Freelancer and other freelancing sites - your experience

Graham wrote: »

1) pick your jobs very carefully. Evidence that the client knows what they're looking for is the key.
2) pick your clients very carefully. You ideally want business clients not enthusiastic Zuckerberg wannabes.
3) price above the budget. 30% - 50% over the budget is a good range. It filters out the clients you don't want and it differentiates you from the off-shore sweatshops that you don't have a chance of competing against on price.
4) respond properly when you bid. None of this cut and paste crap, outline what you would do, how you would do it, why you would do it and any similarities to other projects you have worked on.
5) emphasise that language isn't going to be a barrier and you're in the same timezone (if applicable).
6) emphasise that you actually do the work yourself. You don't subcontract the work out and you're not a sales agent for an off-shore 'development house'.
7) don't be afraid to decline work. Those alarm bells going off in your head are ringing with damn good reason.

I couldn't agree more to the above once you're established. In particular, be very wary of startups or anyone in a rush. As soon as a potential client looks at all like they are in a rush, I start backing away very quickly. I don't mind deadlines being discussed, if I can meet that deadline I'll say so, but I run a mile when I hear the phrase "as soon as possible" or get the sense any deadline being discussed is hard to unexpected engineering surprises. I'm too old for that crap, plus I have a family I'd like to keep.

When you're starting out though, IF the output is really, really, REALLY visible and will stand totem like over the next five years of your career, I can see good reason to get into bed with someone in a rush and working every hour God sends you to deliver on time IF it's not going to turn into a really public disaster which will wreck your career. Be VERY sure the work you do for them absolutely will become public, never accept promises it will become so unless it is very obvious there is no possibility they can renege. Make SURE there is undeletable evidence you helped make it happen via git commit logs or public copyright announcements with your name in them.

Finally, all those freelancer sites tend to be race to the bottom stuff. For really short projects to fill a six month gap between six months plus contracts, I have been known to bite as a gap filler, especially if it's in a shiny new technology which is CV building. Otherwise, generally speaking they aren't paying enough and/or are in too much of a rush, else they wouldn't be trawling freelancer sites in the first place.

If I'm very blunt about it, there are professional remote worker employers just as much as there are professional remote workers, and those employers start on the basis that it will cost a minimum of two grand per week going upwards because that's what experienced engineers who do good work get at the currently prevailing global rates, irrespective of global location. I can't think of any in my network who use freelancing websites for anything but three week jobs or less, and even then that's mostly a talent fishing expedition not really about getting a small project done as by the time you've told them what to do and checked their work, you might as well have done the work yourself. Believe it or not, engaging competent remote working professionals is surprisingly difficult, despite the typical six to nine months unemployment between contracts for most remote workers you'd think it would be easy, but they are always on contract for someone else exactly when you actually need them for some reason

That's my experience as a professional remote contractor anyway, other people's experience may vary.

Niall