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Well, when you first start out, it's not like you always have that many choices. I started working with clients on Upwork because I couldn't get any full time p

Well, when you first start out, it's not like you always have that many choices. I started working with clients on Upwork because I couldn't get any full time programming jobs at a company, but I could get contracts on Upwork. And the way they've set it up is if you use the Dekstop app you get paid even if there is a dispute, but if you don't, you might not get paid. So again, it's not like I wanted it this way, but it's that or potentially be out of work or loose money in a dispute.

DigitalSea 6y ago
Precisely this. When I first started out, it was freelancer.com which eventually went down the path of molecular type tracking. It's invasive and people don't want to pay you what you're worth, but you do it for the experience and to build up a feedback profile to bolster your credibility. The feedback is what you work for, what you tolerate the poor payment for unrealistic work in return. Without it, you can't grow on these platforms and the people bidding for cheap labour know this and use it to their advantage. Platforms like Upwork all but encourage exploitation through fear, the lowest common denominator always wins.
- hertzrat 6y ago
  Sounds better, when possible, to just avoid platforms like that
atleta 6y ago
This is interesting. I usually advise beginners NOT to start freelancing before they get some experience with a full time job at a company (preferably a non-remote/on-site position). If the market starts to push people into the other direction, that will, I think, further decrease the chances of any client getting their project finished. And I definitely don't mean this as a critique towards you. (If I want to be honest, I've first tried freelancing/remoting after 3 months of FT work, which wasn't even really coding.) But quite a lot of these engagements end in poor quality results or simply fail. I've talked to a lot of people, non-tech clients, for whom it didn't work out. And obviously the reason is that they have no idea how to manage such a project, how to pick a good candidate (both wrt to technical skills AND management/self-management/product management skills). I.e. they don't know what they need. Now a bit more experienced developers will more often (though far from always!) at least have an idea how to work with a client, how to push back on stupid requests, how to actually manage the project AND the client. Because sometimes clients will come up with or slowly navigate themselves towards modes of operations that actually make a good outcome a lot less likely. And the end result is that they spend too much to get too little and the freelancer works too much to get too little. One symptom is wanting to monitor the desktop of the developer. That shows that whoever thinks they can resolve a dispute this way have no idea about software development, they can't judge and understand whether they are getting adequate value for their money, so they resort to something that they understand (standing behind the shoulder of the person they pay). But which unfortunately doesn't work. And how it makes things worse: e.g. they scare away the more experienced guys. A similar fallacy is being anal about deadlines and fixed costs. Again, a surefire way to shoot yourself in the foot.
- sitkack 6y ago
  A FT job is a great jump start into freelancing and consulting. You get so much context for free, and frankly anyone at a FT job that has a consultant mindset will have way more opportunities.
- arcturus17 6y ago
  > I usually advise beginners NOT to start freelancing I switched from product manager to developer through a masters, and started freelancing because while I received interest for FT positions from very good companies in my country, they only offered me junior positions (and naturally I cannot blame them), in a country with low wages. I ended up clearing over 2x the salary of a junior in my first year freelancing (so more or less the salary of a decent senior), working with two very large non-tech companies and one pre-seed startup. However, I agree with your comment. For starters, my situation is fairly exceptional; I have proven sales and product/project management skills. I'd feel comfortable walking into a room with C-level executives, pitching to them, and then delivering on those promises (while navigating fairly well the inevitable small failings such as missed deadlines, etc.) But above all I wouldn't recommend this route to anyone who has even a remote possibility of getting an FT job because learning everything on your own is a gruesome process. It's possible, but it takes huge amounts of discipline and deliberate practice: you need to force yourself to read more code and books to discover patterns and acquire skills which would otherwise come naturally by just being present 9-to-5. Also bear in mind there's no outside pressure to write that unit test or refactor that smelly code - it's all on you. And of course you have no one to talk to - you have to endure a permanent and extreme loneliness in your doubts, only mitigated by making dev friends in real life and posting regularly on SO (and don't count too much on the latter!). It's had positive things for me too. It allowed me to work all across the stack, from product management, design, front-end to back-end, and I am starting to position myself (locally, at least) as a product engineer that gets shit done, and to a high standard of quality. I also get to choose my own stack and technologies at all times (which also builds particular skills in research, etc.), and no corporate politics or whatever get in the way of you suddenly shifting your focus to a different discipline, which is what I hated most when I had a career. Nevertheless, I'd say if I didn't factor the 2x wage (which is probably not realistic for a lot of starting devs), the cons would clearly outweigh the pros, and I would repeat your advice to most people.

