From someone who started this journey a few years ago before the pandemic:

1. (for now) Ignore all the "read this, study that". If your goal is to be "independent", then I take that to mean you want to make money. "Reading this, study that" does not immediately make you money. It's important, but not THE most important thing right now.

2. Network with other independents and get on jobs they are on. Focus on getting paid and making money as quickly as possible so you can start to get a feel for how much you can charge and how steady an income you get.

3. Let go of your fear of putting yourself out there or getting a "no". Don't worry about telling "everyone" you are independent. Focus on telling people / circles / influencers who are most related to your client base.

Again, I'm not saying the "read this, study that" advice is not important. My advice is that there is a lot out there and your single most important focus should be on your goal: getting paid for your work.

Keep running experiments, different rates, different jobs, different emails, different job boards and get hired. See what works, get paid, rinse and repeat.

If you're just looking for a quick and dirty solution, find the full-time posting of the job you want to do, and apply to the job with your cover letter being honest about how you want to help and work with them, but ask if they are open to a freelancer. You'd be surprised how many people will kick those tires and get you off and running.

My advice would be to target a situation where clients search for you, rather the other way around (everything else I find unsustainable). For that you need to put your work out, like breadcrumbs - so the interested party gets curious and reaches out.

Has worked for me for the past seven years. The cost of putting your work out is basically zero these days - all you have to do it put the time in, which you have to do in one way or another anyway.

Not my field of expertise, but if I were a data science consultant I'd make sure I'm a top ten (%) kaggle person, and so on.

For a different perspective: this hasn't ever worked for me. I have a reasonably trafficked blog and github and only twice in 7 years has someone asked me if I'd be up for contracting and both those times it was for a thing I wasn't qualified for.

In contrast I've found contracts and been emailed by employers looking for contractors numerous times after I posted on HN's Who wants to be hired post.

But it could be that although my blog is reasonably trafficked and technical, my posts just aren't particularly practical. :)

"Hello! I'm Phil, based in Queens, NY. I've been a developer and manager in the past. Some of the most viewed posts on this site are about building compilers, databases, and emulators from scratch.

I am building Multiprocess Labs around DataStation, an open-source data IDE to help you create dashboards and exports on data from every database, API, and file without cumbersome ETL processes.

I also run a Discord community for developers working on or interested in challenging programming projects like compilers, databases, emulators, etc. Come to share and learn from other folks!

You can find me elsewhere on Github, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Goodreads.

I love hearing from you!"

Probably because nowhere on your blog, or your Hacker News bio, do you say "please reach out for contracting."

You don't even say you're a contractor or have worked as a contractor in the past. It reads like you're a full-time employee.

ABC, always be closing.

If you don't have a call to action to convert blog readers into consulting customers, how will you ever get people wanting to hire you?

I used to have contract info on there and I removed it because it wasn't effective. :)

I disagree with this. Not saying it's impossible to build a reputation on haggle or whatever but networking and getting to know people (potential employers) and their problems is more important.

I've been on both sides as a contractor and hiring contractors. I've never seen anyone go for the "smartest" person or a popular person in the field. It's all about comfort working together, and being top of mind when there is work. For the latter point, some kind of "presence" on social media or whatever may help, but I still think there's a massive wall between media and reality (like I'd never consider reaching out to a social media celebrity if I need work done). Regular calls and check-ins, pitching ideas, getting to understand clients. That's what wins the work. And once you're in, just do a good job (again be understanding the client needs, not really by being smart) and you're good.

I'm a DS/ML consultant, but I've never done Kaggle or even serious public github projects. For context, I've only changed clients once, as my contracts have been very long-term. My initial client reached out to me and induced me into part-time consulting in the first place, and my second/current reached out to me based on previously working at the same company.

So I'm not saying that I know everything, but n=1 says that interpersonal connections in a domain+skill can be fully sufficient. Obviously, which one to focus on depends on where you're starting from - I have 10 years of experience in a domain and have interacted as a skilled expert with many people who are now managing budgets at various mid-sized companies. If I needed a new client, I'd primarily reach out through that network instead of using Kaggle.

>I've only changed clients once, as my contracts have been very long-term

It should be pointed out that this is much closer to insecure employment than traditional contracting/consulting. No judgement from me, because I'm in a very similar position- freelance contractor on paper, but in reality, one client and a very employee-like working dynamic.

Also that changing clients is just as lucrative for contract employees as it is for fulltime employees.

You're usually expected to have 2-3 solid backup options, minimum.

