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I don't want to share my exact rate, but I easily make a month what a Silicon Valley engineer at a seed startup can.. and since I live in a developing country i

I don't want to share my exact rate, but I easily make a month what a Silicon Valley engineer at a seed startup can.. and since I live in a developing country it's an order of magnitude more than most people my age. If you're a brilliant engineer and are looking to work for a freelance app developer, I recommend Toptal[1]. While I now work at Toptal, I first joined the company through their freelance network, got a project with one of their clients, and eventually was onboarded onto the company itself. My experience with them started as someone that "wanted to work for international clients out of Pakistan" and it was brilliant. I whole-heartedly recommend joining Toptal for freelancers looking to get something going on the side. You can choose your own rate, so you can go as low as $10, or go as crazy as, jeez, I dunno, $500.. although the higher you are, the more difficult it is to land a client. [1]: Toptal Referral link: https://www.toptal.com/#contract-just-respected-software-architects https://www.toptal.com/#contract-just-respected-software-arc...

simon83 9y ago
From their website[1]: The Top 3% "Everyone at Toptal has a proven track record and elite industry experience. There are Toptalers from Wharton, MIT, CERN, and Google, as well as Django committers, Top 100 Rails contributors, leading global designers and art directors, professors, founders and more." Holy crap man I'm not even going to bother, I'm none of that. Impostor syndrome intesifies [1] https://www.toptal.com/top-3-percent https://www.toptal.com/top-3-percent
- amingilani 9y ago
  Don't let that get to you, they have an intense screening process but after you pass it, that's just it. I'm 25, I have a degree in Economics and Finance, and no formal computer education. All I have is my self-taught experience. The first time I tried, for all my confidence, I flunked it really bad, which came as a shock to me. I mean, I knew I was good. The recruiter gave me a timeout and said I could reapply later. The next time I'd studied my butt off, solved advanced level coding exercises and reached 4 Kyu on codewars.com At that point, I breezed through the exercises, and when I was asked to build a live project, I had fun learning and creating my first React web app.. I'd been meaning to learn React, but never had time before. Of the dozens (dozens!) of people I've referred to Toptal none have passed the screening process. However, I strongly believe it's because they didn't push through it. I know the screening process itself can be beat if you take the time to improve yourself. Besides, on the other side of the screening process is the greatest community of Ninja developers I've ever seen in my life! Anything I have trouble with, I can discuss on our community chat. I've never been part of a community like this before. And the clients are absolutely brilliant, since Toptal screens clients too!
  - simon83 9y ago
    Thanks a lot for sharing your experience. You are working purely remote, I assume? I'd be curious to see how I'd fare in their screening process. Can you tell me roughly how many hours in total the screening process takes? (excluding the time you took to study) And how many hours did you spend on the live project? Was it an actual project, or just a dummy one? I'm asking because I'm working full time, and the whole screening process sounds very time intensive. Not sure if all of this could be done after work hours, or if I'd have to take a couple of days of vacation.
    - amingilani 9y ago
      Yes, I work purely remotely. The screening process shouldn't be that tough. It's broken into multiple stages. The first three are short sessions. The longest of which was around (I think, don't hold me to it) an hour. The project is a confidential project you make according to specifications, but they give you enough time to pull it off, even with a full-time job.
      - simon83 9y ago
        Thanks! Maybe I'll give it a shot...
  - JamesBarney 9y ago
    Just curious but where are you based? From previous hacker news comments it sounds like toptal pays poorly for the U.S., ok for Western Europe, and really well for the rest of the world.
    - amingilani 9y ago
      Pakistan :) but I know a dev from Switzerland whose rate is much higher than the US devs.. never heard him complain. Honestly, all the devs I've spoken to at Toptal love working here, and I'm no exception. But you should really try it out.. at worst, you'll fail and you'd be exactly where you are right now.
sdiq 9y ago
Glad to know your story and I have been interested with trying them but haven't yet mustered the courage yet. Which languages/frameworks do you think are popular with the clients on Toptal. I am asking this because I am mostly interested in Java/Spring and I am not sure whether that would get me enough gigs? Should I move to Ruby/Rails, Python/Django, Javascript, etc?
- amingilani 9y ago
  It doesn't matter. Most of the clients I worked with didn't have a running operation before and wanted me to start with a framework I was most comfortable with and so I ran with Ruby on Rails. Had I been a Java/Spring dev, I would've used that. It's what YOU do that matters.
  - sdiq 9y ago
    Thanks
scryder 9y ago
> You can choose your own rate, so you can go as low as $10, or go as crazy as, jeez, I dunno, $500.. although the higher you are, the more difficult it is to land a client. I'm concerned about sites like Toptal and this price-cutting mindset they engender, because in a lot of cases, even 500 dollars is an awful rate. For example, 500 dollars, for two weeks of full-time work, is $6.25 / Hr. If you are an American developer, this is an unconsiderably low rate, literally less than minimum wage, in a field where salaries of about $30 / Hr are unheard-of low, even for entry entry engineers. If it is hard to land a client at these fair rates on services like TopTal, in a lot of cases this would be a good reason to avoid that service and to seek either more traditional work or independent freelance opportunities. I also feel it's important for freelancers, at least if they're based in America, to defend the value of their work that demands months or years of technical training. Yes, I'd agree the entire situation changes if you're a developer from a different country in which being paid something like 10 dollars an hour could support a family. However, I still encourage you to recognize that because most of the clients are based in America, they are more than capable of paying you rates far higher than $500 for good work, but people must first reduce their willingness to work at $10 to make $500 a norm. Be the change you wish to see, if you are capable. In the end, choosing to work for higher-paying clients and avoiding clients who don't care about paying a fair market rate is about life satisfaction. If you are being paid 10 dollars for technical development work which will take longer than an hour, they don't care about you or paying you fairly. This means you can expect to be treated like the slave their hourly rate implies you are. If you work for clients which pay you market rates, besides the fact that they're paying you more, they will treat you better simply because they respect your time.
- amingilani 9y ago
  Oh no, I'm sorry, I probably didn't explain right. Toptal let's you decide your hourly rate. $500/hour is awful in the sense that it's too darn high! :) You're welcome to set whatever rate you think your time is worth, ofcourse!

