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Ask HN: Self taught/no degree freelancer.. What salary can I get?
Based on my skillset, what salary can I get?
I've been freelancing/consulting/contracting for about 5 years and I'm looking into getting a full time frontend dev position.
I have no degree and everywhere I've worked I was the only developer. I feel like I've worked with alot of different things but my portfolio looks like shit since most of the businesses I worked with don't exit anymore or they moved on with different developers. All my personal projects are still major works in progress.
I think explaining my backstory in depth would clear up alot of things but I'll try to keep it brief since I probably wouldn't have time to explain everything in an actual interview.
Languages I've worked with
PHP: 2009-2013
Javascript: 2011-Current
Ruby: 2014-Current
JS Frameworks
Ember: Late 2014-Current
React: 2015-Current
Ruby Frameworks
Rails/rails-api
Sinatra
Databases:
MySQL, Postgres, Redis
Random Sysadmin stuff:
Haven't touched any of this since 2011(paas's ftw) so if someone asks me a question about it, I probably wont remember.
nginx, Apache, Varnish
Stuff I'm currently learning or used recently but I'm still a noob:
Elixir(phoenix framework), Go, and about to check out Clojure.. I really want to get more in depth with functional programming
Design:
Photoshop: 2007-Current
Illustrator: 2009-Current
Sketch: 2014-Current
PPC/Ads
Managed a 20k ad spend for a client from 2011-2014. I only do PPC for one of my own businesses now that has a 2k per month ad spend with a 800% return on ad spend.
- luxpir 11y agoSounds like you could command a relatively decent salary, if you can prove your claims via portfolio or testing, but that would also depend on your location, presumably. Where are you based? SV, London, Nowhereville have massive differences in average salary levels. What I'm really interested in though is how your PPC campaign manages an 800% return. Ideally you'd tell me in detail about the business but of course understand you can't. Some general info might be nice though?
- fe-throwaway 11y agoI'm located in Los Angeles but I'm open to moving anywhere. Yeah wouldn't be too smart for me to out all the details on here but it's a niche ecommerce store for a type of product that has gotten extremely popular over the past year or two. IMO there's several reasons to why I'm getting 800%. I believe conversion rate optimization will only get you so far. Focusing on developing the product(getting better prices, reducing freight costs, figuring out different angles to sell/market the product) is where you'll see the best results IMO. My prices are way lower than the competition.. Sometimes up to 40% cheaper. I can't divulge too much here but I move more volume than a majority of my competition so I can either get better prices from the manufacturer or just settle for lower margins. My competition is all mom & pop shops.. None of these shops have the luxury of having development work done without any costs so all these sites are poorly made. They're all pretty much stuck using 2008 technology and with no design/branding work done. I'm always optimizing the mobile experience. I probably push a commit up at least once a week for this alone. Mobile accounts for 75% of my total revenue. I think the big thing here is I just got in at the right time. I started this store right before these types of products started blowing up. So when it did start getting really popular, I already had the infrastructure in place. I think this luck mixed in with the domain knowledge I've gained from working with PPC over the years is how I'm hitting that number.
- ramtatatam 11y agoPossibly not within the topic of your question but why would you want to do permament job if you sound quite successful with your own business? All successful people I know got so high because they were owning businesses rather than working for somebody else...
- fe-throwaway 11y agoI have absolutely no interest in the product. I really just saw it as a opportunity to make money. The business is pretty automated at this point and I'm happy with where it's at. I think I've hit a point where I can't grow this any further without my life revolving around it, which I do not want to do at all. I really enjoy development and want to experience being in a very development focused environment. Sometimes I'm working on the business and all I'm thinking about is how much I want to just code lol.
- davismwfl 11y agoSo salary wise you should be able to pull a competitive salary. The fact that many of the companies are out of business isn't an issue, when asked describe what you have developed and be able to back up the technical details to prove you know your stuff. Other than that, there isn't anything you have to prove as far as the companies go. I don't have a tech degree and it has never gotten in my way, in fact I even removed my degree from my resume back when I was applying for jobs. Even now in consulting when they ask for Founder/key staff details, we leave off my education unless the company is in the health care industry which is where my education is. Some companies do like to see a GitHub profile, if you have anything great, but if not, it is what it is. The answer I find acceptable to that when I talk to a developer is something along the lines of "the code I worked on was for people in the business of making money and they weren't open sourcing anything so I can't publish it". I have gotten variations of this answer and as long as it lines up with the resume (e.g. I don't see an open source company etc) then it is plausible enough, and I don't expect people to write code 24/7 so the fact they put it all into their employment and didn't write extra stuff and publish it in GitHub is fine by me, long as they are competent. As for your side business, if you are spending 2k/month in ads and getting 800% return, then you are pulling in revenue of around 16k a month. If as you said in one of your follow up comments your margins are great then you would be pulling down probably at least $6k/month in net income. If all that is true, and you just don't have a passion for the business (which happens) then sell it, let someone else grow it and you get a job. Selling that business could net you a nice little sum of money, you won't get rich, but it is one hell of a start on a nice savings or retirement account.
- sharemywin 11y agoFound this on monster Ruby on Rails Developer Los Angeles, CAFull-Time $80,000 - $110,000 Job Details If you are a Full Stack Developer with experience, please read on! (Located in Los Angeles, CA) We are building one of the largest communities that the world has ever seen. We are a venture-backed, fast growing and having fun. Top Reasons to Work with Us Competitive Pay ($80- 110K) Significant Equity PTO Paid Benefits