Too many people expect me to work for free lately...

Friend: How much do you charge for a website?

Me: Depends, what do you need?

Friend: Just a basic website.

Me: I am going to need more details than that, is it static HTML site? Do you want to be able to add content yourself? Do you have hosting? Do you....

Friend: Dude, just give me a rough estimate.

Me: But...

Friend: It's for a friend, he has an idea for a business.

Me: ...fine...$100 million 👿

//Because making a website is just a push of a button to some people

Client: I dont want you to rush. Okay?
Me: Okay sir.
Client: But I need it tomorrow.

Whaaaaaaat????

The beginning of my freelancing time. I was so naive. Didn't even used contracts...

This one client wanted a website with 2 specific features until a certain time. It should look nice, but only the features functionality was defined. All seemed reasonable at first.

I delivered 2 weeks before the deadline. The client was furious, as it didn't look like they imagined. They wrote me 8 lengthy emails with very fractioned feedback. It was becoming unreasonable.

But hey, I'm a newbie in this business. I have to make myself a name, I thought.
Oh was I naive....

This whole project went on for 2 more months. The client was unhappy with every change and 2-5 emails a day with new demands were coming in. I was changing things they wanted done 2 days ago, because they changed their mind.

Then they started to get personal. They were insulting me and even my family. My self-confidence dropped to an all-time low.

In the end I just sent them all the code for free and went to therapy.

BTW: this was also my most important experience, as things went up hill from then on. As Yoda once said: The greatest teacher, failure is.

Freelance programmers

Client: "Users are still facing the same problems as before"

Me: "Did they update the app?"

After spending a few months on this site, what strikes me the most, is how unhappy a lot of programmers are.

It kind of makes me sad to see so many of you struggle with office politics bullshit everyday.

I have a confession to make.

I've never had a programming job, or freelanced, yet I have made a very comfortable living with programming and marketing for the past 20 years.

I make my living by finding niches where there is shit software, and creating a better alarm clock.

The first 5-10 years of doing this, I worked my ass off (throughout my twenties)
But during most of my thirties, I barely had to
work to keep it all up. I get residual income still
from stuff I did 10 years ago.

I'm curious if anyone at all would be interested in learning how to do this, quitting their job, for example, or, just having the freedom to write your own code without answering to anybody but your own customers. Many of whom you never have to talk to, they go to your site, they buy, and rarely ever send emails (if you do it right)

Everybody here has knowledge that is so bankable, yet they seem to just surrender to
asshole bosses and clients. It doesn't have to
be like that.

If you'd be interested in this, please ++ this.

I'm thinking of creating an online course about creating and marketing your own software, specifically for programmers like you guys. and girls.

I genuinely just want to see if there's interest. I hope that's ok.

I hired myself :)

Trying to do some side jobs...

Freelance design client starter kit

Was scared to take up freelance work because i was scared of bad clients.

Finally took one today, client is not a total arse and knows exactly what she wants me to do, down to details.

MFW.

Seems like a great deal.. 😂😂

[This makes me sound really bad at first, please read the whole thing]

Back when I first started freelancing I worked for a client who ran a game server hosting company. My job was to improve their system for updating game servers. This was one of my first clients and I didn't dare to question the fact that he was getting me to work on the production environment as they didn't have a development one setup. I came to regret that decision when out of no where during the first test, files just start deleting. I panicked as one would and tried to stop the webserver it was running on but oh no, he hasn't given me access to any of that. I thought well shit, I might as well see where I fucked up since it was midnight for him and I wasn't able to get a hold of him. I looked at every single line hundreds of times trying to see why it would have started deleting files. I found no cause. Exhausted, (This was 6am by this point) I pretty much passed out. I woke up around 5 hours later with my face on my keyboard (I know you've all done that) only to see a good 30 messages from the client screaming at me. It turns out that during that time every single client's game server had been deleted. Before responding and begging for forgiveness, I decided to take another crack at finding the root of the problem. It wasn't my fault. I had found the cause! It turns out a previous programmer had a script that would run "rm -rf" + (insert file name here) on the old server files, only he had fucked up the line and it would run "rm -rf /". I have never felt more relieved in my life. This script had been disabled by the original programmer but the client had set it to run again so that I could remake the system. Now, I was never told about this specific script as it was for a game they didn't host anymore.
I realise this is getting very long so I'll speed it up a bit.
He didn't want to take the blame and said I added the code and it was all my fault. He told me I could be on live chat support for 3 months at his company or pay $10,000. Out of all of this I had at least made sure to document what I was doing and backup every single file before I touched them which managed to save my ass when it came to him threatening legal action. I showed him my proof which resulted in him trying to guilt trip me to work for him for free as he had lost about 80% of his clients. By this point I had been abused constantly for 4 weeks by this son of a bitch. As I was underage he had said that if we went to court he'd take my parents house and make them live on the street. So how does one respond? A simple "Fuck off you cunt" and a block.

