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Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

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Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#91

Post by mgkimsal »

sqldba wrote: post #75
zippergz wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you're located, but $60/hr seems insanely low. Annualized as a full time job that's $125k/yr. not terrible, but quite a bit less than what a good developer can make as base salary at a tech company. But that tech company job comes with benefits, paid vacation, stability, and possibly equity and bonuses. Plus the freelance gigs are rarely actually full time (even if you have enough clients on a stea…

I absolutely agree. For freelance/contract work the price should be about double expected base salary. First of all because agencies get away with charging that much so you're just undercutting yourself needlessly unless you join in. But secondly because there are big costs; liability insurance and software licensing being some of them.

"First of all because agencies get away with charging that much"

Perhaps they deliver a different sort of value than an individual freelancer? Having a larger staff, having multiple people with different expertise, separate billing/financial folks, admin folks, etc. They provide a different set of services and customer experience - some people want/need that, some don't, but just because agency ABC is charing $200/hr doesn't mean every else can "get away with that" as well. Just being able to have 4 people work simultaneously on a project may be worth the increased pricing for some clients.

Liability insurance isn't that big a cost, and unless you're focused on some really niche industry, "software licensing" probably isn't that big a deal for an individual freelancer. I'd be surprised if even with multiple systems, those combined costs are more than a couple thousand per year (much less for most people I know).

Health insurance is going to be a far bigger expense than almost everything else put together for most folks.

Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#92

Post by super-serial »

gaius wrote: post #52
thrownear wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They expect next to free for skills that take at least 10 years to actually master. You compare it to a doctor, but really it is more like that of a driver. Most of the people are only concerned about getting from point A to point B. They don't really care about proper cornering techniques or following the best line..

99% of what a doctor does is repetitive. Every year the next batch of new parents come in with the same problems with their kids and get the same prescriptions, people break arms and legs, get flu, have headaches, etc etc. Most people just want to be told what pill to take, they don't care about neuropharmacology or myocardial infractions.

Unpopular opinion here... Anyone can be a doctor!

I've had multiple health problems over the years that I've cured by doing the proper research online. Most doctors wouldn't even consider the solutions that helped me because they're always just looking to prescribe a pill. They fix the symptoms and not the cause. You're better off acting as your own doctor, unless you have some traumatic injury that requires surgery.

Disclaimer: This comment is not medical advice. The information presented above is not presented with the intention of diagnosing or treating any disease or condition. This information is for educational purposes only. No responsibility is assumed by the author nor anyone connected with this website for the use of this information and no guarantees of any kind are made for the performance or effectiveness of the recommendations provided.

... and people have to leave a disclaimers like that when they say something like I did. Why don't non-programmers have to leave disclaimers? Our profession is more legit than modern medical practice. I can't wait until expert systems and robots replace doctors!

Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#93

Post by ahallock »

firasd wrote: post #2

The trick is to avoid looking for work on platforms like oDesk (now Upwork) where the world is underbidding you. It’s a positioning and deal flow issue. Ideally you want clients to refer you on to other clients. And maybe you should call yourself a contractor, agency, solo developer—something like that—instead of a “freelancer.” So it’s possible to do well if you quit your job and work as a freelancer, but you need t…

Are you speaking from experience? I've found plenty of great gigs on these freelancing sites. You just have to dig a bit and know what the "crap" jobs are, so you can avoid them altogether. The world is not underbidding you. Most times, you negotiate directly with the client and the bids are just a formality.

Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#94

Post by br_smartass »

I've worked remotely for some time(I'm from Brazil) and gave it up, it's not worth it. I burned out on one of the jobs. The sad truth is that the "remote worker dream"(for ppl not in the 1st World) is a lie, most good companies won't risk putting relevant work for remote workers to do and if they do it'll be because they're clueless or because they need REALLY CHEAP work. It's a suckers game, even if you win, you're losing. I'm now working locally and I started making more than I did with the precious dollars at the first post-remote job and I also made friends, got more challenged, learned and growed more and basically my life became much more satisfying and with much more positive possibilities. My life improved immensely in everything, sane hours, respectful relations, less anxiety.. The effects really are innumerable.

