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Is it mostly finding your own clients? I did a bit of asking around last year and I found several opportunities where companies have small average quality engi

by leros 5y ago

Is it mostly finding your own clients? I did a bit of asking around last year and I found several opportunities where companies have small average quality engineering teams who need someone to lead an effort in something like a product manager and engineering architect role. Those sounded interesting, though I did not follow up. My main fear is pay. Ideally, I'd like to be able to make at least $300/hr. I have no idea if that's realistic. Maybe not at first?

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> I did a bit of asking around last year and I found several opportunities where companies have small average quality engineering teams who need someone to lead an effort in something like a product manager and engineering architect role. Interesting. It’s not exactly common for companies to want contractors to be in leadership roles. Leadership roles generally warrant full-time employees who can be more invested in the company. Unless this was a company that tried to treat everyone as contractors while expecting them to behave as full-time employees. That’s not true contracting/freelancing. That’s just companies abusing labor laws.
- leros 5y ago
  Those companies were willing to hire me. Hopefully this doesn't arrogant, but those companies can't hire someone of my caliber. They're mediocre companies that can only hire average/mediocre people. I wouldn't want to join a company like that full time, but I could see it being fun to hop in and help them out with a big project. For example one company was a media company that you've probably heard of. For their next growth phase, they have two separate legacy PHP systems that they need to integrate and they need to modernize their front end. Their development team isn't capable of doing that project. They've been spinning their wheels for a few years. I thought it might be fun to go in to that company, understand their systems, architect the new solution, lead/coach their team through building it. I could also help them set up automated build systems, introduce React and coach them through learning that. Maybe help them hire some more modern developers as well. That kind of thing. I've got a lot of experience doing complex architecture and also training up junior developers, so it sounds like projects like that could play to my strengths.
  - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
    > Hopefully this doesn't arrogant, but those companies can't hire someone of my caliber. Well obviously if they can’t pay market rates, and you didn’t even think it was worth asking, then it’s not exactly a great example of a consulting client. I’m not sure what these hypothetical contracts that you didn’t even pursue because you don’t think the companies could have afforded add to the conversation, though. It doesn’t sound like these clients were typical or even remotely competent.
  - akerl_ 5y ago
    I’m not sure why you think a company that wanted to hire you for a leadership role would pay you as a free-lancer to do that role. Generally consultant and full-time hiring pipelines and roles are fully separate, for a variety of reasons. Also, just in case it wasn’t obvious, this comment does read as extremely arrogant. A company wanted to hire you, you didn’t want to work there because they’re “average/mediocre”, so you’ve decided w/o engaging with them that it might be fun to pop in and just solve all their problems for them. As parallel comments have pointed out, networking is crucial to contracting, because it’s the primary way that clients connect with you and decide to work with you. If your mindset is that you’re a rockstar saving crappy companies from their mediocrity, you’ll quickly find yourself with a poisoned well.
    - ushakov 5y ago
      yeah, pretty hypocrite that the author doesn’t work to work for a company, because it’s not his caliber, but then accepts a freelancing gig if you don’t want to work for a company for any reason, why did you accept the offer?