That was over 8 years ago and I haven't heard from him since.

If you've made it this far, congrats, you deserve a cookie!

Client's expectations VS Client's budget

I designed a logo for a family member's business with the expectation that I would receive payment once the work was completed. I wasn't expecting a lot, I only really do freelance work for software but I know my way around Illustrator. I'm not one to charge family anywhere near full price and I felt no contract was needed. We were back and fourth for a little bit, getting the logo to his liking. Silly me during all of this didn't watermark any of the images I was sending (didn't think I'd have to, you know... Family) and a little while later he's gone and ordered shirts with the logo on it without paying or even contacting me. When I confronted him about it, he pulls out the whole "No contract was made" bullshit. It's ridiculous how arrogant people can be, I was asking for $50. I put a good 15 hours into it with all the alterations he wanted. 15 hours I could have spent on actual clients.

TLDR; Designed a logo for a family member without a contract, he decided not to pay.

Leave a job for a much better job and the old job hires you freelance to do your old job. Feels dirty, but good.

To all young freelancers in low-income countries: I want to share my experience, of 6 years working for a piss-poor country, and 6 years working in freelance, and then emigrating. Here's what you should watch out for, and what to expect:

My first salary was barely 1.5$ per hour. I lived in a piss-poor country that taught me a lot (like why it's piss-poor).
The main thing to note when you're a developer in such a country, is that you're being fucked. Your employer might scream at you and tell you how bad you are, while barely paying you. That is you ... being ... fucked. Gain some confidence with the help of friends and family, and a great effort from yourself, look at what freelance gigs you can find, and ditch anything related to jobs in your country.

Being a somewhat able developer, but with modest experience, I started my freelance gigs for 5$ per hour. Because I was lazy, and freelance gigs weren't exactly being thrown at me, I was making 100$ per week, AFTER the companies I worked for appreciated what I did and offered themselves to up my pay to 12$ per hour. Yep. I was lazy. You will likely get lazy in freelance too, so be prepared for this.

My luck changed when one of my clients became a full-time employer, at 15$ per hour, with a well organized team where I actually worked for 40 hours per week (I had already amassed 8 years of experience...). For people in first world countries that will seem laughable, but in my country I was king of the hill, getting paid more than government CEOs that ended up in the news as the "most well paid".

That was the top of the pyramid for international indie freelance, as I would later find out.
I didn't do stuff that was very difficult. In fact, I felt like my abilities were rotting while I worked there. I had to change something. So I started looking for better offers. I contacted many companies that were looking for a senior developer, and the interviews went well, and all was fine, except for my salary demands. I was asking for 25$ per hour. Nobody was willing to pay more than 15$ per hour. That's because of my competition - tons of developers in cheap-to-live countries that had the same, or more to offer, for the same rates. Globalization.

So I moved to Germany. As soon as I was legally able to work, I was hunted down by everybody. I was told that it takes a month to pass the whole hiring process in Germany. My experience demonstrated that 2-5 days is enough to get a signed contract with "Please start ASAP".
There is freelance in Germany as well. And in the US. And everywhere else. A "special" kind of freelance, where you have to reside locally. The rates that this freelance goes for is much, much higher than international freelance. I'd say that 100€ per hour is ok-ish. Some people (newbies, or foreigners who don't speak the language well) get less, around 60 or so. Smart experienced locals get around 150-200 or even more.

It's all there. Companies want good developers to solve their business problems with IT solutions, and they'll beg you to take their money if you can deliver that.

So code!
Learn!
Accummulate experience!
Screw the scumbags that screw you for 1-2$ per hour!
Anyone able to write something more than "Hello World!" deserves more.

Do the climb! There's literally room for everybody up there! There is so much to do, that I feel like there will never be too many developers.

Thank you for bearing with my long story. I hope it will help you make it shorter and more pleasant for you.

Freelancing be like

"My cousin said he can do it for less. But I like you so blah blah"

Why don't you go your fucking cousin then. Stop wasting my time.

You know your idea was shit when you ask a freelance dev to make it for you, get denied and then see your idea being ranted about on devrant...

Ok, so, to every pieces of shit out there that got a "revolutionary idea that will change the way we look at things" and who asks you to code it :

Fuck you, you sons of a cunt

No, i won't make your app on 3 different platforms for free, i'll make you pay for every platform you wanker, i'm a freelancer, i need money.

