs:

Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (January 2015) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8822817

These monthly posts are great resources for anyone looking for work or looking to get work done.

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#3

Post by jwondrusch »

It may be unpopular to refer anyone to WordPress, but I made a 5-6 figure income as a freelance developer working with WordPress clients. WordPress is often a good fit for non-tech, small-medium size businesses that do not have an in-house tech department. Many of them will keep coming back as they see the potential that you offer them. If you know PHP, WordPress is easy to pick up. The backwards compatibility emphasis can be frustrating, but if you're working with a client and have server access/control, this becomes a non-factor compared to when you're trying to sell plugins and themes.

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#5

Post by EmmEff »

jwondrusch wrote: post #3

It may be unpopular to refer anyone to WordPress, but I made a 5-6 figure income as a freelance developer working with WordPress clients. WordPress is often a good fit for non-tech, small-medium size businesses that do not have an in-house tech department. Many of them will keep coming back as they see the potential that you offer them. If you know PHP, WordPress is easy to pick up. The backwards compatibility emphas…

This sounds like solid advice. I've done freelance work with Wordpress for one of my clients and it showed potential. Any tips on pitching WordPress to those who are not sure what it can do for them? This client, in particular, I was working with was interested in setting up an online store using WooCommerce.

FWIW, I am a developer with strong Linux/unix admin knowledge, and plenty of PHP experience.

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#8

Post by Bahamut »

I'm of the belief that earlier on, it is better to work for companies fulltime since there is a better chance that they would be more willing to give the opportunity for developers to learn new tech on the job.

My own experience is that I tend to get siloed into AngularJS projects since my Angular knowledge & productivity is nearly impossible for companies to find. However, I have leveraged it to get some backend experience in languages like Java and some Android experience.

There is a danger in freelancing - companies tend to hire freelancers/contractors to do work quickly. This means that they tend to be biased towards candidates who know the tech and can work quickly.

Re: Ask HN: It's 2015 and I'm not in the situation I wanted to be. Need Advice

#10

Post by coreymaass »

EmmEff wrote: post #5
jwondrusch wrote: post #3

It may be unpopular to refer anyone to WordPress, but I made a 5-6 figure income as a freelance developer working with WordPress clients. WordPress is often a good fit for non-tech, small-medium size businesses that do not have an in-house tech department. Many of them will keep coming back as they see the potential that you offer them. If you know PHP, WordPress is easy to pick up. The backwards compatibility emphas…

This sounds like solid advice. I've done freelance work with Wordpress for one of my clients and it showed potential. Any tips on pitching WordPress to those who are not sure what it can do for them? This client, in particular, I was working with was interested in setting up an online store using WooCommerce. FWIW, I am a developer with strong Linux/unix admin knowledge, and plenty of PHP experience.

I'm a full-time wordpress developer. Wordpress is diverse enough to be a solid platform for e-commerce, CRM, CMS, and a lot of other social-styled websites. In other words, it's not just for blogs. It's popular enough that it's an easy sell, and there's a ton of work around it.
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