Seconded. Maybe the kaggle thing works, but for me it was just posting all of my work to Twitter every day. Two years later and I'm listening to my wife saying "Wow, your tweets pop up randomly in my search results" for random obscure ML related searches.

The downside is that it will probably dry up quickly. But I try to pay it forward by spotlighting other capable engineers who have less visibility. Which reminds me, I have to go do that now. (Done: https://twitter.com/theshawwn/status/1490472576379932673)

I shared everything I’ve learned working as a contractor for 12 years in this video series - https://learnetto.com/tutorials/why-should-you-become-a-cont...

Thank you, this really helps.

Start by working at a consulting firm to get used to that sweet consulting life without having to worry about finding clients. Then transition to hang your own shingle.

I've been an independent software developer for the past 3 or 4 years and I took a path that can be done by good software developer who is good at talking to clients. Talent agencies like Toptal and A.team are great to get started since you don't need to find customers. You can make $150 or more per hour which makes for a pretty comfortable living. Feel free to email me at dan@axelby.com if you'd like more specific advice or just to chat.

Hey man, Thanks for the advice I’ll definitely reach out to you

I started doing a lot of contracting through recruiters which could be anywhere from a few days work to 6-12 month longer contracts. This allowed me to meet a lot of different people in my industry/city and build a reputation as someone reliable. After that's done then it's a matter of growing those relationships and once the recruiter lock-in period ends you can start to approach them directly and offer your services. This can be either independent if you want or it could be with a team.

The most important thing in contracting is being reliable and showing up. So many contractors just don't show for work or leave before the signed end date so if you avoid that you're already ahead of the pack.

Can you elaborate on "contracting through recruiters"? Did you respond to recruiters who were reaching out to you with full-time positions and say "no thanks, but what about a contract instead?" If so, do you have any particular strategies for getting to a "yes" with that approach?

Or did you mean that you reached out to recruiters and worked out a finder's fee arrangement if they brought you contracts? If so, how did you find recruiters to work with who weren't already engaged with clients and might therefore have a conflict of interest?

I live in Australia so it might be a bit different in your country. The work started for me as shorter term contracts e.g. a recruiter would say "I'm looking for someone on a 6 month react JS project". I would provide them with a day rate and go work for the client as a standard employee. Overtime this has led to me meeting a lot of people, getting a lot of experience and building a client roster of my own.

I’ve found some recruiters just default to W2 because it’s less headaches (and potentially more money) for them. Sometimes it’s a requirement for the contract. You don’t know unless you ask

Try to get your first client before even starting. Call people you know that might need help. Once you actually take the plunge, make sure you tell everybody you know and be visible where it counts, online and offline. Try to build a name. It takes time. A consultant broker or similar could help you find gigs at the start too. Good luck!

I think this is the safest way to start. Don’t quit and then look for contract.

I think the best is to transition from current role to contracting role or by going for a long-term contract, often presented as salaried position. One way to do it is to offer the current company a contract with less hours. If you were an important contributor, they will say yes.

You can slowly get used to it, learn how to invoice, build a network, present yourself as independent while actually having work and not starve to death.

Hello, i have written "the freelance guide", which unfortunately is written in swedish and is adapted to the swedish system and how things work here, but many parts are probably general as well. There are essentially 17 steps you need to take in order to become a freelancer and i explain them all here: https://annaleijon.se/frilansarguiden-hur-du-blir-frilansare...

I was a hired it consultant, but have now been self-employed for four years, which has been truly great! I create a lot of content on the topics of freelance, self-employment and tech. I have also started a forum in which anyone can ask questions around these topics: https://annaleijon.discourse.group/

Best of luck!!

I was fortunate enough to make the move after a layoff that left me with a bit of a runway. I basically made phone calls and met with people, telling them what I was interested in doing (X.500 mostly, some PKI (hey, it was a long time ago!)) and asking them not if they had work, but if they knew who might.

I made sure to get at least one strong contact from each call/meeting. As time went on, the quality of referral got higher, until I was talking to two people who had work and no one to do it.

I ended up getting both contracts, and they kept me busy for my first year (making better money than I had ever made as an employee).

Your network has more value than you might think, and working that network can be as simple as “hey, who do you think would be interested in...”

1. Think of yourself as a small business, not an independent contractor.

2. Only then, book 1 client. It doesn't matter for how long, it just needs to be at a reasonable rate for something you're confident you can deliver on time for <20hrs/week.

