Freelancing

DJDOO

Hi,

I'm currently working for an internet of things company developing android based software. As the company I work for is consultancy based I am unable to add any projects I have worked on to my portfolio.

In order to build up my portfolio and of course earn a bit of extra cash I was thinking of doing some free lancing through the likes of freelancer.com or people per hour. My question is, in general is the act of freelancing frowned upon by employers or is it ok once it doesn't impact on companies work?


Any advice on this would be appreciated.

Graham

Check your contract of employment to see if extra-curricular work is specifically mentioned. Occasionally it is, or worse again you grant your employer full rights to anything you develop even outside of work.

Even if it's not mentioned in your contract, there's no saying your employer would be happy with you taking on extra work. Only your employers would be able to answer that for you.

Now, tell us more about the IoT stuff you're working on

DJDOO

Graham wrote: »

Check your contract of employment to see if extra-curricular work is specifically mentioned. Occasionally it is, or worse again you grant your employer full rights to anything you develop even outside of work.

Even if it's not mentioned in your contract, there's no saying your employer would be happy with you taking on extra work. Only your employers would be able to answer that for you.

Now, tell us more about the IoT stuff you're working on

Now that definitely would be breaking the terms of my contract!!!

Nothing about extra work outside of hrs...but still you're prob right...keep it to myself!

Any good advice on free lancing or the websites to get the work etc? Anything would be appreciated..

Graham

DJDOO wrote: »

Any good advice on free lancing or the websites to get the work etc? Anything would be appreciated..

If you're thinking of trying the freelancing sites: Don't compete on price. Don't even try to compete on price. Don't even think about trying to compete on price.

You will ignore that advice and go and submit some really competitively priced bids for projects. The projects will take much longer than you anticipated, you will be exhausted afterwards and you will realise you could have made more money serving burgers or delivering pizza.

DJDOO

Graham wrote: »

If you're thinking of trying the freelancing sites: Don't compete on price. Don't even try to compete on price. Don't even think about trying to compete on price.

You will ignore that advice and go and submit some really competitively priced bids for projects. The projects will take much longer than you anticipated, you will be exhausted afterwards and you will realise you could have made more money serving burgers or delivering pizza.

Good advice!!

But considering the bind I'm in, trying to build my portfolio and not being able to use the work I do in the company, would it not be worth it in the long run?

Or am I better off doing a few for myself in my own time?

Graham

DJDOO wrote: »

But considering the bind I'm in, trying to build my portfolio and not being able to use the work I do in the company, would it not be worth it in the long run?

Some of the major disadvantages to trying to compete on price:

• You won't get paid enough
• You can't possible compete with some of the really off shore guys
• You will generally get incredibly inexperienced customers who have no comprehension of how long development takes.
• You will generally get inexperienced customers who have no idea what it is they really want.
• You will be lucky to get a spec scrawled on a napkin.
• You will generally get clients who think ever change is a '5 minute job' no matter how fundamental the change is.
• You won't get paid enough.

Better 1 client with a reasonable budget and half a clue than 20 of the other type.

Do you do native android or are you using one of the cross-platform frameworks?

DJDOO

Graham wrote: »

Some of the major disadvantages to trying to compete on price:

• You won't get paid enough
• You can't possible compete with some of the really off shore guys
• You will generally get incredibly inexperienced customers who have no comprehension of how long development takes.
• You will generally get inexperienced customers who have no idea what it is they really want.
• You will be lucky to get a spec scrawled on a napkin.
• You will generally get clients who think ever change is a '5 minute job' no matter how fundamental the change is.
• You won't get paid enough.

Better 1 client with a reasonable budget and half a clue than 20 of the other type.

Do you do native android or are you using one of the cross-platform frameworks?

This is great advice Graham, thanks.

I'm working with native Android.

bpmurray

DJDOO wrote: »

Hi,

I'm currently working for an internet of things company developing android based software. As the company I work for is consultancy based I am unable to add any projects I have worked on to my portfolio.

In order to build up my portfolio and of course earn a bit of extra cash I was thinking of doing some free lancing through the likes of freelancer.com or people per hour. My question is, in general is the act of freelancing frowned upon by employers or is it ok once it doesn't impact on companies work?


Any advice on this would be appreciated.

What do you mean by portfolio? Do you mean have adding a list of project you've worked on to your CV? In fact, most people are in that situation and only the very few can point to specific publicly viewable things.

Most CVs for people in your position say things like

I was employed by consuntancy X and worked on customer projects such as a)an IoT solution gathering data for an Android app, b)a foobar that whatevered to a mainframe backend, and so on.

You don't need specific company names (in fact, you might not be legally allowed to name them) and employers are usually more interested in you and your abilities than anything your customers might have.

DJDOO

bpmurray wrote: »

What do you mean by portfolio? Do you mean have adding a list of project you've worked on to your CV? In fact, most people are in that situation and only the very few can point to specific publicly viewable things.

Most CVs for people in your position say things like

I was employed by consuntancy X and worked on customer projects such as a)an IoT solution gathering data for an Android app, b)a foobar that whatevered to a mainframe backend, and so on.

You don't need specific company names (in fact, you might not be legally allowed to name them) and employers are usually more interested in you and your abilities than anything your customers might have.

Hi,

Thanks for that. When I say portfolio I mean, yes on my cv but also companies are now looking for applications that you have put to store.

The Corinthian

First of all, employers will naturally prefer if their employees take on no extra work that may in any way dissuade you from potentially doing 70-hour weeks for them at some stage in the theoretical future.

In practice, it comes down to whether it is explicitly forbidden in your contract and how necessary you are, as many employers will turn a blind eye if you're a good worker and it's not affecting your day to day work.

Secondly, avoid the freelancer sites. The market there is geared towards people who live in countries where the cost of living is a fraction of that of Western countries - we employ 3D designers full-time in Moldavia at a contract rate of $500 p.m., which is considered a good salary there and you can get lower further afield. It is simply not worth your while to even try to compete. You're better off getting work through word of mouth locally.

Thirdly, Don't bite off more than you can chew. Stick to relatively small sideline projects. Unless you don't want to have a single day off for the next six months (and the client is willing to wait six months for a delivery) you won't be able to do it without affecting your day job performance, and ultimately that's what pays the bills.

Fourthly, You're doing native Android development, so it's pretty easy and cheap to develop your own stuff. You'll ultimately end up with a portfolio example on Google Play, but if you want it to make money too, research both monitization (ad networks, freemium models, etc) and app marketing strategies.

Fifthly and finally, think laterally on what would serve your portfolio. Involvement in an open source project looks good on a CV. So does having an article published in a reputable print or online technical journal. Always consider alternatives to freelancing or your own projects in tandem with them.