DigitalSea 6y ago

Precisely this. When I first started out, it was freelancer.com which eventually went down the path of molecular type tracking. It's invasive and people don't want to pay you what you're worth, but you do it for the experience and to build up a feedback profile to bolster your credibility. The feedback is what you work for, what you tolerate the poor payment for unrealistic work in return. Without it, you can't grow on these platforms and the people bidding for cheap labour know this and use it to their advantage. Platforms like Upwork all but encourage exploitation through fear, the lowest common denominator always wins.

hertzrat 6y ago
Sounds better, when possible, to just avoid platforms like that

atleta 6y ago

This is interesting. I usually advise beginners NOT to start freelancing before they get some experience with a full time job at a company (preferably a non-remote/on-site position). If the market starts to push people into the other direction, that will, I think, further decrease the chances of any client getting their project finished. And I definitely don't mean this as a critique towards you. (If I want to be honest, I've first tried freelancing/remoting after 3 months of FT work, which wasn't even really coding.) But quite a lot of these engagements end in poor quality results or simply fail. I've talked to a lot of people, non-tech clients, for whom it didn't work out. And obviously the reason is that they have no idea how to manage such a project, how to pick a good candidate (both wrt to technical skills AND management/self-management/product management skills). I.e. they don't know what they need. Now a bit more experienced developers will more often (though far from always!) at least have an idea how to work with a client, how to push back on stupid requests, how to actually manage the project AND the client. Because sometimes clients will come up with or slowly navigate themselves towards modes of operations that actually make a good outcome a lot less likely. And the end result is that they spend too much to get too little and the freelancer works too much to get too little. One symptom is wanting to monitor the desktop of the developer. That shows that whoever thinks they can resolve a dispute this way have no idea about software development, they can't judge and understand whether they are getting adequate value for their money, so they resort to something that they understand (standing behind the shoulder of the person they pay). But which unfortunately doesn't work. And how it makes things worse: e.g. they scare away the more experienced guys. A similar fallacy is being anal about deadlines and fixed costs. Again, a surefire way to shoot yourself in the foot.

sitkack 6y ago
A FT job is a great jump start into freelancing and consulting. You get so much context for free, and frankly anyone at a FT job that has a consultant mindset will have way more opportunities.
arcturus17 6y ago
> I usually advise beginners NOT to start freelancing I switched from product manager to developer through a masters, and started freelancing because while I received interest for FT positions from very good companies in my country, they only offered me junior positions (and naturally I cannot blame them), in a country with low wages. I ended up clearing over 2x the salary of a junior in my first year freelancing (so more or less the salary of a decent senior), working with two very large non-tech companies and one pre-seed startup. However, I agree with your comment. For starters, my situation is fairly exceptional; I have proven sales and product/project management skills. I'd feel comfortable walking into a room with C-level executives, pitching to them, and then delivering on those promises (while navigating fairly well the inevitable small failings such as missed deadlines, etc.) But above all I wouldn't recommend this route to anyone who has even a remote possibility of getting an FT job because learning everything on your own is a gruesome process. It's possible, but it takes huge amounts of discipline and deliberate practice: you need to force yourself to read more code and books to discover patterns and acquire skills which would otherwise come naturally by just being present 9-to-5. Also bear in mind there's no outside pressure to write that unit test or refactor that smelly code - it's all on you. And of course you have no one to talk to - you have to endure a permanent and extreme loneliness in your doubts, only mitigated by making dev friends in real life and posting regularly on SO (and don't count too much on the latter!). It's had positive things for me too. It allowed me to work all across the stack, from product management, design, front-end to back-end, and I am starting to position myself (locally, at least) as a product engineer that gets shit done, and to a high standard of quality. I also get to choose my own stack and technologies at all times (which also builds particular skills in research, etc.), and no corporate politics or whatever get in the way of you suddenly shifting your focus to a different discipline, which is what I hated most when I had a career. Nevertheless, I'd say if I didn't factor the 2x wage (which is probably not realistic for a lot of starting devs), the cons would clearly outweigh the pros, and I would repeat your advice to most people.