
How to Become a Software Contractor - darkxanthos
http://www.evanmiller.org/contracting-advice.html
======
DanHulton
Convenient timing on this article - I'm strongly considering starting a
contracting business in the new year and "How Do I Even Do That?" is at the
top of my list of questions.

This article isn't as fully-featured as I might like (I mean, a step-by-step
"Here's How Dan Hulton becomes an in-demand contractor" section would be
_ideal_ , but hey), but I really like the last section about: "In the chef's
kitchen, the knife that can cut anything, cuts nothing."

One of the biggest pains I went through in my current job was setting up
FileMaker databases to be read over the internet. I've developed _extensive_
expertise in this area, and was forced to learn from scratch, since there
really doesn't exist much in the way of helpful advice _on_ the internet.
Apparently, not many people do this.

I'll have to look into this as an avenue.

~~~
solutionyogi
You might like this guide then:

<http://unixwiz.net/techtips/be-consultant.html>

~~~
icey
jacquesm put together a pretty good guide last year as well:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=848370>

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maxer
I'm a freelancer.. I develop stuff that interests me, facebook applications
and integration. I love it because a lot of the time my friends get to see
what i work on instead of me just doing some backend coding that they wouldnt
know anything about, i can normally go.. "yes, that is my work"

Most of my business comes from agencies who outsource such skills, maybe
design agencies who don't have coding skills or facebook expertise. But I do
gather work from the odd startup.

How I landed into contracting? I downloaded wordpress, setup a trivial website
and optimised the site for adwords.

Adwords has been my biggest source of work from the start but its only a
starting point. I have built up relationships with guys who will pass me work
over and over. I use twitter and facebook to connect with the agencies to
constantly update changes within facebook and the new work that I do.

Most of the agencies that I work with have multiple clients from different
sectors and what works for one of my clients may work for a client of theirs
completely different to whom they originally contacted me about.

~~~
DanHulton
I don't suppose you can be more specific in terms of "optimized the site for
adwords?"

Like, you mean SEO for contracting terms and such?

~~~
maxer
Optimised to convert.. would be a better way to put it. people waste lots of
money on adwords by not having appropriate calls to action, or simple things
like adding a number you can call, will also improve conversion rates

~~~
chc
I think the question (or at least the question in my mind) was more along the
lines of how you were using AdWords. Like, the way it's described, it sounds
like this:

1\. Set up a WordPress site consisting of a more long-winded version of "I'm
awesome! Hire me!"

2\. Buy a few AdWords listings for terms along the lines of "Awesome web
developer in Tallahassee," linking to said WordPress site

3\. People from agencies click on the AdWords links and hire you

Is that right? It sounds like I must be missing something somewhere, because
I've never heard of legit agencies hiring through AdWords.

------
futuremint
I have an interesting niche for contracting too: I'm pretty good at UI & back-
end at the same time. So instead of a company needing to hire two different
developers, they can communicate with one person about their overall product
easily (having good communication skills is very important too).

Actually, I think to be a successful contractor your reputation is even more
important than your skills (though they certainly can't lack either).
Businesses appreciate clear writing, quick answers, politeness, prompt replies
and humility when you break something (you will at some point).

If you respond more quickly and can communicate more clearly than the elite
hacker next door... most businesses would prefer you. I think blogging also
helps to sharpen your writing skills too.

~~~
alinajaf
> I have an interesting niche for contracting too: I'm pretty good at UI &
> back-end at the same time.

Don't mean to piss on your fireworks but any company that's going to be able
to pay you worthwhile contractor fees is going to have budget to hire a UI guy
and a backend guy, and probably a product manager in between them to manage
communication.

If you were on the other hand a usability expert with blog posts, conference
speeches having invented practices that are now 'best practices' (e.g. you
were advocating CSS when tables were the norm) then you're the kind of thing
the OP is talking about.

Likewise for security experts, SEO experts, front end performance experts etc.
I can recall experts in those fields by name as the de facto canonical
resource in their given fields, but I can't think of anyone who is known for
being a jack of all trades, renaissance man type character.

Though to be fair, it is a lot of fun to dabble in lots of different
technologies and fields, and is more or less a requirement for working as a
full-time web developer.

~~~
futuremint
Its ok, I wasn't really trying to set off fireworks... just to offer a little
of my experience :)

I've found that there are quite a few companies that can pay me worthwhile
contractor fees yet cannot budget to have a UI guy, a backend guy, and a
product manager as employees.

I know the perspective of the post was from a specialist perspective, I'm just
pointing out that there are also plenty of smaller companies that cannot
afford 3 full-time employees, or perhaps don't even have enough work to keep 3
full-time employees busy.

This is typically handled by an "agency" of some sort (design agency,
development house, etc.), but there is also a large market of small companies
that prefer to just interact with one person for simplicity's sake.

Its kind of like serving the "long tail" of companies wanting some sort of
software services but can't afford IBM's consulting fees, or a full-time
employee to do what they need.

~~~
alinajaf
I agree totally that there is a big market for your friendly, do-it-all web
developer for small businesses. And you're right in that they probably don't
have the budget for hiring specialists in their respective fields. The vast
majority of my freelance clients are in this market, so its one I know well.