No, making database is not something that a little business cunt like you can handle, you don't even know what sql means

And fuck no, I won't make that shit in 2 weeks just because your peabrain thinks that it'll make mad dosh and that "It MusT bE eAsy to Do!!111", "a dating app but with a twist" won't work you gobeshit

If you want me to work on this shit, you give me money, specs and shit, you handle the rest, if it doesn't make money, it'll be your problem. I'm not your employee you wanker

Fuck y'all

!rant

A: "Hi, I'm A, I'm the CEO of X, we had this project I'd like you to do for me"
Me: "Hi, can I have more details about the project?"
A: "Ah yes, this is some kind of e-commerce for our start-up, we need you to do a web app, iOS, and Android app in 1 month"
Me: "OK we can do it in 2 month."
A: "OK we'll let you know our decision tomorrow"

(next month)
A: "Sorry we have to postpone this project"

(next 5 month)
A: "Hi! now I'm building this Y start-up and we need you to help us migrate our android app to web"
Me: (Looks feasible than his last project) "OK, I can do it"
A: "Can we meet tomorrow?"
Me: "OK"
(tomorrow)
Me: "Hello? where will we meet?"
Me: "?"

(next month)
A: "Hi! Sorry for not replying, can we meet this week for the Y project?"
Me: (...)

Just landed my first freelance project 😁🎉

My life seen from the people around me.

I made an automatization bot for a big company from my town (freelance). Today I had to shut it down because I've been waiting 3 weeks for my payment (they only had 5 days after finishing development to pay)

Fuck the fucking client, fuck this fucking shit

I have a client (a friend of a friend of a friend) who came to me to build them a "simple" booking solution for their home cleaning business. Easy enough, I first thought.

Having taken a deposit based on my initial quote and contracts all signed, roll on exactly 8 months to where I find myself today.

It turns out, there is no cleaning business as the business will be totally reliant on the website. The original goalposts have now been moved to a completely different fucking country. The (now) required functionality has STILL yet to be finalised (I told client I'm not writing another line of code until EVERYTHING has been mapped out and made crystal clear), as every single face-to-face meeting / back and forth email turns into the client requesting hundreds more brilliant, essential features that make absolutely ZERO fucking sense. And now, to top it all off and push me into writing my first ever rant on here, I've just received an email from the client this morning saying "what I would like to have is like an online restaurant live booking system". WTF?!?!?

I work from home and have only my dog for company today, so please don't judge me. Just needed to let it all out.

I was 12 years old and it was my first freelance.

I was taking a Web Designer course and my teacher offered me an “opportunity”. He asked me to develop a search engine for a real estate website.

I did it pretty quickly with PHP and MySQL. The amount offered was U$ 20.00 (yeah, I know, it sucks, but it was a good chance to earn experience).

3 months went by, it was the last week of the course and he still hadn’t payed me yet!

End of story: my dad and a couple friends went to the school and had a conversation with him. They said things like: man, you shouldn’t ruin a kid’s dream for twenty dollars. I’m sure he only payed me because he was scared haha

high expectations on low budget.

Yup,
it's my first time that I get paid with Bitcoin on a freelance project.

It feels good :D

Any code I make for clients is under a strict license unless specified otherwise. It's a straight forward license pretty much stating that they can't sell it or claim it as their own. I've had a few clients break that license but one stood out. I had made a piece of software that cost her over $2,500 due to the amount of hours that went into it. The transaction went along smoothly so there was nothing to be alarmed about. She came back for more work about 6 months later and I decided to do some checking up on her to see how her business was going. Immediately smack bang on the home page was my software being sold for $30/month. Needless to say I was outraged. She said there was no talk of a license which I responded with pulling out the contract that she signed where it explained that signing the contract meant she was in agreement with the specified license. 2 months after this started, I'm being awarded any profits made from said software along with her closing down the website. As much of a bitch as she was, it wasn't worth my time trying to get more out of her.

Upwork:
"Hey freelancer, sorry we can't let you join this website made for freelancers like you as there are too many freelancers like you on this site made for freelancers like you"

Upwork clients in a nutshell...

So, yesterday I was talking to a friend who had a fukin BUSINESS IDEA of starting Uber like service for his local town(where his university is).

Apparently, the moron was searching for someone to make an Uber like app for him (Both fukin Android and iOS) and he was hoping to get it done in under fukin 5000 INR (less than 100 USD).

I was like wtf 😐

Register on freelancer.com

Sees a job offer with 0 bid.

Clicks to make a bid...

....

74 bids.

Fucking grease bag

Request: I don't like the way the page looks. Make it better.

Question: can you give me some more info? What is it that you dislike about the page? You approved the design, the mockup, the HTML version...and we just finished implementing the backend. Can you be more specific?

Response: make it more like this *gives link to completly new layout from a theme on themeforest*. Why does mine not look like this. Make it like this!

Reaction: *fuck this shit, never freelancing again...* Well, then do it yourself. I'm done!

// best feeling ever :)

!rant

So, I lost my job a couple of weeks ago, and on a whim I decided to post an ad on a classifieds website advertising websites done cheap. Next thing I know I'm making money doing something I love as opposed to dealing with assholes at a checkout counter. I know the freelance life has its ups and downs but I'm happy!

