
You’re good. Way too good to be on UpWork - cdalsass
http://dalsass.mobi/blog/your-good-upwork/
======
simonlebo
I've been working for 2 years solely through upwork and I am really happy with
it. I get a normal freelancing rate for my country (Australia) and sustain my
family with it. I was sceptical at first seeing the low rates but decided to
give it a fair try and was happy and surprised with the result. Most often it
lead to move the work to outside the platform since their 10% fee can get to
big numbers pretty quickly.

Also I'd like to add that some of the companies that I work for have found
some great talent through the platform.

------
sebhack
I totally agree with the author. I've had similar experiences with
Elance/UpWork. I'm a Senior Software Developer from Europe and I can't really
compete with developers who offer their services for $20/h. But still, it's
not impossible to get a job. I worked on a few projects that were mostly
already started projects from cheap software firms that couldn't complete the
job for whatever reasons. The clients I met were usually frustrated, burnt a
lot of money, didn't have any experience about software development and/or
management and were hoping to save the project by hiring a more experienced
developer to fix the project. The codebases I've seen were awful. For example,
no git repository, just a plain ZIP file, unstructured PHP code with 300
warnings, duplicate code... I'm sure there are all different kinds of projects
on UpWork, also good ones. But these are hard to find and I doubt UpWork is
the right place for experienced Software Developers with higher rates.

~~~
EugeneOZ
Just ignore developers with lower rates. Good employers often understand what
is adequate rate and they realize they can hire somebody cheap and teach them,
or hire professional and learn from them. So with higher rate you will attract
better employers. Even more: employers check profiles of most expensive
developers first :) Though sometimes they just completely ignore your rate and
just "want to discuss" \- people are different.

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ruraltechnocrat
I can echo your experiences. I did manage to find a project management gig on
oDesk, but after that have applied to many with no luck. The barrier to entry
is too low, by allowing jobs that are $50 or even $500 for what amounts to a
lot of work, everybody is usually driving towards the bottom dollar, versus
having real companies/people looking for serious work.

I've also heard from the person that did hire me that they had been burned
several times by developers that would give them poorly-built products, but
because they weren't familiar with the details of how it was built, only found
out weeks/months later when things started to break down.

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rwallace
I had heard the theory about the market for lemons before, but none of the
discussions of it seemed to be able to come up with a better example than the
classic partial one about used cars. This looks like the case study the theory
predicted.

~~~
wolfgke
Here the wikipedia link to the famous text "The Market for Lemons: Quality
Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism" by George Akerlof:

>
> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons)

And here the text:

>
> [https://www.iei.liu.se/nek/730g83/artiklar/1.328833/AkerlofM...](https://www.iei.liu.se/nek/730g83/artiklar/1.328833/AkerlofMarketforLemons.pdf)

------
EugeneOZ
I know one guy who is making 140k/year on Upwork.

~~~
cdalsass
I'm sure it can be done. This was just my experience... how long did it take
for his first job?

~~~
Spendar89
Based on the link in his HN profile, I think he's referring to himself:
$110/hr, 5,337 hours worked. Those are impressive numbers.

~~~
cdalsass
They are impressive. Congrats to him.

I'm curious what he did to get to that level.

I notice that most projects he's actually billing around $50-60/hour - which
is not that impressive for the US (probably much better where he lives). Maybe
he stands out because his advertised rate is relatively high, and he cuts them
a special deal each time?

The other thing is, why stay on UpWork after the connection is made, why not
just build the client base and use UpWork as a lead source?

Maybe he starts with non-Upwork clients and then brings them "into" UpWork,
getting 5 stars every time?

~~~
EugeneOZ
About a year. I started from $30/hour, then switched to $60 and current rate
is for consulting because I don't have free time for full-time projects (I'm
working full-time already and I love my work so don't want to switch).

2 strict rules: 1) never negotiate rate, 2) don't work too hard (I prefer to
work 40 hours per week).

~~~
cdalsass
I see. So it took 1 year to get your first job and this happened when you
raised rates?

~~~
EugeneOZ
It took 2 days to select $30/hour job (a lot of proposals), and then I just
realized I worth more and spent 2 weeks to find $60 job.

