
Ask HN: Question to self employed developers.Whats your gig? - trapped
Hello Self Employed HN users.
Can you please share your experience. Where are you located and what are your expertise? How do you get your work? How much you are able to charge (Annual compensation, or hourly breakdown) ? Any further comments on pros vs cons of working as self employed.
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olavgg
I live Norway, mostly work for Norwegian clients. My rate is $120 and I bill
around 800-1000 hours annually. I spend around 200 hours annually for sales
and networking and the rest is research, where I do crazy thing like deploying
Microsoft SQL Server on a iSCSI target from a FreeBSD ZFS SSD SAN. It is hard
to sell that though.

My expertise is infrastructure, Linux, Java and SQL. But I usually build web
applications for my clients. Most of my sales has happened through networking
where friends or earlier colleagues has recommended me. It's much harder to go
to "regular" companies because I'm just a guy who is not employed. Freelancers
are almost non-existent here in Norway and those who are freelancers are
usually considered to be unable to get a real job.

I love the freedom, the daily variation where I either talk to clients, do
accounting or coding. I also love that if the weather is nice outside I can
shut off my computer and go out and enjoy the sun. Another plus is that I
usually get to choose what technology stack I will be working with. Which
really makes me happy as I can usually focus on solving problems for the
client and not spending time looking for documentation that is either badly
written or not existing at all. When I solve something quickly, my clients
also get extra happy!

What I do miss is more social interaction with other people. I spend a lot of
alone, solving technical challenges alone and so on. I would love to have some
one to do technical discussions with more often.

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mswen
I live in a major metro area in the Midwest US. I do freelancing because I
want the freedom to pursue varied other interests including building SaaS type
products to potentially hit it bigger one day.

My specialties are roughly in the space of data science. I have one really
consistent client that provides a base. I helped build and now maintain a
system that scrapes data from multiple web sites and then we combine that data
into a cleaned integrated view of the market that drives automated buying and
selling for a portion of their business. I put in 8 to 12 hours weekly keeping
an eye on the system, doing analysis to ensure data quality, finding emerging
market trends, and analyses of the data sets to support more strategic
business decisions.

Projects for other clients include technical writing and developing web based
reporting applications that layer over legacy systems. I have also gone into
companies and just did a week of working with a small R&D group to be an
outside catalyst - shake up their thinking and get a fresh perspective.

I have found work through network of friends and former co-workers. I also
maintain a site with some of my own writing and interviews with people that I
find interesting.
[http://computationalimagination.com/interviews.php](http://computationalimagination.com/interviews.php)

I charge in the range of $80 to $130 an hour depending on the type of work and
the client. I am on track to bill about 800-900 hours this year.

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ddorian43
ok I'll start:::

I work mostly on upwork projects. Located in AL(local jobs are EXTREMLY
shitty). Started 2 years ago @10$/hour, currently @ 34$/hour. 62K last 2 years
(only did fulltime ~8 months). Mostly backend, sometimes full-stack (no fancy
angular though). After building a profile it's pretty easy to get new jobs.
Nice if you live in cheap country.

Pros: Compared to local it's insanely better(local sucks). Better than a job I
got in NL doing back-end-python for 42€. Better compared to a remote-job I got
in Ireland for @20$/hour. Work from your toilet etc. Cool way to build
portfolio. Sucks if you are in (expensive place to live) etc.

Cons: Ceiling is at about 40-50/hour so I'm getting out. Always be on the
lookout outside (ex: went to final stages of job for 2.5x my income which I
found on other site).

How to do it: Apply to small jobs and ask only for rating(they will still pay
you). Get 5stars rating. Incrementally apply to bigger jobs by building your
cv and successfully doing them all. Focus + be expert in an area (only way for
humanity to advance).

I want from a job: great payment or free time to work on my stuff(strict 8
hours) or crazy stuff + getting smarter at work (don't have time to get smart
on weekends). Hopefully it has them all (they exist!).

~~~
crazypyro
Just to clarify, AL = Albania, not Alabama (U.S. State) right?

I've heard contrary things about Upwork from people in the U.S. saying they
didn't really land nice contracts until after they went above $50-$60/hr gigs.
Not sure if it only works for people located in the U.S., but with your
English skills, I doubt you'd run into the same issues as a lot of non-U.S.
based devs.

~~~
ddorian43
Yes, AL the country. Some(many?) projects require your residence to be in US,
which I don't have.

Of course projects get better and client treats/respects you better the more $
you get.

What I mean, if you go above certain $, then US/CA/AU is your only employer.
EU is a cheap client. It's why they'll never have a "San Francisco" (other
reasons being not homogen market + no investors).

ps: It's strange for people to mention 2-letter-country-codes with states and
not countries.

~~~
crazypyro
Its actually very common in the United States to use 2 letter state codes. I
think the other comment thought you meant Alabama as well because he asked if
you had ever worked outside the United States.

I didn't realize the platform blocks you by location, but I guess that makes
sense if that is what the customers want. Thanks for the explanation.

~~~
ddorian43
The platform doesn't block you by location, just discourages.

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waronham
I live in the UK and do freelance work for a mix of UK/US clients, though for
the past 8 months I've only really worked for a couple of clients on an
ongoing basis.

I do web & mobile dev, mainly the latter these days.

Annually bringing in around £160k - but that's a recent thing - good few years
of £10-30k before I really found my feet.

Hard to really gauge the pros/cons with regard to FTE as I was never much use
as an employee, I did little and was paid less (went full time freelance when
my first side job earned me 6 months wages). I am naturally lazy and can
procrastinate for days sometimes (before going on a mad streak) but I'm
getting better at that. Don't think I could ever go back to working for
someone else.