Time to change my skills from PHP developer to AI researcher, Blockchain engineer and grab some thousand dollars deal on Freelancer

When a client drags ass for weeks on giving you content for their site but wonders why their changes aren't live within 24 hours. 😐🔫

So I took on a fairly big project and poured my heart and soul into it, was the biggest thing I did yet. I kept on sending beta's to the customer after each change for review! Kept on insisting that they review it, the answer was always "this looks amazing keep doing what you're doing"! After I finished and pushed everything to production.

They didn't use it for nearly 6 months! And then out of the blue they call me saying that half of the app is wrong.. WTF? Where was this information during testing! I informed them that the changes would take some time since I need to do migrations and change the whole database schema.

In which they replied "but you already finished it once won't changing things make it easier? We shouldn't pay for your mistakes"
I don't know how I handled that but they should be thankful they were half way across the country 😠😠😠😠

Ordinary freelancer's setup. When I get the second job - I will get the second cat and so on.

"We are expecting you to start working asap..and complete the frontend (of a webapp that's​ expected to take 2 months to develop) in 2 weeks "

" So do I expect to get paid X amount for this ?"

" Let's make that X/2"

Fuck off you dipshits.. You expect quality work and fast work ..then get ready to pay at least by market standards.

So, I'm going freelance in a couple of weeks. A bit nervous about it but sometimes you just have to make a leap of faith.

Bonus is that I'm going to be freelancing myself back to the company that I'm leaving for 2 days a week, working out at only £100 a month less than what I've been paid working full time!

That's garunteed until the end of this year - so at least I know that I can pay the bills while I spend the other 3 days building up clients.

Wish me luck!

>be me
>drop out of uni studying civil engineering
>"self-taught" "web programmer"
>start freelancing in 2010
>Make money, feels good man
>clients keep me busy, feel important
>Code just for the fun of it
>be 2019. Married, code to make ends meet
>lose all interest
>mere sight of the ide makes me want to bash the screen
>have zero motivation
>never get any projects done
>become broke af
>look at old friends on fb. They are "Something".
>look at real software engineers and programmers with education
>realize I am an imposter
>start dropping all projects and studying theory
>become more broke
>start taking "motivation pills" to just start working again
>lose all motivation and pissed at all the real programmers and engineers for their success
>be me on May 20, 2019 at 2:56 AM
Yep, this is the end.

I started this new freelance project where I am building some android libraries for the client. Anyways, during meeting I was about to present my results and suddenly backend seemed to be down. I looked into the round "are your servers down?"
Team Lead: "Yeah our cto, also our only backend dev, is developing a new feature."
Me: "Okay but why is production down?",
Team Lead: "Ah dont worry we always test on production. We have a pretty solid hardware, we will even upgrade it soon!"
Me:"... How about you just separate your stage environments and have a develop environment?"
Client: "see, this is where our strength is. We dont need a develop stage we have very strong hardware and our backend is fully in PHP"

Thanks God I'm a freelancer

I'm a freelance web developer and I'm only 16 years old, coding since 5 years! Go for your goals, you can do it!

When will people understand that you can't get quality software made for $5 by some random from Fiverr? Just as I'm about to confirm a quick Freelance job they tell me they've found someone on Fiverr that will do it for a fraction of the amount. It's happening more and more. Don't get me wrong, I'm still getting plenty of work but I see it as a bit of an insult. Comparing the quality of work I do with someone who pumps out 5 programs an hour.

And yes, I do realise there are people on Fiverr that do care about their work, there just doesn't seem to be many of them.

When your boss removed you from the team because he found a better developer that can deliver a task faster than you. Then after a week, he asked you for help and if you want to work for him again because the developer that he replaced to your position can't solve their problem.

this hurts. it really hurts. hey can you make x using <buzzword> with <buzzword> for less than minimum wage?

how about i hit you in the x using my <hard object> with <harder object> for free?

I was getting a freelancer job to do some backend work for a company in India that is working for a huge company in Saudi Arabia.

The customer in india was my primary contact, I wasn't allowed to talk to the guys in Saudi Arabia. My contact, we'll call him Aman, asks if i can do frontend too. I decline. Now what follows were 4 weeks of backend work during which Aman called me 10-15 times per day via skype to ask me how I was progressing, and if "insert spec here" was already done. He even called me in the middle of the night, well aware of the different time zones.

But in the end all the work is done, Aman is happy. I request payment.

Aman: We can't pay you yet, you didn't do the frontend!
Me: I'm not doing frontend.
Aman: It's just a few simple changes and then we're done.
Me: Gnnn, fuck it, what do you need?
Aman: Our customer would like the frontend to look better.
Me: Ok, so what exactly should look better?
Aman: All of it.
Me: Do you have any specs?
Aman: No just make it look more modern.
Me: So you want me to rework the whole frontend? That's not just a few simple changes...
Aman: How long would you need?
Me: I actually don't do that kind of work.
Aman: We pay you double your hourly rate if you do this and finish it fast.

