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If you dislike going through interviews, I'm not sure that freelance work or going into business for yourself (which is the normal model for this kind of thing)

If you dislike going through interviews, I'm not sure that freelance work or going into business for yourself (which is the normal model for this kind of thing) is really the right answer. When you're freelancing you're essentially interviewing for your job every single minute you're in front of or have an active project with the client. Soft skills and doing work that has nothing to do with engineering is even more of a requirement.

rg111 4y ago
> When you're freelancing you're essentially interviewing for your job every single minute you're in front of or have an active project with the client. There is one significant difference. In this perpetual interview, you have access to the internet and can find factual answers from there. The problem solving part is what makes someone a good engineer/scientist. Not knowing particular algorithms, or knowing formulas (in case of DL jobs). Interviews focus on the wrong things. I am okay with the perpetual interview as long as I don't have to rote memorize a bunch of stuff like some poor middle-schoolers in 1970s communist country. I threw away many recruiters who even mentioned technical interviews. I am doing more than okay financially and career-wise, btw. This might change in the future just as a step to do something I want to do. I will hate all the interview, HR initiation, onboarding, etc. forever.
DoingIsLearning 4y ago
From the description, it would probably be a better fit to work as a contractor via an agency. You get the hit of the agency comission but at least most of the talking will be through some Project manager assigned to the client.
- carlmr 4y ago
  That hit in commission can be very efficient, since you save a lot of time you can bill at a high rate.
  - bragr 4y ago
    We hire out to various agencies, and I'm not sure any of them disclose to us what their cut is, but from talking to the people, it sounds like most only take a low single digit percentage on the hourly rate (1~5%). e.g. engineers on $150/h contracts saying their paystub says $140-145/h. YMMV
    - ptero 4y ago
      What region is this, if I may ask. I have (as a full time engineer; large engineering org; Boston area) worked alongside a few folks on contract and my impression was that almost all of the contract folks were scalped. A few exceptions were engineers initially from the organization who switched to the contract for more flexibility. Just a single data point, would love for it to be refuted.
      - dhsnjqj 4y ago
        Those are agencies. You can find recruiters that will clip a small fee and dump you through a contractor management platform. It's all automated. You're effectively a freelancer, still need to sell yourself a bit to get hired but the recruiter vets leads on both ends to streamline things. Contracts are short and sweet so it's not like interviews are multiround or anything, 15 minute coffee with the client to check if you're aligned on stack / interest and off you go.
    - hallway_monitor 4y ago
      My feeling is in line with the sibling, The feeling I've gotten from working with contractors is that it's common for agencies to take about 40%. Seems pretty brutal for everyone except the agency.
      - SoftTalker 4y ago
        Important to know if the "contractors" were employees of the agency, or subcontractors. Early in my career I worked for a consulting firm as an employee, and I never found out exactly what I was billed at but I'm guessing it was around double what I was paid. We worked on site at our client's office, and people there called us "contractors," but we were employees of the consuting firm. We had benefits, training, overtime pay, etc. and we got paid our salary between jobs when we were not on a client project. If I were an indepenedent contractor using an agency to find work, I'd expect them to take a much lower cut, as they have much lower overhead and risk.
charlieyu1 4y ago
I work for myself and I feel this is quite different. Freelancing, the client finding you already has some interest, and you don’t really compete with others. A freelancing interview is more about sorting out the details, making sure both sides want to go through etc, rather than trying to impress the client.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tluyben2 4y ago
Soft skills I don’t mind; grown up interviews I don’t mind. I have done freelancing for 30 years now and had 0 requests for balancing binary trees, time/space complexity of sorting algos; things that are often associated with interviews here on HN and things which I did, you know, in uni, for which, you know, I have a degree to prove I could do them and know what they are. They are generally 100% useless on modern jobs (I worked on specific embedded jobs I needed knowledge like it, but you can look that up as well). I just give my company’s (it is a 1-3 band gang depending on what the others are doing) portfolio and no one requests weird things like that. Now soft skills are different and 2 of us are good at those and one of us is really bad; so we hire out based on the client, wishes and need for soft skills and a lot of communication overhead or not. And I agree that needs to be a match, however I cannot see how that requires 6-8 gruelling interviews spread over weeks instead of 15 minutes and a portfolio (which is how we get hired). So yeah, I think OP would do better in a small collective of freelancers or even small consultancy company; I find it much easier to get into anywhere that way than the employee route.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  > balancing binary trees, time/space complexity of sorting algos .... I needed knowledge like it, but you can look that up as well) In my experience, it is now about knowing how to do these things but when to reach for them when solving a problem.
  - ttymck 4y ago
    Agreed! And I never reach for them, because I work on web apps. If I was a database developer, the story might be different. But I don't feel the need to be interviewed on those topics over and over again. Subsequently, I don't know how to do those things.
    - joshuahutt 4y ago
      One thing I realized after doing some studying is that your approach is limited by the concepts and tools you're familiar with. As I learned more about data structures and algorithms and as I practiced using them and evaluating the complexity of my implementations, I felt a lot more clarity and confidence about solving problems and structuring my code efficiently.
akhmatova 4y ago
Interviewing != "soft skills", and it wasn't soft skills as such (in the legitimate sense of the term) that the poster was objecting to. But rather that set of weird, contrived rituals (which pretend to measure soft and other skills, but basically don't really measure anything other than the candidate's ability to game up answers to questions they looked up on the internet) -- not to mention the frequently appalling lack of decency, common courtesy (and common sense) has come to stand to in for the interview process these days.
firstplacelast 4y ago
Maybe it’s because I have better soft skills, but I’ve had a much easier time getting freelancing gigs than full-time employment. I’ve only had a handful of freelancing gigs and only on the side, but no one has ever made me do a code test or acted like I needed to “prove” my lack of mental deficiency. In interviews for full-time employment, this has rarely been the case.