      - convolvatron 5y ago
        why is that so hard to understand? this has been a good source of clients for me. i dont have any faith in your product or your leadership - you really seem to be chasing your own tail, and working for you is just going to be pointless and frustrating for both of us. however, you want to hire me because i'm an expert in X. actually I am, and if you give me the go ahead I'll basically fix all your X problems in 3 months and be available for ongoing work if necessary later. you really dont need a full time X guy, I promise you I'm going to be bored after that first little bit. i want the money, the engagement, and the opportunity to grow my network. that works for me. hanging out on slack with your team all day and having a weekly zoom where I remind you yet again that if you dont test you can expect problems later doesnt.
- svorakang 5y ago
  I will chip in here. I have had several lead roles as a freelancing consultant over the last few years. Product owner, software architect, software lead. I try to communicate a lot, write down my strategies and thereby make myself replaceable. This way I can change assignments when conditions change (project entering new phase, change of directions, or purchasing goes for a drive to cut expenses) and the client gets improved progress, process, culture and way of working in return, without fears of making them too dependent on a consultant. People reach out to me on roughly weekly basis with new leads, so finding a new gig is easy. I treat new contacts with mild distance and careful interest, and greet old colleagues that know me well with greater warmth and interest. But I also make it clear that when I'm on a contract, I want to leave the current client with some firm usable deliverables before I consider any other options. Typical assignments are 6-24 months. Typical rate: currently roughly 100 EUR/h, increasing by roughly 10% annually. 12 years experience in my field (embedded software, specialized within automotive). Western Sweden. For info, labour laws are pretty strict in Sweden, so employing somebody is a great expense and risk for the employer. Contracting has thus become pretty common (often 30% of the workforce; sometimes more).
jollybean 5y ago
$300/hr is the same as $600K/year. As a manager, who are you going to pay that kind of rate to? Why would someone hire a contractor at that rate, when they could hire the top tier Google Engineers? $200-300/hr rates are usually for 'expertise' style inputs - it's where you have industry leading or arcane knowledge in your field, and you bill for your insight, which might just be a few hours. A lawyer who specializes in IP, and is intimately familiar with the Texas IP legal circuit and all the judges, would bill some 'very high rate' per hour, but probably only for limited number of hours. If you have a full time job, and want to do some 'evening consulting' - you could bill $300/hr if you prepare a training package and are training a team on how to do something, i.e. a 4-hour course for $1200. That kind of thing. Or if you really have some super DevOps knowledge, you're 'The K8 Man' and they call you because they are stuck on a problem, and you always have a solution - you can bill them $300/hr. But being a bit more senior than their regular devs and helping them out doing regular work, then it's going to be tough to get a huge billing rate.
- cushychicken 5y ago
  >$300/hr is the same as $600K/year. ...at 100% utilization, yes. I've never personally met an independent contractor who books more than a thousand hours a year.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    It's the equivalent from the 'buyers' perspective - that's the benchmark burn rate if they were to hire the person for a 'man year'. Contractors come in all shapes and forms some may book more, some less, though yes, from the contractors perspective, $150/hour is more like $150K/year.
- ushakov 5y ago
  hey, could you check my website (in my profile) and estimate my hourly rate?
  - cosmodisk 5y ago
    €50?

