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Any tips for freelancers who are recent engineering grads? I have some portfolio items, but I still can’t claim more than 1 year experience

krn 7y ago
> Any tips for freelancers who are recent engineering grads? If you have a relevant degree, why not to apply for a remote job position instead? That would help to build your CV, and allow to switch to contracting later on.
- komali2 7y ago
  Stack overflow jobs board thing is the best place imo to find remote Dev positions. Harder for new grads. Angel list might be a place to find remote AND newbie friendly jobs.
  - polyperchon 7y ago
    Second AngelList for this purpose, though keep in mind the salary trade off to work remote for a new grad is likely gonna be considerable.
vkou 7y ago
Spend a year working for a consulting company, to learn the ropes. If I were a business looking to have a freelancer build something for me, 'a fresh grad, with less than a year work experience, who has never done this sort of thing before' is not who I'd hire. I have 9 years experience, and if I were to to go into freelancing (The kind where you solve problems for businesses, as opposed to the kind where you're a 9-5 1099 contractor), the first thing I would do is to take a job at a consulting firm, and spend my time there learning. Figure out what works, and what really, really doesn't. That job is probably going to suck, but you'll have a much better idea of what to do, what your customers really hate about working with big firms, and your resume will look much better, when you can put down "I did the thing I want you to hire me for, in a consulting firm, for 18 months, I know how this works, and I can do it better."
- ghaff 7y ago
  That's great advice. Even with quite a few years of experience at a large firm as a product manager, I was pretty clueless when I first switched to an industry analyst/consulting firm. This is spite of having been a client of said firms. There's no way I would have known where to begin if I had just set out on my own.
- Kadin 7y ago
  Very solid advice. Working as a consultant will also let you build a network that you can use when you want to go independent. Obviously you have to be careful not to poach from your old company, but often there are side projects and jobs too small for a large consultancy that are a good fit for an independent contractor. When I was a consultant I considered it a slight failure if I didn't get a job offer from the client at the conclusion of each engagement. I never took any of them up on it, but if I'd been in the market it would have been a hell of a way to basically get paid for an extended job interview... and lots of people I know who decided to get out of consulting went over to the client side. That's a pretty standard path, really.
- JamesBarney 7y ago
  > I have 9 years experience, and if I were to to go into freelancing (The kind where you solve problems for businesses, as opposed to the kind where you're a 9-5 1099 contractor), the first thing I would do is to take a job at a consulting firm, and spend my time there learning. Figure out what works, and what really, really doesn't. I have to disagree. I've worked for several tech consulting firms(8 years of experience) and then started my own consulting company 2 years ago. And in my running a successful consulting firm involves 3 key skills(in order of importance). Sales - This is definitely the hardest and most important skill. And unfortunately is also the skill developers usually have the least experience in. This involves finding leads and closing deals. This will take a long time to do and is emotionally very rough for most developers. Customer/Relationship Skills - If you're already a nice a polite person who doesn't mind eating the occasional shit sandwich this mostly involves repeatedly learning the lesson that however important you think communication it's more important you think. Execution - This is mostly involves a combination of being able to correctly identify requirements and technical execution skills. Most developers usually have plenty of experience hear. The experience most developers lack is sales. And most consulting shops won't put you anywhere near a sales or account management role unless you have previous sales experience or have spent significant time at the company. A much faster route to learn these skills is to just start a company and start doing them. (while reading a bunch of books and talking to anyone you can who has relevant experience)
caiocaiocaio 7y ago
I can only speak for myself, doing mostly web dev/maintenance for local businesses at this point in my life. I started trying to freelance online, with little success. When I mentioned to a dentist that I was freelancing he asked me to fix his old website. A small store owned by a friend asked me to make a website. Later the dentist asked me if I had cards to give to a friend. About 75% of my business since then has been word-of-mouth. The rest has been me contacting local businesses that don't have websites. Business cards and flyers are supper cheap. That being said, after three years, I'm only now starting to feel comfortable. There were very long dry spells, in between short periods of intense business, and word-of-mouth takes a very, very long time to operate (hence me reaching out to businesses without websites). I had to depend on my wife financially for stretches. I've also had to learn design, which is a much different skill-set to programming and has been very difficult. The main reason I went down the freelance path is because in my last salaried job, my boss developed substance abuse issues and unpredictable behaviours, which lead me to having a burnout. It's been hard but it's gradually starting to pay off. For all the difficulties, it is much more rewarding than watching all the value I generate go to some guy with a business degree who got through college doing elementary algebra. Anyway, that was a fun rant, hope it was helpful to someone.