rg111 4y ago

> When you're freelancing you're essentially interviewing for your job every single minute you're in front of or have an active project with the client. There is one significant difference. In this perpetual interview, you have access to the internet and can find factual answers from there. The problem solving part is what makes someone a good engineer/scientist. Not knowing particular algorithms, or knowing formulas (in case of DL jobs). Interviews focus on the wrong things. I am okay with the perpetual interview as long as I don't have to rote memorize a bunch of stuff like some poor middle-schoolers in 1970s communist country. I threw away many recruiters who even mentioned technical interviews. I am doing more than okay financially and career-wise, btw. This might change in the future just as a step to do something I want to do. I will hate all the interview, HR initiation, onboarding, etc. forever.

DoingIsLearning 4y ago

From the description, it would probably be a better fit to work as a contractor via an agency. You get the hit of the agency comission but at least most of the talking will be through some Project manager assigned to the client.

carlmr 4y ago
That hit in commission can be very efficient, since you save a lot of time you can bill at a high rate.
- bragr 4y ago
  We hire out to various agencies, and I'm not sure any of them disclose to us what their cut is, but from talking to the people, it sounds like most only take a low single digit percentage on the hourly rate (1~5%). e.g. engineers on $150/h contracts saying their paystub says $140-145/h. YMMV
  - ptero 4y ago
    What region is this, if I may ask. I have (as a full time engineer; large engineering org; Boston area) worked alongside a few folks on contract and my impression was that almost all of the contract folks were scalped. A few exceptions were engineers initially from the organization who switched to the contract for more flexibility. Just a single data point, would love for it to be refuted.
    - dhsnjqj 4y ago
      Those are agencies. You can find recruiters that will clip a small fee and dump you through a contractor management platform. It's all automated. You're effectively a freelancer, still need to sell yourself a bit to get hired but the recruiter vets leads on both ends to streamline things. Contracts are short and sweet so it's not like interviews are multiround or anything, 15 minute coffee with the client to check if you're aligned on stack / interest and off you go.
  - hallway_monitor 4y ago
    My feeling is in line with the sibling, The feeling I've gotten from working with contractors is that it's common for agencies to take about 40%. Seems pretty brutal for everyone except the agency.
    - SoftTalker 4y ago
      Important to know if the "contractors" were employees of the agency, or subcontractors. Early in my career I worked for a consulting firm as an employee, and I never found out exactly what I was billed at but I'm guessing it was around double what I was paid. We worked on site at our client's office, and people there called us "contractors," but we were employees of the consuting firm. We had benefits, training, overtime pay, etc. and we got paid our salary between jobs when we were not on a client project. If I were an indepenedent contractor using an agency to find work, I'd expect them to take a much lower cut, as they have much lower overhead and risk.

charlieyu1 4y ago

I work for myself and I feel this is quite different. Freelancing, the client finding you already has some interest, and you don’t really compete with others. A freelancing interview is more about sorting out the details, making sure both sides want to go through etc, rather than trying to impress the client.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tluyben2 4y ago

Soft skills I don’t mind; grown up interviews I don’t mind. I have done freelancing for 30 years now and had 0 requests for balancing binary trees, time/space complexity of sorting algos; things that are often associated with interviews here on HN and things which I did, you know, in uni, for which, you know, I have a degree to prove I could do them and know what they are. They are generally 100% useless on modern jobs (I worked on specific embedded jobs I needed knowledge like it, but you can look that up as well). I just give my company’s (it is a 1-3 band gang depending on what the others are doing) portfolio and no one requests weird things like that. Now soft skills are different and 2 of us are good at those and one of us is really bad; so we hire out based on the client, wishes and need for soft skills and a lot of communication overhead or not. And I agree that needs to be a match, however I cannot see how that requires 6-8 gruelling interviews spread over weeks instead of 15 minutes and a portfolio (which is how we get hired). So yeah, I think OP would do better in a small collective of freelancers or even small consultancy company; I find it much easier to get into anywhere that way than the employee route.

andsoitis 4y ago
> balancing binary trees, time/space complexity of sorting algos .... I needed knowledge like it, but you can look that up as well) In my experience, it is now about knowing how to do these things but when to reach for them when solving a problem.
- ttymck 4y ago
  Agreed! And I never reach for them, because I work on web apps. If I was a database developer, the story might be different. But I don't feel the need to be interviewed on those topics over and over again. Subsequently, I don't know how to do those things.
  - joshuahutt 4y ago
    One thing I realized after doing some studying is that your approach is limited by the concepts and tools you're familiar with. As I learned more about data structures and algorithms and as I practiced using them and evaluating the complexity of my implementations, I felt a lot more clarity and confidence about solving problems and structuring my code efficiently.

akhmatova 4y ago

Interviewing != "soft skills", and it wasn't soft skills as such (in the legitimate sense of the term) that the poster was objecting to. But rather that set of weird, contrived rituals (which pretend to measure soft and other skills, but basically don't really measure anything other than the candidate's ability to game up answers to questions they looked up on the internet) -- not to mention the frequently appalling lack of decency, common courtesy (and common sense) has come to stand to in for the interview process these days.

firstplacelast 4y ago

Maybe it’s because I have better soft skills, but I’ve had a much easier time getting freelancing gigs than full-time employment. I’ve only had a handful of freelancing gigs and only on the side, but no one has ever made me do a code test or acted like I needed to “prove” my lack of mental deficiency. In interviews for full-time employment, this has rarely been the case.