by leros 5y ago

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> I did a bit of asking around last year and I found several opportunities where companies have small average quality engineering teams who need someone to lead an effort in something like a product manager and engineering architect role. Interesting. It’s not exactly common for companies to want contractors to be in leadership roles. Leadership roles generally warrant full-time employees who can be more invested in the company. Unless this was a company that tried to treat everyone as contractors while expecting them to behave as full-time employees. That’s not true contracting/freelancing. That’s just companies abusing labor laws.

leros 5y ago
Those companies were willing to hire me. Hopefully this doesn't arrogant, but those companies can't hire someone of my caliber. They're mediocre companies that can only hire average/mediocre people. I wouldn't want to join a company like that full time, but I could see it being fun to hop in and help them out with a big project. For example one company was a media company that you've probably heard of. For their next growth phase, they have two separate legacy PHP systems that they need to integrate and they need to modernize their front end. Their development team isn't capable of doing that project. They've been spinning their wheels for a few years. I thought it might be fun to go in to that company, understand their systems, architect the new solution, lead/coach their team through building it. I could also help them set up automated build systems, introduce React and coach them through learning that. Maybe help them hire some more modern developers as well. That kind of thing. I've got a lot of experience doing complex architecture and also training up junior developers, so it sounds like projects like that could play to my strengths.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > Hopefully this doesn't arrogant, but those companies can't hire someone of my caliber. Well obviously if they can’t pay market rates, and you didn’t even think it was worth asking, then it’s not exactly a great example of a consulting client. I’m not sure what these hypothetical contracts that you didn’t even pursue because you don’t think the companies could have afforded add to the conversation, though. It doesn’t sound like these clients were typical or even remotely competent.
- akerl_ 5y ago
  I’m not sure why you think a company that wanted to hire you for a leadership role would pay you as a free-lancer to do that role. Generally consultant and full-time hiring pipelines and roles are fully separate, for a variety of reasons. Also, just in case it wasn’t obvious, this comment does read as extremely arrogant. A company wanted to hire you, you didn’t want to work there because they’re “average/mediocre”, so you’ve decided w/o engaging with them that it might be fun to pop in and just solve all their problems for them. As parallel comments have pointed out, networking is crucial to contracting, because it’s the primary way that clients connect with you and decide to work with you. If your mindset is that you’re a rockstar saving crappy companies from their mediocrity, you’ll quickly find yourself with a poisoned well.
  - ushakov 5y ago
    yeah, pretty hypocrite that the author doesn’t work to work for a company, because it’s not his caliber, but then accepts a freelancing gig if you don’t want to work for a company for any reason, why did you accept the offer?
    - convolvatron 5y ago
      why is that so hard to understand? this has been a good source of clients for me. i dont have any faith in your product or your leadership - you really seem to be chasing your own tail, and working for you is just going to be pointless and frustrating for both of us. however, you want to hire me because i'm an expert in X. actually I am, and if you give me the go ahead I'll basically fix all your X problems in 3 months and be available for ongoing work if necessary later. you really dont need a full time X guy, I promise you I'm going to be bored after that first little bit. i want the money, the engagement, and the opportunity to grow my network. that works for me. hanging out on slack with your team all day and having a weekly zoom where I remind you yet again that if you dont test you can expect problems later doesnt.
svorakang 5y ago
I will chip in here. I have had several lead roles as a freelancing consultant over the last few years. Product owner, software architect, software lead. I try to communicate a lot, write down my strategies and thereby make myself replaceable. This way I can change assignments when conditions change (project entering new phase, change of directions, or purchasing goes for a drive to cut expenses) and the client gets improved progress, process, culture and way of working in return, without fears of making them too dependent on a consultant. People reach out to me on roughly weekly basis with new leads, so finding a new gig is easy. I treat new contacts with mild distance and careful interest, and greet old colleagues that know me well with greater warmth and interest. But I also make it clear that when I'm on a contract, I want to leave the current client with some firm usable deliverables before I consider any other options. Typical assignments are 6-24 months. Typical rate: currently roughly 100 EUR/h, increasing by roughly 10% annually. 12 years experience in my field (embedded software, specialized within automotive). Western Sweden. For info, labour laws are pretty strict in Sweden, so employing somebody is a great expense and risk for the employer. Contracting has thus become pretty common (often 30% of the workforce; sometimes more).

jollybean 5y ago

$300/hr is the same as $600K/year. As a manager, who are you going to pay that kind of rate to? Why would someone hire a contractor at that rate, when they could hire the top tier Google Engineers? $200-300/hr rates are usually for 'expertise' style inputs - it's where you have industry leading or arcane knowledge in your field, and you bill for your insight, which might just be a few hours. A lawyer who specializes in IP, and is intimately familiar with the Texas IP legal circuit and all the judges, would bill some 'very high rate' per hour, but probably only for limited number of hours. If you have a full time job, and want to do some 'evening consulting' - you could bill $300/hr if you prepare a training package and are training a team on how to do something, i.e. a 4-hour course for $1200. That kind of thing. Or if you really have some super DevOps knowledge, you're 'The K8 Man' and they call you because they are stuck on a problem, and you always have a solution - you can bill them $300/hr. But being a bit more senior than their regular devs and helping them out doing regular work, then it's going to be tough to get a huge billing rate.

cushychicken 5y ago
>$300/hr is the same as $600K/year. ...at 100% utilization, yes. I've never personally met an independent contractor who books more than a thousand hours a year.
- jollybean 5y ago
  It's the equivalent from the 'buyers' perspective - that's the benchmark burn rate if they were to hire the person for a 'man year'. Contractors come in all shapes and forms some may book more, some less, though yes, from the contractors perspective, $150/hour is more like $150K/year.
ushakov 5y ago
hey, could you check my website (in my profile) and estimate my hourly rate?
- cosmodisk 5y ago
  €50?