3. Only then, in your remaining weekly capacity, start the sales process to land a second client (at a higher rate), and start setting up your business admin processes (invoicing, budgeting, accounting, etc)

4. Only then, pick up a copy of Alan Weiss's Consulting Bible or Million Dollar Consultant - for tips on pricing your services & writing proposals.

At this point, if you find out you don't enjoy sales or high rates - partner with a consulting firm. Otherwise, keep going.

I’ve been doing this for the last 7 years. It’s quite common and not much different than an employee as a contractor. They pay your company that you set up and you pay yourself however much you want to offset on taxes and such.

Interestingly there are contracts for full-time employees too nowadays for non-tech related roles so companies can save on not having to spend on benefits.

Main thing I learned is pay yourself a fixed amount and don’t treat your business bank account as your own. I ended up having owing my business money in the first few years lol.

Also the good thing is some of the stuff I buy I use it as a business expense.

This may not help a lot, but I did a good job at my regular employer and connected with coworkers. One of my coworkers introduced me to people that needed some side work. That turned into a steady stream of contract work so far.

Been doing it as primary income source for about a year and I enjoy it. As long as the work keeps flowing in I’ll stick with this path. I lucked out in that one of the contacts I made runs their own consulting agency so they bring me in on jobs I’m good at when they need help.

So networking, your work ethic, and integrity demonstrated to others seems important..

I’m a consultant and bootatrapped it into a profitable firm. First, understand the difference between a contractor and a consultant. Though not all differentiate the two, many do and that’s reflected in the market rates associated with them (consulting == contracting + hard-to-find expert advisory). Convert a single existing FTE role into a consulting engagement to get you started if you can. If not, your ability to sell yourself is highly variable and something you’ll need to try and fail at a few times — this is highly dependent on your personal social strengths and weaknesses in my experience making quality general advice hard to give. Have 3-6 months living expenses in the bank, at least. This will help smooth out cash flow inconsistencies. And perhaps the most important thing is to not waiver on your rates. There are many leads that won’t pay for value; avoid them for the many who will. It will seem at times that lowering your rates is necessary, but its far more likely to be a symptom of looking in the wrong place for the right clients; recognize this as a fail in the try/fail cycle, and try again.

Happy to answer more questions if you can narrow down your ask to specifics.

> Convert a single existing FTE role into a consulting engagement to get you started if you can

Can you give an example of what this would look like?

Often it’s as simple as requesting it. In my experience, the first few are less about being hard to convert and more about getting a 1:1 rate that is truly market rate and not just the equivalent of salary + benefits = rate. It should really be salary + benefits value + risk value (e.g. 100k/yr FTE salary is more like 100/hr contract rate, not 70/hr (need to include risk!). Also, push hard for a weekly rate and not hourly. Daily rate is second best but still much better than hourly. Again, remember the risk side. You need to compensate yourself for this and market rates usually take this into account, so don’t second guess why market rates are as high as they are (imposter syndrome can get in the way here for some, so keep that in mind too).

If you’re at an enterprise, sometimes you can go to one of the major contract vendors used by the enterprise for placing contractors, start an LLC (or other legal entity), and subcontract through them. If you can, though typically less successful in the enterprise space when you’re one person or building a small firm (the space I operate in) unless you are highly valued by your target company, try to go direct as a vendor yourself. There are many long term benefits to having vendor status in an enterprise.

I'm also considering pursuing the independent consultant route and bootstrapping into a firm would be my end goal.

Would you mind sharing what the steps in that process were for you?

See my comment to deserted in this thread. Does that clarify the steps or is there something more specific you’re asking about?

An alternative to hanging up your own shingle is to join a platform; if you're into ML/Data stuff I recommend tribe.ai which is a bit more focused on that, you've got Braintrust on the more general side with an interesting approach, Gigster I'm not sure what's happening anymore but they were good some years ago, Expertlead is solid for Europe, and you've got Toptal and Upwork but they crush you on rates.

Your best strategy no doubt depends on who you are and who you want to be. Do you want to work on a wide range of projects, or stay focused on a niche, like embedded systems for hardware control, audio and music DSP, 3D graphics, games, web sites, ops and infrastructure, machine learning, algorithms for distributed systems, ...? You'll want to build a case for your capabilities and experience through a portfolio of school projects, open source contributions, demos, etc. In your niche area or programming language eco-system, there are likely to be slack channels, news groups, mailing lists, and blogs, so become a part of a community, helping when people ask questions, fixing bugs people care about, or blogging examples and common pitfalls.