The part where I have a difference of a opinion is here:

> I've found that there are quite a few companies that can pay me worthwhile
> contractor fees yet cannot budget to have a UI guy, a backend guy, and a
> product manager as employees.

Specifically, the definition of 'worthwhile contractor fee'.

The average ho-hum web developer with a few years of experience, the LAMP
stack, JS/HTML/CSS who can tell the difference between an abstract factory and
an anonymous function in London can easily pick up a £250-£350 ($380-$540) per
day contract. I would fall (just about) into this category. This however is
not the type of engagement I believe the OP was talking about, and not what I
was referring to when I said 'worthwhile contractor fee'.

The sort of fees I was referring (and I believe the OP is referring to also)
to are going to be about one order of magnitude higher than the amounts
mentioned above. Hypothetically, imagine what sort of fees you'd be paying
John Resig or David Crockford to consult on your organizations frontend code,
or DHH to consult on Rails, or Steve Souders to consult on frontend
performance, or Chris Shiflett to harden your PHP apps security.

While the examples I've given their sound like special cases of internet
celebrities, there are really real people making a happy living doing this
sort of work at very high (i.e. 'worthwhile') rates. I personally know of
technical contractors who are paid more than £1k/day (specifically in database
performance, and website conversion), and thats just within my immediate
circle.

On the other side of the fence, at one one of my previous companies (which
wasn't that big, 30-40 staff) we had a team of developers with QA, a
separation between front/back/sysadmins, but no one with dedicated database
performance experience/skills. We had budget for (and would have gladly paid)
something like £10k for a database performance specialist with good references
to come in for a week or two, show us what we could do to make our db perform
better at scale and establish some best practices for doing things right going
forward.

~~~
futuremint
Ah, ok. Yes, you're right then I'm probably not making "worthwhile contractor
fees" then. We're pretty frugal considering we're a family of four living in a
very nice part of our city.

However we also live in one of the cheapest areas of the U.S. So my rates
would probably be seen as a pittance in any globally relevant metropolitan
area.

Also this is certainly _not_ the type of engagement the OP was talking about,
I just thought I'd offer up a counter-point that you can also make a decent
living contracting and _not_ have a niche.

Or rather, make a living in an economic niche instead of a technical one (but
still with technical skills).

------
trafficlight
_I didn't really set out with the goal of being an open-source contractor. It
just sort of happened, like sex with a much-older neighbor._

Can't really argue with that analogy.

~~~
Periodic
I always like to think that analogies are supposed to make the point easier to
understand by relating it to something familiar to the reader, sort of how
people explain programming language features by comparing them to other
programming languages. You want to give the reader the gist of the idea that
they know nothing about by comparing it to something they know something
about.

I'm not sure what purpose this analogy served in terms of clarity. It was a
bit of a speed-bump in the reading. However, it was amusing and made me
briefly wonder if being a contractor was similar to being promiscuous.

~~~
JonnieCache
It is what's known as "subverting the form" or more simply "poetry" and it's a
luxury afforded to those dealing with human-to-human language as opposed to
human-to-computer language.

You're right, the analogy is not as near as the author could have come to an
illuminating isomorphism between the two concepts. In many ways you're right,
it could be taken in a way that makes the meaning _less_ clear. However prompt
illumination is not the only or even the most important purpose of analogy in
language.

Interestingly, your own analogy (metaphor?) of a speed bump also transcends
its immediate meaning as you intended it. By making you drive (read) more
slowly, it also makes you drive (think) more carefully.

------
sireat
The article is great, but one attempting to duplicate such achievement has to
be aware of survivorship bias.

What I mean, author picked writing nginx extensions as his area of expertise.
At the time of his first contract nginx was just gaining ground. If nginx
didn't become popular, all that positive notoriety in nginx world would have
been for naught.

Working on different projects with different toolchains, I have come across
many people who are experts in their niche. They do not get contracted as
experts often.

------
Tycho
Did this part strike anyone else as strange, given he was dealing with a
start-up?

 _When I went to pick up my check, the CTO said the company liked what I did
so much they were giving me an extra 500 bucks just to say thanks._

------
happywolf
I had a gig of iPad app development. It was from a company that wanted to do
proof-of-concept and had a limited budget. Since I code during my free time
anyway, I just took it up and learned a lot of business-related stuff like how
to discuss requirements, quotations and invoicing along the way. I would say
this is an eye-opening journey that worths much more than the money I earned.
:)

------
SkyMarshal
For anyone who hasn't seen it, also check out Jacques' excellent guide on this
subject as well:

<http://jacquesmattheij.com/be-consultant>

------
hartror
_I didn't really set out with the goal of being an open-source contractor. It
just sort of happened, like sex with a much-older neighbor._

I can't help wondering if there is a story there!

------
JonnieCache
Oh god, so other people have to go to Code Detox as well. It feels so good,
finding out you're not alone.

------
zackattack
Incidentally, I am currently looking to hire a PHP or Ruby programmer who has
experience building out SaaS-style web apps. You know -- account creation,
forgot password, billing integration via PayPal or Recurly. I don't care if
this is your first ever freelance gig, just that you have built web apps
before, and can do so quickly (it's a practiced skill). Email's in profile if
you're available.

