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Ask HN: Does a Freelancer's Age Matter?
What are your/your company's responses if a 40-year old software freelancer applies for an opportunity?
- Does my age increase the likelihood of being overlooked?
- Do you assume you'll have to pay me a lot more than say a 27-year old freelancer?
- Should I call myself something more fancy like "software consultant" to improve my chances?
- Do you expect me to take on some people / project management tasks?
- Do you expect an interview to be awkward because I'm older than the average age in your company?
- davismwfl 7y agoI am also above the 40 mark, but I think it is about how you present yourself more than anything. What you are interested in doing etc. There is quite a bit of agism in tech, but I find that the cultures that have it are usually the ones to avoid anyway, so it is kind of a filter for me. I spent years consulting vs freelancing and the age helps when consulting. Consultants are experts and hired for advice and a specific task usually. Freelancers will be treated like an employee without all the benefits. One is not equal to the other. If you are going the freelancing route age/experience can be more of a question that is hard for people to ask, so just address it early. Usually the first opportunity to address it is in your position statement part of your cover letter. e.g. I really enjoy staying on the technical implementation side of the equation... or something to that effect. This lets them know where you are comfortable and either they'll reach out if that fits or not. But everyone does the math when they see how many years you've been working, it is hard not to. As for your questions, at least from my point of view: 1. Age can increase the likelihood you'll be overlooked, so you need to make sure your presentation on your resume and cover letter is solid. Experiment with it too. Although I think as a freelancer it is a little less likely to cause you grief. 2. Pay is based on experience most places so people may. The reality is unless you are crushing things at a large company you are probably stuck near the same pay you had 10 years ago anyway. This is kinda typical if you stay technical and don't move into management. 3. Consultants are definitely different than freelancers. I built consulting agencies as my startups, and that was always how I sold myself. Freelancer is a dev for hire, a consultant is an expert. That is how I always found it, so I always avoided freelancer positions as being a consultant increased my fee by multitudes and increased how I was viewed. You have to decide who you are and what services you are providing. 4. Only if you want to, many places you can still code and not have to worry about being in management. But mentoring junior roles will likely be expected. 5. I love this one. When I interviewed 4 years back at the startup I am at now, I literally walked into a place where the average age of the team were within 2-3 years of my son. I think it was a little more awkward for them. They are essentially interviewing someone their parents age and were probably more nervous then I was. My personal style & opinion is to disarm everyone and have a little fun with it, there is no hiding the facts, just don't let them get in the way of the person. Age is a number, how you approach them, how you act is far more important.
- oldfreelancer 7y agoThank you so much for taking the time to write such a useful and comprehensive reply. While I'd very much like to project my experience and expertise as a consultant with higher rates, I'm also afraid of biting off more than I can chew. Technical tasks or project creep don't bother me at all, but management tasks mid-project do since I'm neither good at them nor enjoy them. I was considering projecting myself as more of a freelance programmer to avoid them, but then my age may attract such tasks anyway despite the projection. Based on your and other replies, I'll probably try teaming up with somebody who's good at management, and approach clients as a consulting team using age to my advantage. Thanks again!
- davismwfl 7y agoI do think you can get freelancing gigs if that's all you want without the need to team up with someone else if you don't want to. You will just have to look a little harder and network a little more, but honestly even if you team up you'll still be doing those things. Only difference would be how many opportunities you can attack. I didn't mention one key fact that might help you. I targeted companies during my consulting time that mostly were outside of the SV bubble, although I did a fair amount of startup work too. But my bread and butter companies, the ones that paid most my bills were the 5-50 million/year revenue companies with generally < 250 people. I found that demographic to need the most expertise, have the least amount of bullshit to deal with and actually have the money to pay to solve problems. But a very large percentage of these were not what you'd find here on HN or most tech sites/boards. Many of my clients were the forgotten markets (as far as tech is concerned), such as large electricians, plumbers, construction, retail etc. I also did a lot of work for national specialty marketing companies and large supply chain management software just cause again people would pay for it. My biggest clients were 4 very large public corporations where when they blinked they lost more than my fees and so I never had fee conversations with them really, plus once you get in well with them you can do really good if you deliver. One other point. Networking is critical, I saw in another reply you said you typically only see other engineers at networking events. So two things here. First, don't dismiss other engineers as your network, they can help you get your foot in the door at a company they are at. This is a critical way I got into ~60% of my clients was through non decision making employees. The others were because I started networking at different types of events, I started going to small business meetings, chamber of commerce gatherings, entrepreneur gatherings, startup days which are everywhere now etc. Those other events were where I met more decision makers and people looking for solution providers. Also, take every opportunity to do speaking engagements on whatever topic you can, this gives you credibility and people will seek you out. I have done a bunch around the South East and that helped me immensely, I also teamed up with a company where I was traveling the US every few months doing speeches for entrepreneurs about tech but mostly marketing. The talks are something I miss doing since I've been at the startup I am at now, something I am working to rectify. Good luck!!