simon83 9y ago

From their website[1]: The Top 3% "Everyone at Toptal has a proven track record and elite industry experience. There are Toptalers from Wharton, MIT, CERN, and Google, as well as Django committers, Top 100 Rails contributors, leading global designers and art directors, professors, founders and more." Holy crap man I'm not even going to bother, I'm none of that. Impostor syndrome intesifies [1] https://www.toptal.com/top-3-percent https://www.toptal.com/top-3-percent

amingilani 9y ago
Don't let that get to you, they have an intense screening process but after you pass it, that's just it. I'm 25, I have a degree in Economics and Finance, and no formal computer education. All I have is my self-taught experience. The first time I tried, for all my confidence, I flunked it really bad, which came as a shock to me. I mean, I knew I was good. The recruiter gave me a timeout and said I could reapply later. The next time I'd studied my butt off, solved advanced level coding exercises and reached 4 Kyu on codewars.com At that point, I breezed through the exercises, and when I was asked to build a live project, I had fun learning and creating my first React web app.. I'd been meaning to learn React, but never had time before. Of the dozens (dozens!) of people I've referred to Toptal none have passed the screening process. However, I strongly believe it's because they didn't push through it. I know the screening process itself can be beat if you take the time to improve yourself. Besides, on the other side of the screening process is the greatest community of Ninja developers I've ever seen in my life! Anything I have trouble with, I can discuss on our community chat. I've never been part of a community like this before. And the clients are absolutely brilliant, since Toptal screens clients too!
- simon83 9y ago
  Thanks a lot for sharing your experience. You are working purely remote, I assume? I'd be curious to see how I'd fare in their screening process. Can you tell me roughly how many hours in total the screening process takes? (excluding the time you took to study) And how many hours did you spend on the live project? Was it an actual project, or just a dummy one? I'm asking because I'm working full time, and the whole screening process sounds very time intensive. Not sure if all of this could be done after work hours, or if I'd have to take a couple of days of vacation.
  - amingilani 9y ago
    Yes, I work purely remotely. The screening process shouldn't be that tough. It's broken into multiple stages. The first three are short sessions. The longest of which was around (I think, don't hold me to it) an hour. The project is a confidential project you make according to specifications, but they give you enough time to pull it off, even with a full-time job.
    - simon83 9y ago
      Thanks! Maybe I'll give it a shot...
- JamesBarney 9y ago
  Just curious but where are you based? From previous hacker news comments it sounds like toptal pays poorly for the U.S., ok for Western Europe, and really well for the rest of the world.
  - amingilani 9y ago
    Pakistan :) but I know a dev from Switzerland whose rate is much higher than the US devs.. never heard him complain. Honestly, all the devs I've spoken to at Toptal love working here, and I'm no exception. But you should really try it out.. at worst, you'll fail and you'd be exactly where you are right now.

sdiq 9y ago

Glad to know your story and I have been interested with trying them but haven't yet mustered the courage yet. Which languages/frameworks do you think are popular with the clients on Toptal. I am asking this because I am mostly interested in Java/Spring and I am not sure whether that would get me enough gigs? Should I move to Ruby/Rails, Python/Django, Javascript, etc?

amingilani 9y ago
It doesn't matter. Most of the clients I worked with didn't have a running operation before and wanted me to start with a framework I was most comfortable with and so I ran with Ruby on Rails. Had I been a Java/Spring dev, I would've used that. It's what YOU do that matters.
- sdiq 9y ago
  Thanks

scryder 9y ago

> You can choose your own rate, so you can go as low as $10, or go as crazy as, jeez, I dunno, $500.. although the higher you are, the more difficult it is to land a client. I'm concerned about sites like Toptal and this price-cutting mindset they engender, because in a lot of cases, even 500 dollars is an awful rate. For example, 500 dollars, for two weeks of full-time work, is $6.25 / Hr. If you are an American developer, this is an unconsiderably low rate, literally less than minimum wage, in a field where salaries of about $30 / Hr are unheard-of low, even for entry entry engineers. If it is hard to land a client at these fair rates on services like TopTal, in a lot of cases this would be a good reason to avoid that service and to seek either more traditional work or independent freelance opportunities. I also feel it's important for freelancers, at least if they're based in America, to defend the value of their work that demands months or years of technical training. Yes, I'd agree the entire situation changes if you're a developer from a different country in which being paid something like 10 dollars an hour could support a family. However, I still encourage you to recognize that because most of the clients are based in America, they are more than capable of paying you rates far higher than $500 for good work, but people must first reduce their willingness to work at $10 to make $500 a norm. Be the change you wish to see, if you are capable. In the end, choosing to work for higher-paying clients and avoiding clients who don't care about paying a fair market rate is about life satisfaction. If you are being paid 10 dollars for technical development work which will take longer than an hour, they don't care about you or paying you fairly. This means you can expect to be treated like the slave their hourly rate implies you are. If you work for clients which pay you market rates, besides the fact that they're paying you more, they will treat you better simply because they respect your time.

amingilani 9y ago
Oh no, I'm sorry, I probably didn't explain right. Toptal let's you decide your hourly rate. $500/hour is awful in the sense that it's too darn high! :) You're welcome to set whatever rate you think your time is worth, ofcourse!