

Ask HN: Questions about freelancing as a new grad - ninetax

I&#x27;m a senior at a mid-ranked college, majoring in CS, and I&#x27;m going to graduate in December. I am looking at several different options for work when I graduate and one of them is working as a freelancer in a town not known for being a major tech hub. My questions are:<p>What do you think about going straight from college into contracting? 
If it doesn&#x27;t work out after a year will I still be able to pursue the kind of opportunities I have now?
What kind of experiences am I giving up to work on my own?<p>The other options I&#x27;m considering are: working for small to medium size tech companies in San Francisco or Boston. I have a few interviews and a tentative offer.<p>I have some good experience from 2 internships (A larger company, and a smaller one), and I think I could hack it on my own since I have a couple friends who freelance and could give me some work to start with. I can build things on my own initiative and can pick up new stuff pretty quick.<p>Thoughts?
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logn
If you're weighing freelancing vs employment, I'd recommend doing medium term
contracts instead. Look for the typical 3-12 month contracts and go from
there. You'll get decent experience, have some stability, and it won't be
terrifying financially. Keep focused on building up connections to clients,
stay active in your local community (meetups, conferences, user groups, etc),
market your services, and establish a business presence (LLC, business bank
acct, office space, phones, website). But at the same time, your bread-and-
butter financially can be your contracts, until you're able and comfortable
moving to pure freelancing. You can also try to structure your contracts so
that you're paid on a 1099 instead of a W-2 and that way you can start filing
as self-employed and get the full deduction for health insurance and the
assortment of other tax breaks (but get your own tax advice; this isn't it).
Note that you should expect more money being paid on a 1099 since you pay self
employment taxes (I usually discount W-2 work at 15%). But if clients want to
control your work day, they'll be reluctant to pay you on a 1099 because of
IRS rules.

If you just jump right into freelancing, I'd worry you'll never get the
opportunity to really see first-hand and in-depth how businesses are run and
that you'll always lack something in terms of project, team, and management
skills.

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peterhunt
Unless you have significant pressing debt the most important thing to
prioritize is learning. In my first year working at a reasonably large tech
company I learned more than my entire undergrad and grad programs.

So I would stay away from freelancing since you won't have the opportunity to
learn from more senior people.

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davidsmith8900
\- I think it is a good idea to go straight from college into
contracting/freelancing. You'll learn alot. However I think freelancing should
be like a part-time job and you should have a CS job as a day-time/full-time
job. Not only for experience and networking but most importantly for the
money. Freelancing IS REALLY COMPETITIVE and it may be difficult at first to
get as many jobs that will be needed in order to pay the bills.