(This is were I should have just said no... but the greed...)

Me: Ok, but it will take me about 3 weeks to do that.
Aman: OK.
Me: Do you have any preferences as to how it should look?
Aman: No, just surprise us.

(After this sentence I really should have gotten the hell out of Dodge)

After working 3 weeks changing over 20.000 lines of CSS and most of the HTML I present Aman with the changes.

Aman: No our customer doesn't like the changes. Can you make a different version?
Me: What doesn't he like, any specifics, coloring, styling of lists or the buttons?
Aman: He doesn't like the whole thing. Please make us another version.
Me: Ok, you are the customer, but it would really help if you give me some pointers as to how it should look like.
Aman: Just do your best.
Me: ..., ok, that's helpful.

2 weeks later...

Aman: No our customer liked the version before better. But could you make it look more modern.
Me: *Bangs head against wall repeatedly*
Me: What do you mean by modern?
Aman: It should look more modern, as a whole.
Me: Ok, I get that, but could you give me an example?
Aman: Sends me a screenshot of the overview screen with all the elements encircled and modern written beside them.

1 week later...

Aman: The customer has decided, he likes the original version best. Can you undo all the changes?
Me: Sure but that'll take like 1 hour.
Aman: Oh by the way we were asked by accounting why the price for this project was so high?
Me: *hugh* *gnn* what?
Aman: Well at the beginning, you estimated the backend and frontend work to be done in 4 weeks.
Me: The frontend was never part of the original estimate.
Aman: Can you do anything concerning your hourly rate, so that we can get back to the original pricing.
Me: *make a mental note to never work with an intermediary company in india again and cancels the job requesting the due payment*

Luckily I got paid the full amount but not before having another 10 Skype call with Aman...

made my first dollar(actually $4) on internet.
got a gig on fiverr.

client wanted his joomla website to be unresponsive so website looks same on all devices.

never touched joomla.
it took ne 2.5 hours but actual work was only 10-15 minutes.

yippiiiieee.....😀😀😇😇

Client wants to use a specific font.
Client can't find the font.
Google can't find the font.

We Are Doomed

So, my UpWork account request is rejected, with a reason that
"already many freelancers with a similar skillset to yours".

In skills I entered
"AngularJS, ASP.NET MVC, .NET Framework, C#, jQuery, Semantic UI, Bootstrap"

Then I resubmitted the request with by adding blockchain and Ethereum.

Again rejected.

What should I do 😫
I guess I never can start freelancing.

Got a request on a freelance site, was about modding a game.
I've answered thinking "easy money", then he reveals it's for a console, that it's not "hacked" so I couldn't run any third-party script.
I've tried to kindly explain the situation and he seemed having understood.

Few minutes ago I checked my inboxes and I got a bad review on that freelance platform, of course from him. 👌

I started saying 'yes' to every opportunity in life. Long story short, I have 3 websites, 2 logos, a couple of leaflets and 2 non-profit websites due yesterday. Whiskey with cereal never tasted better at 8 AM!

This big multi-million consulting company hired me as freelance. They did it in a hurry, because "the project already started, it is a very important client (a bank) and we need your expertise by YESTERDAY".

In the first THREE WEEKS I had meetings with their own project managers, their client's project managers, techies, sales people. No one was able to tell me what do I have to do, but:

1 - they asked me for very detailed estimates plus a release plan
2 - f**k your estimates, we need this BY JANUARY 16th

As seen at one hotel in Dublin: "Don't stay in your bed unless you know how to make money in your bed".
Looks like I'm OK to stay in my bed because I'm a freelancer.

If the requirements are this stringent in the job posting, I can't imagine how terrible it would be to work for this person.

One time I applied for a contract position for a company and get an email the next day asking for an interview two days later which I accept and attend. They want someone to convert their website from Wix to WordPress while keeping the same look, I would have about a month to do it (then after that create an e-commerce page). So far I can do that. They email me 2 hours after the interview asking for a 2nd interview on the following Monday which I accept and attend. There I meet one of the founders (I guess) and he really asks me about SEO and what keyword tool I use (they didn't ask about seo keywords in the job posting or at the 1st interview) then he tells me that the website needs to be converted over in 4 days (instead of the 1 month I was told 2 days earlier). Then he asks what I quote. I gave him a number (less than $10,000) and he looked at me like I had 3 heads, I then said I needed some time to come up with a quote. He said no problem, email the guy who 1st interviewed you the quote before the end of the day and if we like it you will start tomorrow.

I then went to a nearby restaurant and thought it over then made up an email telling him that I wouldn't take on the project. There were so many red flags, and the fact that they want it done in 4 days would have meant working at least 12 hour days. A couple of hours later I emailed them to say no, they didn't reply and their website is still on Wix today.

If something needs to be done quickly then know it's going to cost you (and tell someone your budget in the 1st interview).

