Freelance programmer In this article I want to describe my freelance experience

Freelance programmer
In this article I want to describe my freelance experience.

What kind of freelance?

 

Maybe there are people who don't know what freelance is? “Freelance” literally translates to “freelance”, respectively “freelancer” - “freelancer”. This usually means searching for orders over the Internet, completing them at home at the computer (although some are dexterous during the main work) and paying for the work done over the Internet. There are special sites - freelance exchanges - where customers who have any tasks and performers who are ready to complete these tasks communicate.

 

Why is this necessary?

Probably every programmer noticed that working constantly, he does not have enough time to deal with some of his projects. And various ideas periodically come, and you think: “If there was time, I would definitely implement it”. Yes, and at work there are times when you have to deal with uninteresting things. Moreover, it was not in my plans to work all my life “for my uncle,” sooner or later I would have to go on free bread, and during a particularly boring period at the then permanent job, I decided to do it.

To begin with, I decided to gain a foothold on freelance exchanges, so that in case of anything I could always make money, regardless of the current life situation, I would have a laptop and the Internet at hand. In addition, there is always something to choose from: if you want to make a website - go ahead, want to write a script - get a flag in your hands, tired of the programming language - change it, no one forbids it.

Exchanges? Exchanges. Exchanges ...
There are many freelance exchanges, both Russian and foreign, in the end I registered on three - upwork.com, freelancer.com, free-lance.ru and weblancer.net.

 

I chose freelancer.com because I read a rather interesting article describing the beauty of working on it. Here I decided to introduce myself as a web studio, in theory, this approach arouses more confidence among customers, came up with a name for the “office”, made a simple logo, registered and began to look around.
Generally speaking, the site is a typical freelance exchange - pages of sections on possible IT jobs, for example, creating "turnkey" sites, creating designs, working with various CMS, scripting, system administration, etc. The customer chooses the section he needs, creates a project to which interested freelancers respond.

There are a lot of freelancers looking for orders on freelancer.com, many of whom are from Asia. The quality of the work of most of these comrades, as well as the knowledge of English, leaves much to be desired (who have not heard of Indian programmers), but they charge prices, sometimes dumping on their part causes not even bewilderment, but laughter. It is quite possible to find a "performer" on a complex specific portal for an amount of, for example, $ 100 and a deadline of 3 days. And this proposal can still be interrupted!
Naturally, there are also masters of their craft, with the highest professionalism, great experience and the ability to approach the client.

Unfortunately, on this site I did not manage to get a single order, probably due to the final reorientation to the domestic market. Not very satisfactory English and the time difference with many customers also played a role.

The Russian exchanges on which I registered are free-lance.ru and weblancer.net. free-lance.ru - the most famous of the domestic, holds the lead in the number of projects and active freelancers. It contains many paid services, life without which is difficult, for example, without a pro-account, you can submit only three applications for your favorite projects per day. But all exchanges that I have met suffer from this limitation. However, this did not really bother me, from the first days I wanted to enjoy the advantage of choosing interesting tasks. Unfortunately, they did not appear as often as we would like, and when submitting an application, I was always bypassed by more experienced performers, with reviews and a longer time on the site.

 

This is worth mentioning in more detail. Almost all clients look at the number of reviews a freelancer has from past employers. Did a good job - wrote positive, poorly, did not complete or disappeared - negative. Probably already with 3 negative reviews it is better to create a new account, as well as if the first review is negative. The same is with the time elapsed after registration, some do not trust people who have it less than a month. At first, sometimes I had to work for food, just for a review.

When a suitable project is found, the task arises for the customer to choose you. Here everyone has their own approach, someone just names the price and leaves a message “write in a personal”, someone scribbles a sheet of text, describing in detail all their previous achievements, someone chooses something in between. In my opinion, it is worth writing what similar tasks have already been performed and, if possible, make it clear that you understand the task and almost started doing it.

But the first project was received, at last I was chosen as the executor! After discussing all the details of the assignment, it's time to start working! But that everything is not so simple, it became clear after a couple of projects 

in. TK and details need to be discussed in VERY detail, figuring out everything to the last detail, otherwise you can modify and change seemingly insignificant and unimportant details and bring beauty to the customer's taste forever, or, having misunderstood the essence of the task, generally choose the wrong way to solve the problem. There was a case when two weeks of work was wasted due to misunderstanding and inconsistency between me and the customer, in the end I lost money, and the client time, it's good that as a result they dispersed peacefully, without writing negative reviews to each other.

And finally, the most pleasant moment is payment. All exchanges have services for safe transactions, which are made so that neither the employer nor the contractor deceive each other. I have never used them, preferring or trusting the customer, receiving money after completing the task, or taking an advance payment. In the overwhelming majority of cases, payment is made using webmoney or bitcoin.

Not a single exchange

Searching for orders is not limited to just exchanges.
Many customers constantly have new tasks, and if you did one well, you will surely get the next one as well, plus this customer will recommend you to their friends who need to hire an outside employee.
Gradually, acquaintances and former colleagues find out about your freelance work and orders begin to come through them.
After a while, I stopped going to exchanges and performed only such tasks, because they are likely to be interesting, more or less good relations have already developed with the customer, there is almost no distrust and vigilance, like you, that they will ride with money, and him that the work will not be done.

Also, do not forget about your ideas, devote some time to them, even if none of them yet brings any tangible return, because this is only for now. The main thing is that there is time for them.

Expectations and reality
 

For some, it's a pleasure to work at home, but I knew that it would be difficult for me to constantly be within four walls, but I consoled myself with the thought that it would be possible to go out, for example, to a park and work there. But in practice, charging a laptop does not take much time, a netbook has a small screen, and it is inconvenient to sit on a bench in a park with these devices. If you also remember how hot the summer of 2010 was, then you can understand how I envied the people sitting in cool air-conditioned offices, while at home there was only a fan that was bad for saving hell from this hell.

When I started my journey along the freelance road, I did not create the illusion that clients would line up on the very first day, but it was still unexpected that I managed to grab onto the first project only two weeks later. This situation also happened due to the fact that, as mentioned earlier, I did not respond to uninteresting applications, but waited for something more attractive. But the project turned out to be interesting, quite monetary and with a good customer, to whom I subsequently completed several more assignments.

With regard to working hours, it happened approximately as I thought: either there is no work, then I have to work at night, not to mention weekends. If at a permanent job you know that you are resting on Saturday and Sunday, on freelance everything mixes up and sometimes you are surprised at the joy of friends that tomorrow is a day off.
You can ride a bicycle painlessly in the morning, interrupt in the middle of the working day, for example, for dumbbells or a walk (if there is no urgent work, of course).

Exciting money question. Honestly, when I went to freelance, I expected to earn more. It is very difficult to name the average amount of earnings, in the first months I got no more than 10-15 thousand per month.

Resume

What is the bottom line? Do I regret leaving my permanent job for freelancing? Not.
Now I partially (5 hours a day) work in the office at a permanent job, which found me through freelance, the rest of the time I almost completely devote to my own business, only occasionally responding to work from regular customers acquired on freelance.