7 ms·
Ask HN: Freelance developer hit the ceiling: what to do next?
Hi there,
i've been a freelance developer on Upwork/oDesk for 7 years, and gradually i realized that my income stopped growing (some 4 years ago). I tried to do everything i could think of and yet, there was no further growth, i hit some ceiling at about $100K a year. Trying to figure out what was wrong, i did a study using Upwork API to find who the top developers are and what are they doing to get there, and the answer didn't please me: i am one of the very top developers (#10 at the time i did the study) and there isn't much room above. Yes out of hundreds of thousands.
Which makes me think that freelance sites aren't for me: it is that proverbial room where i am the smartest guy in, and when you are the smartest guy in the room, you are in the wrong room. If i am comfortably within top 0.1%, i will definitely make a lot more in the environment where i will be the average one.
Question is: where is that room? I am in the EU (can be anywhere except UK/Ireland). Anyone who had a similar problem please share your experiences, what did you do to grow from there?
One obvious idea is to do my own startup, which i am now trying, but that is another story. Trying, but i am not sure startups are for me, i'd better work for hire.
- CarolineW 11y agoWhat are your skills? What skills do you want to be using?
- anovikov 11y agoIs this important? As far as i seen the ceiling is about same everywhere on Upwork, about $40 an hour for long-term full-time work and $70-$90 for short-term gigs. For someone who programmed since the age of 10 learning a new programming language is easy. I started on oDesk as a Flash developer (it was 2009 - heyday of Flash), then gradually moved onto other stuff, my most recent new language was Go (i did PubNub Go SDK). Right now i am coding in Python but i can easily be doing something else next month. But really, i don't think skills are an answer here. At least not technical skills. There is no way i could be making $200K instead of $100K by learning any kind of technical/programming skills. What i need is new markets.
- CyberFonic 11y agoSome enterprise Java devs, big data experts and algo trading specialists earn $200k+ in the top cities. Not sure what you mean by "new markets". Do you mean new markets for your programming skills? Or are you thinking of changing careers, for example going into sales or big ticket consulting?
- anovikov 11y agoTop cities - in the EU? Like, which ones? Currently i am in Vilnius which has quite a low cost of living. I don't think i want to go to say Paris for $200K pre-tax. I will be clearly worse off there. Also once i get passport (i am a Russian immigrant), i plan to move to Asia where cost of living is lower yet - unless by that time i get enough to stop worrying about money. New markets - some new way of selling my programming services which don't share the 'race to the bottom' style of Upwork bidding. I kind of assume that if i am one of the just a few top people on Upwork there must be a way to get several times as much if i am on a market where average skills are comparable to mine.
- anovikov 11y agoBig ticket consulting-maybe! Where do i start? Any links to read?
- anovikov 11y agoSo i am looking for advice which i imagine could look like 'you have to take some authoritative skill tests at %s, attend networking events at %s and %s, and learn how to write killer cover letters as the guy in %s book says, and you'll get to $200k a year working remotely within a year or two'. I am not looking for a full time job - any one which could be better than what i get now will be in a place which is very expensive to live, and where taxes are high (in Lithuania we pay lowest tax in EU), so unless there is a magic job which pays $500K or so, i don't win anything.
- codegeek 11y agoTo get to 200K a year working remotely, the primary skill you need to learn is how to sell. Forget about authoritative skill tests etc. There is no magic answer to this. It is going to take a lot more than a killer cover letter though. Networking events may work if you know how to use them effectively.
- ddorian43 11y agoBest job I interviewed was for up to $250+K/year remotely. I didn't get the job though (from stackoverflow). I will hopefully soon have your problem too on upwork. My idea is to: 1. extreme specialization. Example: I like backend, high performance, low-level, databases (rdbms & nosql). So I'll probably go into lowe-level java/c++/c database coding. And then either contract on this or get a job Example: antirez gets a nice San Francisco wage coding full-time open-source redis. 2. startup Different ideas. But if I get good at the low-level-high-performance-thing even something with that.
- CyberFonic 11y ago$100k per year is very good. There are lots of people who would love to earn that much. No wonder you are in the top 10! Without knowing what your skills are, it's hard to make suggestions. But ... have you looked at working at a top notch company where your skills would be very much in demand. For example, with the right skills you could land a very well paying job in banking in say Frankfurt or Zurich. I've worked for a Zurich insurance company and that was one of the best paid gigs I've ever had.