This made me laugh so hard

So recently completed my first overworked and underpaid freelance job, I'm like totally a developer now right

Me and inspector quackers off travelling south East Asia! Any tips on freelance programming for travellers?

When you take on a freelance job on the side and life decides kick you into busy af mode.

I'm having a crazy client month.

Another gold one.

But remember only 500€

meanwhile...

Am I the only one that does not even consider a freelance job if the description has bad/poor English and/or is written in all caps?

If only I had enough freelance work to quit my job and dictate my own hours. working hours would be 18:00 to 5:00.

I love it when my clients give me free reign to choose the software.

I'm gonna set up nginx with flask on Ubuntu 16.04 on DigitalOcean.

It's gonna be great :D.

<rant>
Freelance employers should learn that a "full stack" developer does not equal "fully proficient and experienced in everything code and comp. related". ESPECIALLY if the job pays less than 6£ an hour.
</rant>

When you take a freelance project for some extra money and realize the last thing you want to do after work is work

I've been offered some freelance work.
The marketing guy in me says I can do it in 1 month. The technical guy in me knows I'm bullshitting.

I sat poolside on a tropical island today and worked on a project. I could get use to this freelance lifestyle.

When you find the most incredible jacket ever in a vintage shop but don't have enough $$$. So you spend the next week doing freelance projects on the side of your day job, clocking as little as 1.5 hrs sleep some nights, only to find said jacket gone when you return TT_TT

Employer: Need a freelancer to die for me

Freelancer: I'm a professional dier

Tried my luck with Upwork to get some side money. Man, the jobs there are horrible. I am amused by job posts that sound like 'copy amazon.com, but make it a little bit different'. And for that amazing job you'll get 20 bucks.

Started freelancing on PeoplePerHour and I'm already doing damned well after a fortnight. C# was the right language to learn.

All I want for Christmas is...a client who knows what they're doing.

After a few weeks of being insanely busy, I decided to log onto Steam and maybe relax with a few people and play some games. I enjoy playing a few sandbox games and do freelance development for those games (Anywhere from a simple script to a full on server setup) on the side. It just so happened that I had an 'urgent' request from one of my old staff member from an old community I use to own. This staff member decided to run his own community after I sold mine off since I didn't have the passion anymore to deal with the community on a daily basis.

O: Owner (Former staff member/friend)
D: Other Dev

O: Hey, I need urgent help man! Got a few things developed for my server, and now the server won't stay stable and crashes randomly. I really need help, my developer can't figure it out.
Me: Uhm, sure. Just remember, if it's small I'll do it for free since you're an old friend, but if it's a bigger issue or needs a full recode or whatever, you're gonna have to pay. Another option is, I tell you what's wrong and you can have your developer fix it.
O: Sounds good, I'll give you owner access to everything so you can check it out.
Me: Sounds good

*An hour passes by*

O: Sorry it took so long, had to deal with some crap. *Insert credentials, etc*
Me: Ok, give me a few minutes to do some basic tests. What was that new feature or whatever you added?
O: *Explains long feature, and where it's located*
Me: *Begins to review the files* *Internal rage wondering what fucking developer could code such trash* *Tests a few methods, and watches CPU/RAM and an internal graph for usage*
Me: Who coded this module?
O: My developer.
Me: *Calm tone, with a mix of some anger* So, you know what, I'm just gonna do some simple math for ya. You're running 33 ticks a second for the server, with an average of about 40ish players. 33x60 = 1980 cycles a minute, now lets times that by the 40 players on average, you have 79,200 cycles per minute or nearly 4.8 fucking cycles an hour (If you maxed the server at 64 players, it's going to run an amazing fucking 7.6 million cycles an hour, like holy fuck). You're also running a MySQLite query every cycle while transferring useless data to the server, you're clusterfucking the server and overloading it for no fucking reason and that's why you're crashing it. Another question, who the fuck wrote the security of this? I can literally send commands to the server with this insecure method and delete all of your files... If you actually want your fucking server stable and secure, I'm gonna have to recode this entire module to reduce your developer's clusterfuck of 4.8 million cycles to about 400 every hour... it's gonna be $50.
D: *Angered* You're wrong, this is the best way to do it, I did stress testing! *Insert other defensive comments* You're just a shitty developer (This one got me)
Me: *Calm* You're calling me a shitty developer? You're the person that doesn't understand a timer, I get that you're new to this world, but reading the wiki or even using the game's forums would've ripped this code to shreds and you to shreds. You're not even a developer, cause most of this is so disorganized it looks like you copy and pasted it. *Get's angered here and starts some light screaming* You're wasting CPU usage, the game can't use more than 1 physical core, and after a quick test, you're stupid 'amazing' module is using about 40% of the CPU. You need to fucking realize the 40ish average players, use less than this... THEY SHOULD BE MORE INTENSIVE THAN YOUR CODE, NOT THE OPPOSITE.
O: Hey don't be rude to Venom, he's an amazing coder. You're still new, you don't know as much as him. Ok, I'll pay you the money to get it recoded.
Me: Sounds good. *Angered tone* Also you developer boy, learn to listen to feedback and maybe learn to improve your shitty code. Cause you'll never go anywhere if you don't even understand who bad this garbage is, and that you can't even use the fucking wiki for this game. The only fucking way you're gonna improve is to use some of my suggestions.
D: *Leaves call without saying anything*