- codingdave 7y agoI did freelance work for a bit, and found that my age helped so long as I presented myself as a consultant. They trusted that I had experience, and it was an easy sell that I could do the jobs. They did assume they would have to pay me more, and that was correct. So it self-filtered out people who couldn't afford me. They did expect project management, as well as business analysis and research to design the solutions in the first place. None of my work was "Here, code this." I even got into helping them refine sales and marketing plans, which isn't what I do. But when you are a highly paid, older consultant, the expectations are likewise high. My clients were always clear that my job was to use tech to help their business, and that was far more varied than just doing software development.
- oldfreelancer 7y agoThank you for the reply. TBH, I was a little pessimistic of my chances and expectations because of my age. Seeing the replies here from older engineers has been encouraging. I'll work on changing my mindset to project it as an advantage to clients.
- gregjor 7y agoFreelancer here, 58 years old with almost 40 years experience, 10 as a freelancer/consultant. To succeed as a freelancer or consultant you have to build a reputation for delivering results and a network of contacts. You don’t want to apply for jobs or go through interviews. You want clients to find you and not ask anyone else to bid on jobs. I don’t think what you call yourself matters. In the software business titles don’t mean much. Customers outsource because they need specialized skills. Many small and medium-sized companies don’t have full-time staff, or can’t attract and keep people, so what qualifies as “specialized skills” can vary. One of my most lucrative clients pays me top rate to manage Wordpress sites. Base your price/rate on business value, not on what other people charge. Business problems have costs, risks, and time value, base your fees on those. Delivering results right away without hassling clients with lots of questions and irrelevant details has significant value to your clients. The more you understand their business and can fix things without supervision the more value you offer. My customers pay for solutions so they expect me to solve business problems, not just write code. That means I do some project management and sometimes people management. My age does not come up, I don’t think any client has asked. I work remotely, that helps.
- oldfreelancer 7y agoA few years ago, I took up three on-site freelancer opportunities with different clients I met via LinkedIn. All of them initially agreed to not giving people/project management tasks because I told them upfront that I was neither good at them nor enjoyed them. Unfortunately, all three ended up with such tasks creeping in mid-project. Put me in a difficult spot of having to do fairly stressful unwanted work which I was not good at in addition to my actual technical work. This time, I think I'll try teaming up with a management specialist and approach clients as a consulting team. Working remotely is something I hadn't considered deeply, but will explore now. Do you have any tips on how to go about building a network of contacts as an older engineer? The typical tech meetups in my area seem to attract only employed engineers and very few decision makers. Thank you very much for your very useful and encouraging advice.
- gregjor 7y agoI built a network of professional contacts by working for 40 years and keeping in touch with people. Some of them still write code, some have gone into management or founder roles, some moved on to other things. I would not tell a client I can’t or won’t do something (within legal and ethical boundaries, anyway). I would tell them that’s not my strongest skill and then help them find someone for the task, or reframe the problem. For example I don’t do design/graphics work or CSS on web sites, but I can outsource that and make sure my client gets what they want. I want my clients to think of me as someone who can solve their business problems, not as a PHP or Rails or AWS expert. Just today a client asked me to look at a Hubspot workflow. I know next to nothing about Hubspot, but with my experience I can catch on a lot faster than a marketing agency guy can and understand the logic and see the problems in their workflow. They don’t always need an expert, just someone with more expertise than they have (which may approach zero), or another set of eyes. When clients ask me to get involved in project management or bringing someone into the team I might suggest a different approach to development, or letting me outsource to someone I can work with. When clients try to throw their solution at you try to step back and figure out the problem they intend to solve, then you can offer alternatives.
- muzani 7y agoI find that a good number of pro freelancers are fairly old, about 10+ years of experience. I think nobody cares. Ageism is more about potential - someone who is 40 but not a millionaire raises some flags. But for a freelancer, it makes sense - this person has become too expensive to hire full time and/or chose to forego a higher salary in favor of free time and family. They're not a part of any 10 year venture, but will be a good deal until the team can find someone permanent.