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Hello!

Do any of you have any experience in Freelancing as a programmer?

I'm looking into it and I'm curious what other people's experiences are. Was it hard to get started? Did you find your clients quickly or did it take a few years?

Not asking for your business secrets.
Just your experience. :)

Yours Sincerely,
Lass
I have no experience in freelancing as a programmer but have a lot of as smth else on Upwork. If you have any questions about that platform please be free to ask. But smth tells me that if you're good with python there are better, more specialized, web sites where you can get remote/freelance jobs. Keep in mind that being a programmer-freelancer is probably harder than working in a company where you can ask your colleagues for help.
Thank you Truman, I'll have to look into it some more. Upwork sounds interesting! But I understand that a lot of task will come my way if I do this.

Thank you!
I really want to become a freelancer Confused
I too have no experience in the freelancing field as a programmer but
my friends are working on the following sites as a freelancer:

Upwork
Fiverr
Freelancers
Peopleperhour
Those sites (upwork, fiverr, etc) are forms of freelancing but be warned: there is fierce competition there.
I use these as a client and my python jobs usually get a lot of candidates.
I mean, most of these are beginners, far worse than me in Python :) (and I am no expert, yet) but they submit a proposal anyway.
My feeling is that being actually good in Python isn't going to get you ahead of these people. It's very hard for me, as a client, to tell who is a reasonable programmer and who is hacking stuff copied from a youtube tutorial posted in 2015...

As for more job-like-freelancing. It's definitely a thing and it's definitely growing. If you were based in London, I would wholeheartedly advise you orient your career towards freelancing.
This does mean you need to model your household economy around the financial implications of being a freelancer. You are not going to have a steady source of income. It's more like a few good jobs a year - but they could easily amount to more than a yearly salary.

For example, I was offered a Python job in London for £800 a day. Unfortunately, my Python wasn't good enough for me to feel that I should apply - but it my Python was really bad and, if I were in anyway into Python, I could have made it happen.

Feels like the going rate right now in London is £600-1200 for good-elite Python engineers.
A daily portion of a yearly salary would be about £150-400
The above numbers are before tax, which could make the difference smaller. Also, again, can't guarantee you'd be working for £1000 every day of the year - if they were looking for such an engagement, they would hire a permanent employee.

Also, if I made £800 per day, I wouldn't even want to work the whole year. I'd hit it hard during the winter and go on large breaks during the summer
(Apr-13-2021, 03:18 PM)Mustey Wrote: [ -> ]Those sites (upwork, fiverr, etc) are forms of freelancing but be warned: there is fierce competition there.
I use these as a client and my python jobs usually get a lot of candidates.
I mean, most of these are beginners, far worse than me in Python :) (and I am no expert, yet) but they submit a proposal anyway.
My feeling is that being actually good in Python isn't going to get you ahead of these people. It's very hard for me, as a client, to tell who is a reasonable programmer and who is hacking stuff copied from a youtube tutorial posted in 2015...

As for more job-like-freelancing. It's definitely a thing and it's definitely growing. If you were based in London, I would wholeheartedly advise you orient your career towards freelancing.
This does mean you need to model your household economy around the financial implications of being a freelancer. You are not going to have a steady source of income. It's more like a few good jobs a year - but they could easily amount to more than a yearly salary.

For example, I was offered a Python job in London for £800 a day. Unfortunately, my Python wasn't good enough for me to feel that I should apply - but it my Python was really bad and, if I were in anyway into Python, I could have made it happen.

Feels like the going rate right now in London is £600-1200 for good-elite Python engineers.
A daily portion of a yearly salary would be about £150-400
The above numbers are before tax, which could make the difference smaller. Also, again, can't guarantee you'd be working for £1000 every day of the year - if they were looking for such an engagement, they would hire a permanent employee.

Also, if I made £800 per day, I wouldn't even want to work the whole year. I'd hit it hard during the winter and go on large breaks during the summer

Yes, you are right. The freelancing sites are saturated and is very hard for the new ones to get some
projects there. But once your profile is developed on these sites then you will get projects easily.
£800 per day is fairly a good offer, are you still working on it?
Since 2018, I've been a freelancer. Before jumping in blind, I would recommend getting a beginning contract. Maybe even an accountant. Clients should be aware that you may be supporting your own code for a long period. Some days, I get calls that I dread. The everlasting WALP.