TL;DR: Shitty developer ran some shitty XP system code for a game nearly 4.8 million times an hour (average) or just above 7.6 million times an hour (if maxed), plus running MySQLite when it could've been done within about like 400 an hour at max. Tried calling me a shitty developer, and got sorta yelled at while I was trying to keep calm.

Still pissed he tried calling me a shitty developer...

The company I was working for, closed. Told a friend: "lost my job today" He told me: "you never lose jobs, you just lose bosses. Now get to work for you"

Few weeks passed, and I as a freelancer without job all I did was seek for one and couldn't find anything.

Now I'm overwhelmed with all the work and interviews I got in the past weeks xD

Never balanced...
No work at all, or too much work.

Landing a junior web developer position seems nearly impossible. I've been working as contractor for a few months just to get the portfolio and experience but it starts to look futile. If this continues for a year, I'll become an analyst or something. Sorry for the long rant.

There are always guys coming with the same million dollar app idea every few weeks that want me to develop the app for share of the future revenues.

Btw the idea is always like this: "he man, i got an app idea which will make us rich quick. It's like Facebook and Instagram mix but with tinder functionality."

No pay no work. New motto!!

1. Freelancing as a Rails backend developer
2. Client wants a job to be done in 2 hours
3. -_-

If your client doesn't know what the fuck he wants to see on his website even with all text and images included - don't take this fucking job.

They will let you choose a template and you end up switching it 5 times. "Oh we don't like it. What else do you have? Oh, this looks better." Next day "We don't like this theme anymore. We want to switch to what we had before."

If people can't draw their home page on a paper I tell them go fuck yourself straight in a face. I always put these people on my reference list so my future clients know I'm straightforward, not lazy, not low skilled, but honest with dumbasses like some of my previous clients.

You are asking for a basic website with 5 pages, you have a shitty budget and then I have to customize the entire theme and tweak every fucking possible element in CSS, HTML and PHP. Go fuck yourself. All you get for your money is WordPress with 15 min consultation how to copy paste your shit and save it. Never do fixed budgets, never work on projects like this if it's under $500-1000. Meet with the client to understand him/her better and see if he is a jackass-perfectionist or a chill person who won't be picky.

That's my memories of being a freelancer, trying to get any job for any budget just to build my portfolio. Never going back to this, at least not for small businesses with less than $5,000 budget. Reading people before you start working with them is a good thing.

My freelance horror story just happened a few weeks ago. Programming final project was due and a classmate payed me to make his project. It was something very simple so I was able to make mine and his different and functional. Grades went up yesterday; he got an A and I got a B+ 🙃 #wk86

Freelance:

Me: I'm done with the major bugs. Can I do the minor bugs tomorrow?
PM: can you hang on just a moment? Can you pls remove the ...
Me: I'll try. I'm experiencing brain dysfunction right now.
PM: Oh? Hahaha! Just a minor tweak tho. Teeheehee.
Me: (fudge)

Soooo... This happened

Then I got to fill a Google form, there they're asking my hourly price. I've never done such *paid* work. I'm a 2nd year undergrad, what price should I set?

Please help!

I don't know what's worse for a freelance dev:

1) Dealing with customers

2) Dealing with the IRS

I freelanced for a company where I had to make an iOS app. The person who I was in contact with was a software engineer of that company. When i was asked to send them the final project code after publishing the app, the person was like email the project even after giving them the option of uploading to a private repo and sending link. It’s seemed like the software engineer didn’t know what GitHub was like how is that possible.

I once had a client that lived near by and I had setup a server in his office. One day he calls me begging for help because it keeps turning off... He put it in a sealed foam box to try to reduce it's noise. Temps were 80+ Celsius (176f) within 5 minutes of it booting.

I got my first appointment with my first freelance client today as I'm trying to earn some money on the side. She contacted me after the guy before me hasn't delivered in more than 2 months.

Her: So how much do you think its gonna cost me.

Me: Well the minimum rate for a site like this is like €1000. But since you are my first client, I'm willing to do it for €700.

Her: The guy before you only charged €250...

Me: I'm sorry I can't do that. I might get to 500 if I cut some corners, but I can't make any promises.
Inner me: Look where you're 250 has got you... You haven't seen anything in return...

Her: Proceeds to whine about how it's still waaay to much ... And how she will get me more clients etc. (Yeah right...)