krn 7y ago

> Any tips for freelancers who are recent engineering grads? If you have a relevant degree, why not to apply for a remote job position instead? That would help to build your CV, and allow to switch to contracting later on.

komali2 7y ago
Stack overflow jobs board thing is the best place imo to find remote Dev positions. Harder for new grads. Angel list might be a place to find remote AND newbie friendly jobs.
- polyperchon 7y ago
  Second AngelList for this purpose, though keep in mind the salary trade off to work remote for a new grad is likely gonna be considerable.

vkou 7y ago

Spend a year working for a consulting company, to learn the ropes. If I were a business looking to have a freelancer build something for me, 'a fresh grad, with less than a year work experience, who has never done this sort of thing before' is not who I'd hire. I have 9 years experience, and if I were to to go into freelancing (The kind where you solve problems for businesses, as opposed to the kind where you're a 9-5 1099 contractor), the first thing I would do is to take a job at a consulting firm, and spend my time there learning. Figure out what works, and what really, really doesn't. That job is probably going to suck, but you'll have a much better idea of what to do, what your customers really hate about working with big firms, and your resume will look much better, when you can put down "I did the thing I want you to hire me for, in a consulting firm, for 18 months, I know how this works, and I can do it better."

ghaff 7y ago
That's great advice. Even with quite a few years of experience at a large firm as a product manager, I was pretty clueless when I first switched to an industry analyst/consulting firm. This is spite of having been a client of said firms. There's no way I would have known where to begin if I had just set out on my own.
Kadin 7y ago
Very solid advice. Working as a consultant will also let you build a network that you can use when you want to go independent. Obviously you have to be careful not to poach from your old company, but often there are side projects and jobs too small for a large consultancy that are a good fit for an independent contractor. When I was a consultant I considered it a slight failure if I didn't get a job offer from the client at the conclusion of each engagement. I never took any of them up on it, but if I'd been in the market it would have been a hell of a way to basically get paid for an extended job interview... and lots of people I know who decided to get out of consulting went over to the client side. That's a pretty standard path, really.
JamesBarney 7y ago
> I have 9 years experience, and if I were to to go into freelancing (The kind where you solve problems for businesses, as opposed to the kind where you're a 9-5 1099 contractor), the first thing I would do is to take a job at a consulting firm, and spend my time there learning. Figure out what works, and what really, really doesn't. I have to disagree. I've worked for several tech consulting firms(8 years of experience) and then started my own consulting company 2 years ago. And in my running a successful consulting firm involves 3 key skills(in order of importance). Sales - This is definitely the hardest and most important skill. And unfortunately is also the skill developers usually have the least experience in. This involves finding leads and closing deals. This will take a long time to do and is emotionally very rough for most developers. Customer/Relationship Skills - If you're already a nice a polite person who doesn't mind eating the occasional shit sandwich this mostly involves repeatedly learning the lesson that however important you think communication it's more important you think. Execution - This is mostly involves a combination of being able to correctly identify requirements and technical execution skills. Most developers usually have plenty of experience hear. The experience most developers lack is sales. And most consulting shops won't put you anywhere near a sales or account management role unless you have previous sales experience or have spent significant time at the company. A much faster route to learn these skills is to just start a company and start doing them. (while reading a bunch of books and talking to anyone you can who has relevant experience)

caiocaiocaio 7y ago

I can only speak for myself, doing mostly web dev/maintenance for local businesses at this point in my life. I started trying to freelance online, with little success. When I mentioned to a dentist that I was freelancing he asked me to fix his old website. A small store owned by a friend asked me to make a website. Later the dentist asked me if I had cards to give to a friend. About 75% of my business since then has been word-of-mouth. The rest has been me contacting local businesses that don't have websites. Business cards and flyers are supper cheap. That being said, after three years, I'm only now starting to feel comfortable. There were very long dry spells, in between short periods of intense business, and word-of-mouth takes a very, very long time to operate (hence me reaching out to businesses without websites). I had to depend on my wife financially for stretches. I've also had to learn design, which is a much different skill-set to programming and has been very difficult. The main reason I went down the freelance path is because in my last salaried job, my boss developed substance abuse issues and unpredictable behaviours, which lead me to having a burnout. It's been hard but it's gradually starting to pay off. For all the difficulties, it is much more rewarding than watching all the value I generate go to some guy with a business degree who got through college doing elementary algebra. Anyway, that was a fun rant, hope it was helpful to someone.