Becoming a Freelancing Software Engineer

[kravin]

Hi all.

Does anyone have any experience of freelancing as a Software Engineer? I'd like to look into the idea, but I'm not sure where to start researching.

Did you have any industry experience before moving into freelancing? How many hours do you work? What kind of pay can you demand? What kind of projects can you really tackle with just a one-man team?

I'm from Australia, so any anecdotes from that corner of the globe would be muchly appreciated. Although having said that, has anyone had any experience freelancing for a customer who resides in a different country to their own? Is this common?

Also, are there any resources/support networks for freelancing Software Engineers that you can point me to?

[JoeKinley]

As a software engineer what are your basic skills, and what are skills that you are mainly better in than the average programmer?

Software engineering is a very wide and complicated topic. Much IT projects fail because of lack of skills in this field.

So at first I would try to learn as much as possible in the topic and become at least a pro in it. A guru would be nice (and it is possible).

[alexb5784]

I'm not a freelance engineer, but I have spent time working for a software consulting company, so I can give you some insight.

As far as pay is concerned, you can make as much as you want or how much your customers can afford. My firm gets projects as little as $5000 to $30,000. It really depends on the type of project.

Now here is the thing...freelance software engineers are a commodity. Which means there is plenty of competition out there, especially from India. Everyone is looking for work on websites such as rent-a-coder and on job boards. But here is the good thing, most of those people don't know how to sell there services. So, if I were you, I would start reading some sales and marketing books now. And you need to network like crazy. Ask people if they know anyone that needs work. Create a great website and do some SEO to bring in traffic. Join a professional organization.

All the experience in the world doesn't matter if you can't sell yourself! Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. I would say 80% of the freelance engineers out there, don't know how to sell. And I know this to be true, because I had to sell for the company I worked for! And this is the reason I'm working on creating training classes to teach tech people how to sell. When my site is up, I'll send you the link.

Good luck

[mtrimpe]

I've personally been a freelancer for quite some time and am now learning how to become a top performer.

I've found that there are a few types of freelancers:
1. Cannon fodder; You're a decent programmer, you understand a lot of different types of projects and you know that after you figure out how to do it you can do pretty much everything, but you haven't really done it all that often.
2. Gurus: You've chosen a certain field (J2EE, .NET, SOA, BPEL or whatever) and you have done a lot of projects in that field. You know what you can and cannot do, what you can do you've actually done before and you can cook complex systems up fairly easily. You stay on top of current developments and understand and can implement whatever new technologies are added to the field.
3. Evangelists: You have a certain view on IT, a certain way of doing things that you believe to be 'the way of the future'. You're willing to spend a lot of time in investigating this way of working and you prophesize to others about how good it is. You'll start developing your own framework and use it to develop software projects for clients with. You will become so well versed in your own way of thinking that you can cook up a lot of different projects quickly and when some need comes up that you can't handle you figure out the best way to implement it and integrate it into your own vision on IT.

Now you have to understand which one you are.

Cannon fodder is fairly exchangeable. It's very easy to become cannon fodder, it doesn't earn a whole lot of money, but the pay is pretty good nonetheless (30-80 Euro's (60 Avg) an hour in the Netherlands). The main advantage and difference of cannon fodder is that you can restrict all your learning to actual projects. You can simply learn how to do technology X when a project in technology X comes up. Your boss will let you play around a bit learning the software because he can afford it since you're so cheap.

Guru's are highly paid (80-250 Euro's (Avg 120) an hour in the Netherlands). They need to spend a lot of time staying on top of their field, they need to experiment with new technology out of the office, since at the office they are expected to use their knowledge to quickly develop complex systems. If a guru needs to learn a new technology he will work more hours at home as well because the boss shouldn't need to pay him for learning. Whenever some complex question is asked the guru should have an approximate answer available without needing to check the internet.
Most importantly, the Guru must accept whatever is available in his field. It is not acceptable for the Guru to create his own, improved, version of existing frameworks just because it's better. Guru's are paid to deliver quality software for the least amount of money.

The Evangelist's pay ranges from 20-1000+ Euro's an hour in the Netherlands. They have their 'own' way of working. When they come into a company to perform a project, the company pays for their specific way of working. The company pays for your 'mindset'. When there's something that the Evangelist doesn't yet know how to do 'the right way' he will invest time, energy and money into figuring out the best way to solve a problem.
The Evangelists are like artists, they develop a certain style that's their own. If their style is loved by the clients, they get paid a hell of a lot of money, if nobody likes their style they're doomed to live on bread and water.

The main difference between an evangelist and a guru is that for a guru it's Your wish is my command and for an evangelist it's My way or the highway.

Then you have to decide if you´re the kind of guy that wants to be paid by the hour or by the project.
If you generally just want a certain kind of lifestyle and want to spend x hours a day working and x hours relaxing, you´ll be the hourly pay kind of guy.
If you like to work on deadlines, be rewarded for excellent performance and be punished for incorrect estimates/lousy work, then you'll want to charge by the project.

The two most important skill a Guru can develop is 1. the speed of learning to correctly use new technologies and 2. estimating the amount of time the project will require to complete.
Someone needs to be able to say to you that you need to develop project X with technology Y and even though you may only have heard of it once or twice, you need to be able to quickly create a system that uses the technology as it's supposed to be used.
You will also need to be able to give an estimate for any project, even those including new technologies, and be able to make it.

If you're going to become an Evangelist, pay per hour is probably something that won't come until later on. At first you'll have to get clients to trust you enough to let you do the project in your own style. The two most important skills of an evangelist are
1. Inspiring clients of the value and innovativity of your approach.
2. Developing the scope/broadness of your methodology/insights.
If you want to start out as an evangelist, I suggest getting very small projects for a fixed price and implementing them and slowly moving on to more and more complex projects.

[andrew]

Usually it seems you move up that ladder: fodder, guru, then evangelists. That usually comes with YEARS of experience. You can't really start off in a field as an evangelist, that doesn't make any sense.

[JiriNovotny]

You might also want to consider building your own business to make money. It's a lot of fun! You can sell shareware programs, build an online service, etc.

[kravin]

Thanks for that guys. I'd say I still need to build my skills somewhat before heading down that path, but it was good to hear from you all nonetheless!