- anovikov 11y agoIf i trust Numbeo.com, i'll need $530K pre-tax to have same consumption in Zurich as i now do in Vilnius... So... not even the slightiest chance. Not even mentioning that my wife makes another $40K or so so combined that will put our household income requirement close to $900K pre-tax... Simply not possible, period. I don't think any full-time job opportunity which is not a lottery (early employee at a startup) can be that thing. I need something remote.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Mz 11y agoIt sounds to me like you have a great life and should be pretty happy with it. If you are in the top 10 on UpWork currently, then very few people in the world know how to achieve what you have already achieved, much less improve upon it. You can try to look for ways to improve your income further, but most people are not going to know an answer for you.
- ProblemFactory 11y agoYou are not spending 100% of your income, right? You only need to double or triple the income you spend on rent and living costs, not the portion left over for savings to keep the same standard of living. That said, if you are earning $100k in Vilnius, then it will be extremely difficult to find a higher-paying employment offer relative to living costs anywhere in the world. Maybe you can make 1.5-2x that if you go to work in finance - but you will most likely need to move to some of the most expensive cities (Zurich, London, etc) in the world. The typical way of increasing income as a freelancer, after maxing out the hourly rate on your own is to start a development company. Partner with 1-2 freelancer friends, and start taking on bigger projects. Hire a small team of junior developers, and bill out their time as well. Grow. Start taking on fixed-bid mid-sized enterprise and government projects. But this can be a very tedious and soul-crushing change, especially at the stage where you have only a few junior developers on staff: you will need to move from doing actual development work to reviewing their code, and handling "management and sales". If that doesn't sound like something for you, perhaps instead consider: * Moving to somewhere with even lower cost of living than Vilnius. Hell, move to the next beach-front villa somewhere in Asia every 6 months. * Be more picky about accepting work - optimise for how much fun they seem to be, not only the hourly rate.
- bbcbasic 11y agoAn idea: Try to get a London, Paris or whatever high paying job where you can go remote once you have proved yourself.
- ddorian43 11y agoEh, Paris & London still aren't enough. You have to go the top, San Francisco/Ny/Washington etc.
- zerr 11y agoRegarding TrackStudio, do you seriously have those AAA companies as clients?
- anovikov 11y agoyeah! but: 1) i am no longer a part of the company. i can link you up with the sole owner if you have any interest though. 2) it is nowhere near successful really. more of a zombie startup. i tried to do all i could to help it out, even prepared to apply to YC, but i couldn't convince the partner (current sole owner, i left it and given up my share) to agree to go to U.S. if accepted.
- zerr 11y agoInteresting. There are tons of project management solutions, including some very popular ones... So these AAA companies just buy/subscribe to many of them? What's the reasoning behind this... Or maybe you've done some target marketing, approached some middle-managers in those companies or similar.. Interesting how did you get such sales. (But your [ex] product looks great, indeed). Btw, I'm in the same situation - living in eastern Europe, working remotely and getting "western compensation". So I'm stuck here... When you adjust for cost of living, and especially housing, moving west doesn't make sense...
- anovikov 11y agoProbably yes, they buy many. There was no way to track how much they make use of them, but some probably do, because they bought continued support. In Russia it is a lot more popular and some AAA companies in Russia order some customization work so they are serious about it. No special marketing - they bought from site. Anyway, that doesn't make even a good living, let alone allow for hiring staff. Owner makes most of his living working from Upwork too now. LOL now try to think how coding people making $10K+ a month in Ukraine feel like! Many of them have 10-acre villas, chauffeur driven cars and full time gardeners. Real upper class. That's what i call being stuck!
- 11y ago
- leojg 11y agoHow about investing some of that money? Like Real State or trading or bootstrapping a business. Generate passive income on the side, there are only 24 hours in a day and you cant expect that your salary will grow exponentially.
- anovikov 11y agoI dated a CFO of a EU system-forming bank, so i don't believe in passive investment at all. Starting a business in a place which has everything already? Not a chance. One chance may be doing angel investing. I am researching it.
- ddorian43 11y agoHave you tried https://www.toptal.com/ https://www.toptal.com/ ? They say they have better freelancers/clients.
- anovikov 11y agoI tried, they really don't. Yes they pay vastly higher rates than Upwork (similar to what i get on Upwork, that is), but control you a lot more, because their cut is higher, and their clients are a lot more qualified. Not good for business.
- mromanuk 11y agoThank you for the insight, I was thinking of registering there. I have an account in freelancer.com, do you find that Upwork is better?