Ask HN: How to migrate from employee to freelancer as a SW engineer? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How to migrate from employee to freelancer as a SW engineer?

#11

Post by throwcean » Sat, Feb 12, 2022, 9:03 AM UTC

gregjor wrote: post #6

The easiest way to start is to change from employee to freelancer (contractor) with your current employer. If you can start freelancing with projects lined up you won’t have to start out trying to get work, which will get demoralizing fast. Don’t expect to get much from the popular platforms like Fiverr and Upwork. While it’s possible to get good contracts there, those sites are (a) full of low-paying short-term gig…

Thanks. That's valuable input for sure. I don't have the option to freelance for my current employer but that's OK. I know a few people that might know potential customers They have worked as freelancers themselves.

I will now go on reading your blog post and potentially others you have written. Thanks!

BTW I have read that advice to position yourself as a specialist in a niche before. For all others reading this thread here I can also recommend this article: https://andyadams.org/everything-i-know-about-freelancing/

Re: Ask HN: How to migrate from employee to freelancer as a SW engineer?

#12

Post by fred123 » Sat, Feb 12, 2022, 9:21 AM UTC

throwcean wrote: post #10

patwoz wrote: post #5

Hey, I just started my Freelance career last September. I have the exact same years of experience and also located in Germany. You should take a look at Freelance.de and freelancermap.de. I'm getting 2-5 projects requests each day. I just finished my first project successfully and will start my second project next week. As a web developer I can earn 70-100€/h. That’s 2.5x more than I got as a full time employee. You…

Hi, thanks for the info. Indeed I know of both these sites but I didn't know the rates possible there. My first rough calculation gave me an estimate of 80€/hour as a lower bound. My target would be 100€ but it wouldn't be a problem to start out with 80€. How much of the offers you are receiving are low-ball crap offers you would say? Also for how long are these contracts going on average? Thanks for your input.

What’s your expertise and technology stack?

100€ is easily possible, I think it is kind of the default rate in my space (Python Data Engineering, cloud stuff, …).

From my experience there are almost exclusively very professional people on those platforms so no low balling.

Typical contract will be 4-5 days a week for 3-18 months

Re: Ask HN: How to migrate from employee to freelancer as a SW engineer?

#13

Post by gregjor » Sat, Feb 12, 2022, 9:40 AM UTC

throwcean wrote: post #11

gregjor wrote: post #6

The easiest way to start is to change from employee to freelancer (contractor) with your current employer. If you can start freelancing with projects lined up you won’t have to start out trying to get work, which will get demoralizing fast. Don’t expect to get much from the popular platforms like Fiverr and Upwork. While it’s possible to get good contracts there, those sites are (a) full of low-paying short-term gig…

Thanks. That's valuable input for sure. I don't have the option to freelance for my current employer but that's OK. I know a few people that might know potential customers They have worked as freelancers themselves. I will now go on reading your blog post and potentially others you have written. Thanks! BTW I have read that advice to position yourself as a specialist in a niche before. For all others reading this thr…

A business value niche, not a technical niche. Your clients will most often have no idea what React or PHP or Postgres mean. They will understand cost, risk, opportunity. Domain expertise has a lot more value to a freelancer than technical expertise.

I usually start with clients by asking them to list their top five or ten pain points or unfulfilled needs. Those are usually business problems: Our invoices get sent out late, we’re not calculating shipping charges accurately. Sometimes they are technical problems: server crashes every other day, we don’t have good backups, we failed a security audit. I’ve never heard low-level programming problems as top pain points. The potential client wants to hear that you can address their actual problems. How many years of React experience you have, or how cool you think Rust is, are not relevant.

Re: Ask HN: How to migrate from employee to freelancer as a SW engineer?

#14

Post by throwcean » Sat, Feb 12, 2022, 11:10 AM UTC

fred123 wrote: post #12

throwcean wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, thanks for the info. Indeed I know of both these sites but I didn't know the rates possible there. My first rough calculation gave me an estimate of 80€/hour as a lower bound. My target would be 100€ but it wouldn't be a problem to start out with 80€. How much of the offers you are receiving are low-ball crap offers you would say? Also for how long are these contracts going on average? Thanks for your input.

What’s your expertise and technology stack? 100€ is easily possible, I think it is kind of the default rate in my space (Python Data Engineering, cloud stuff, …). From my experience there are almost exclusively very professional people on those platforms so no low balling. Typical contract will be 4-5 days a week for 3-18 months

Good to know. My stack is mostly in the space of Go, Kubernetes, Docker, Linux, backends, microservices, networking etc. I think it is kinda one of the hotter topics these days.. so that could help.