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If i were a generalist programmer, eager to learn a technology for good pay on Odesk, what would you say are the technologies more well paid and that at the sam

If i were a generalist programmer, eager to learn a technology for good pay on Odesk, what would you say are the technologies more well paid and that at the same time adjust better to the remote freelance model on that site?

latortuga 13y ago
In general, my advice would be to not approach freelancing as an exchange of expertise in a certain technology for currency. Usually people are looking for their problems to be solved - build me an app, fix my slow site, make me more money - so my advice would be to market yourself as a problem-fixer instead. That said, web development is obviously hot at the moment (Django, Rails, Node, etc) and I have marketed myself as an expert Ruby on Rails developer successfully. Now, I don't do this for in-person gigs but on oDesk I think that it helps with my credibility for those tech-savvy employers with lists of skills they need. There are certainly a plethora of jobs posted for various stacks. I believe oDesk lists their projects in public and if not, you can create a free account and peruse the listings for a better idea. I still would advise you to address other risks in your pitch to employers though, because generally speaking you'll be talking to people who are nervous about hiring and spending money on someone they've never met (and may never meet in person). A business owner or entrepreneur posting on oDesk is disproportionately worried about things like: 1. Is this guy for real/a flake? 2. When is he going to work on my site? 3. Is he just browsing facebook since I can't look over his shoulder? 4. What was he doing for 4 hours yesterday and nothing got deployed to the staging site? Communication is really the thing that is going to set you apart, much moreso than your technical expertise. To give you an idea, I opened my profile on oDesk with about 2.5 years of professional Rails development experience and started out around $25/hour for my first gig (gulp, a bit nervous admitting that I worked as a developer for $25/hour) - I was new to this freelancing thing and if I could go back, I would run screaming from that $25/hour client, feedback be damned. I raised my rate rather quickly however - I have since taken projects at hourly rates of $35, $50, $65, and $75. Please note that this places me in the top 5% of successful freelancers on oDesk, and that I never worked for a client more than 20 hours per week. Yes, you're competing against folks who bid $2/hour and no, I have never spent a moment worrying about them. Nobody, and I mean nobody wants a client who values developer time at $2/hour.
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latortuga 13y ago

In general, my advice would be to not approach freelancing as an exchange of expertise in a certain technology for currency. Usually people are looking for their problems to be solved - build me an app, fix my slow site, make me more money - so my advice would be to market yourself as a problem-fixer instead. That said, web development is obviously hot at the moment (Django, Rails, Node, etc) and I have marketed myself as an expert Ruby on Rails developer successfully. Now, I don't do this for in-person gigs but on oDesk I think that it helps with my credibility for those tech-savvy employers with lists of skills they need. There are certainly a plethora of jobs posted for various stacks. I believe oDesk lists their projects in public and if not, you can create a free account and peruse the listings for a better idea. I still would advise you to address other risks in your pitch to employers though, because generally speaking you'll be talking to people who are nervous about hiring and spending money on someone they've never met (and may never meet in person). A business owner or entrepreneur posting on oDesk is disproportionately worried about things like: 1. Is this guy for real/a flake? 2. When is he going to work on my site? 3. Is he just browsing facebook since I can't look over his shoulder? 4. What was he doing for 4 hours yesterday and nothing got deployed to the staging site? Communication is really the thing that is going to set you apart, much moreso than your technical expertise. To give you an idea, I opened my profile on oDesk with about 2.5 years of professional Rails development experience and started out around $25/hour for my first gig (gulp, a bit nervous admitting that I worked as a developer for $25/hour) - I was new to this freelancing thing and if I could go back, I would run screaming from that $25/hour client, feedback be damned. I raised my rate rather quickly however - I have since taken projects at hourly rates of $35, $50, $65, and $75. Please note that this places me in the top 5% of successful freelancers on oDesk, and that I never worked for a client more than 20 hours per week. Yes, you're competing against folks who bid $2/hour and no, I have never spent a moment worrying about them. Nobody, and I mean nobody wants a client who values developer time at $2/hour.

deleted 13y ago
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