In lame remote working there is a very clear power assymmetry going on, you're there because dollars are worth more than your currency and you'll accept subpar work and subpar pay because maybe it will pay off in the currency arbitrage, the employer knows that, trusts in your naive belief that there's gonna be quality work to do as you saw at the blogs, HN and 37signals-like stuff and he has and endless supply of willing(but maybe not capable) people, the hour-pay will always be at the lowest possible. Both sides of it have multiple reasons to not trust each other and will try to take the most value out of the transaction, and even when there's good faith on both ends there are still way too many pitfalls(e.g.: cultural stuff, deep prejudices) and the chance of success will remain low, then the good ones leave and the crap stays, it's toxic. If you're a good developer I think it's a waste of your life to be in this game, I'd only take it for "youre-gonna-retire-early/take-6-month-vacations" money(plus sane hours, weekends, holydays, relevant work, no micromanaging and other basic dignity stuff), absent that, I recommend exploring your local possibilities, even if it means learning to live with your country standards(or, middle class standard, since you're an IT worker), give up the illusion.

Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#96

Post by odonnellryan »

patio11 wrote: post #86

If you can write a scraper which performs against any real world data, your new rate is $100 per hour [+]. Your first month you spend 140 hours of pounding the virtual pavement looking for clients outside of the markets for lemons that are the freelancing sites. You spend 20 hours on delivery. Now you have the same $2k that you'd have if you killed yourself working on PayPeanutsGetMonkeys.com and you have the nascent…

UpWork has really worked out great for me. Sure there are people who want you to either work for free (require some code up front or as a test), or want you to work for low wages (usually it is around a tenth of what I'd normally charge) but these aren't problems: just politely inform them that you cannot do the work. No big deal!

I've gotten good connections on UpWork that have brought in real value for us.

Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#97

Post by fredgrott »

tagfolder wrote: post #46
developer1 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I clicked through the the article, verified that the title was the same as HN, read the early line "Couple days ago some R.D. from United States contacted me. She wanted to do website scrape.". I stopped reading. Clickbait, ignorant of real freelance work, thinks being contacted about a pathetic scraping job means freelance is worthless? Give me a break. Become a real developer who can find real clients worth the eff…

Hi real developer. Please give me advice how to become real python developer. I just started to learn python from scratch, I've developed my first django website ( http://review.food-singapore.com/ ). I have developed many scripts/scrapers (but seems that's just pathetic) And now when I'm trying to apply any full time python job, almost all require link to github/some project which I don't have. How to get any real p…

Zed Shaw's course of course is an option

Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#98

Post by 7Figures2Commas »

patio11 wrote: post #86

If you can write a scraper which performs against any real world data, your new rate is $100 per hour [+]. Your first month you spend 140 hours of pounding the virtual pavement looking for clients outside of the markets for lemons that are the freelancing sites. You spend 20 hours on delivery. Now you have the same $2k that you'd have if you killed yourself working on PayPeanutsGetMonkeys.com and you have the nascent…

If you can write a scraper which performs against any real world data, chances are you're not in the business of selling yourself by the hour.

The type of scraping projects you see on the freelancing sites typically require minimal skill and can be completed with off-the-shelf tools, many of which are open source. Folks doing these kinds of projects are not realistically going to build a book of business filled with clients paying $100/hour. You can find decent freelancers in the United States charging less who are capable of doing more sophisticated work.

Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#99

Post by YooLi »

patio11 wrote: post #86

If you can write a scraper which performs against any real world data, your new rate is $100 per hour [+]. Your first month you spend 140 hours of pounding the virtual pavement looking for clients outside of the markets for lemons that are the freelancing sites. You spend 20 hours on delivery. Now you have the same $2k that you'd have if you killed yourself working on PayPeanutsGetMonkeys.com and you have the nascent…

Your first month you spend 140 hours of pounding the virtual pavement looking for clients outside of the markets for lemons that are the freelancing sites.

This is the part many people have problems with, myself included. Any tips?

Re: Wanna quit your job and become upwork freelancer? Do not do that

#100

Post by et2o »

super-serial wrote: post #92
gaius wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% of what a doctor does is repetitive. Every year the next batch of new parents come in with the same problems with their kids and get the same prescriptions, people break arms and legs, get flu, have headaches, etc etc. Most people just want to be told what pill to take, they don't care about neuropharmacology or myocardial infractions.

Unpopular opinion here... Anyone can be a doctor! I've had multiple health problems over the years that I've cured by doing the proper research online. Most doctors wouldn't even consider the solutions that helped me because they're always just looking to prescribe a pill. They fix the symptoms and not the cause. You're better off acting as your own doctor, unless you have some traumatic injury that requires surgery.…

What health problems did you cure by doing online research, without medication?
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