Imagine you are working at a games company trying to hire a contractor to help with 3D audio programming. The ideal candidate is probably going to have a portfolio that includes 3D audio programming, or at least audio and DSP experience.

Personally, I'd focus on building valuable expertise in a community that includes the kinds of people and businesses for whom you would want to work. There is always demand for skilled engineers who deliver.

I've been independent going on 8 years now, I started with letting some trusted contacts I had made in the industry know, and one of them came to me with an opportunity a few months later. It was a terrifying jump at the time, but I have no regrets and was glad I pushed through my fear.

These days I still do direct independent client work, and new clients come through a consulting / MSP firms I work with, and from my existing network. I get better paid with direct work, but the work coming from the firms is usually more interesting.

Eventually you get to the point of turning down work just because you have too much already, and deciding what you really want to be doing with your time.

I'd say the most difficult thing is trying to find that sweet spot between too little work, and too much work. Sometimes the sales pipeline from initial interest to actual engagement can be measured in years.

It's the hustle and the exposure. The more people know that someone like you exists and has "unique or special" skills or "is amazing and flexible to work with" then word of mouth will carry you a long way before you have to pay for advertising.

But remember, it's feast or famine.

And the moment you need to add employees and other people to the mix, be prepared for the complaints to start as just like when you have houseguests or someone borrows your car, it's never treated the same as you would treat it.

This issue above is really the limiting factor for most entrepreneurs because we're willing to do all the hats to get it done/sold.

An employee only has vestment up to their compensation and once they figure out what their time is worth, you are screwed paying more and more.

Finding solid people willing to do the job is what we site for the cause of shuttering a 35 year old family business as it was too difficult to hire and train and retain people constantly wanting to level up, or just get their buck for least possible effort/education or not discuss/engage more connection into the business and desire to grow it along with them... as that's how businesses are built, people get invested in it.

But I do keep a consultancy up and running even if idle. The business taxes and bookkeeping if idle can be automated and take seconds to do and it's a legal functioning producer of tax deductions in just maintaining it's existence.

I've gained more connection and "side" opportunity/money just networking and being open to offer sellable good products and forward thinking services for those that want a "solution" and a confidential, personalized service for "projects" or "consultancy" that needs a experienced individual to work with them addressing concerns you wouldn't want to get a RFQ or do a parade of estimation/bidding for.

But again, it's the hustle and contact that get you gigs.. gigs that all eventually end as time is money and when it's on their time, it's not your money anymore. Remember that. :P

I started by getting a contract with a recruiter and resigning from a full time job. I had done a lot of research to find out different ways of getting clients, such as writing, presenting, networking at user groups. Essentially, doing things for other people to enhance the community around your specialty. These types of things result in referrals. Over time, the people you meet move on to other companies and the source of referrals grows. The important thing to remember is that you're running a business and doing things like finance, marketing, and continuous training to keep up with technology are as important as the time you bill.

Hi, an independent contractor who helps others to become independent too. Congratulations on this life changing journey, a difficult decision to make.

Before COVID when I was more active I wrote a comprehensive free guide on this. It's titled for project managers but it really applies to a lot of independent consultants. Here's the link: https://iqoach.com/ultimate-guide-to-becoming-a-well-paid-in...

I tried to distill my experiences from myself and my clients, hope you find it useful.

Good luck!

Sidar

Most people who get started as an independent contractor “steal” their first client from their employer.

People will say this is wrong, people will say they didn’t, but I’m telling you this is just how the world works.

Move out of California if want a Freelance Engineering gig for tech companies. Lookup Assembly Bill 5 aka AB5 for more info.

Soon to be move out of the United States if the Democrats pass the Pro Act.

From my experience social skills are most important. Way more important than technical skills. If you can connect to upper management you can make very good money.

I saw someone give speech on how to make your ux better and increase user retention then they were approached by few people asking to hire their services

I searched project aggregators for interesting projects that take longer than 3 months

Wrote a few applications.

Got one of these projects.

Repeated it when the project came to an end.

Can you give an example of such project aggregator?

You can go on Hired and Triplebyte to find contracting gigs.

I've tried Triplebyte and TopTal in the past, and never made it past their technical skill tests, despite having 10 years of experience.

With both, all their questions where either algorithms, or multiple choice questions about some quirky things in the language. Either stuff you wouldn't need, or things you would test / look up. I'll never understand how this is an acceptable way to screen engineers.

Does triplebyte do contracting? I just took another look and can't find it

first step. develop a first idea of your value proposition. then tell EVERYONE about it. third, begin reading alan weiss :-)