How in the fuck do you start getting clients as a freelancer? Do I just throw stuff on my GitHub and pray someone hits me up on Fiverr? Upwork won't accept my account and it's been fucking four months of me trying. I took to becoming a full-time designer to push our startup's products to completion but a fucking failure over there too everytime.

Everything is a fucking shitfest and I'm just whining at this point but I needed to take this off of my fucking chest. A good fucking day to you too.

Hey! I will start as a freelancer in a few days and i want to know what tools do you use in your each day, to manage tasks, time trackings and that sort of things? And if you give some advice will be appreciated, thanks!

*meeting on Monday*
Client: so I've got this project I want you to do, it's simple right?
Me: seems so
Client: so I'll pay you this much because it's so simple
Me: uhhhhhhhh
Underpaying client: I also told my higher ups that you'd be done by Friday you can do that yeah
Me: ..................

I got freelance contact for this simple static website.

Now the client is having a brainstorm and started giving more and more requests for features...

Slowly it's going to be not worth it...

Where to look for an UI/UX person?

Backstory: I currently work at a small startup. So far our website is just a bootstrap theme, slaped together by myself, so you could say, it's far from optimal. Especially on mobile devices.

Where would you guys look for a UI/UX person? Probably on a freelance basis. Did you have good expiriences in the past with a particular site/service?

Freelance client calls freaking out because she needed the website changes done by yesterday morning because she had some huge meeting with potential investors....

I feel bad but I don't, she never told me anything about needing it done by Sunday morning.

This is exactly why I hate freelance work. Lack of communication and then they blame you

So a few weeks back guy I used to work with contacts me for some dev work on a UK project he is working on, it's the Thursday and they need the thing the coming Monday. I tell him it's totally impossible, and it was so he asks what can done and how much, as well as how much for the entire project.

I stipulate exactly what can be done, with exclusions and say 7.5k and them mail over a detailed quote for 30k for everything.

I get told it's all fine, I must go ahead. I get through a bit more than expected by the Monday, but they still needed something to demo and I set I can get enough for demo in place by Thursday.

They demo to business and money and all that and everyone is happy and tell me to finish up along with some changes, and I don't even adjust the price as it was more work they wanted outside of the original spec.

Get to probably 80% done and they say we need to pause they need to look over other feedback.

Next thing, the PM come back, no they were never actually happy with the quote and they found some other guy willing to do the entire thing for 7.5k and they willing to only give me that for the code I have written so far. Cunts.

Anyway, he tries to take some blame for it, even though I know it's BS and says he will pay in another 7.5k from his share if I am willing and we call it quits.

This people, is why I don't freelance.

I feel sorry for this new kid, he clearly under quoted, and yes I am expensive, but with decades experience having worked on international projects for one of the largest digital asset management firms, my countries leading fintech dev house and now the lead developer for my countries largest insurance software dev house, you damn fucking strait my free time comes at a premium, as you are getting top fucking quality, 100% tested, high performing code.

They can go fuck an entire flock of ducks when they come back after this half ling fucks up the diamond I coded up for them.

Even funnier, they a UK based company, so for them this was a 1.5k project. Cheap cunts.

At last !!
All projects are done!

Done 3 compiler project (with 3 separate documentation)
And 6 different Algorithms for algorithm design and analysis.(including my own project)

Been coding so hard to finish them ontime and now I made it :)

This is a question for freelancers. How did you get your first clients? Did you just walk into small companies who didn't have a website or did you mail them or how did you do it?

Was on a trip, a holiday of sorts but there was a conference. Turns out alcohol and no sleep turns me into not only a master of code but negotiations as well. Woke up to find all of my work (that I had been procrastinating for about a week) was all done, my contract was extended and I got accept for a higher hourly rate.

ps: I had to redo most of it. Drunk me is not someone you wanna pair program with.

After being a miserly bastard and settling on VirtualBox for my VM needs on OSX, I downloaded a Parallels trial a couple weeks back, and today, I'm happy to announce I bought a license!

VirtualBox can go do one.

I've ditched Studio for Rider, and now Parallels, what has the world come to when a dev actually buys software?!

The end is nigh I say, nigh.

Idiot: Hello, Sam gave me yo #, I need avery small database system, how much wd it cost.
Me: I can't giv u a price without knowing features of the system in details.
Idiot: letme send u a list of the features.
Me: ok
Idiot: Budget issues, Payroll, Reporting, capabilities, Purchasings,Projects/Awards, Trainings ,Input query, Fixed, assets, Central invoicing, General ledger, Accounts, payable, Accounts receivable.
Me: you managing a financial institution?
Idiot: no, its a university project.
Me: well am sory bt I can't help you guys, I dnt do campus projects.

Listen to your developer when they have an idea that will save you time or money. If she's wrong she will fix her mistake because she wants to be good at what she does. If you're wrong you'll be crawling back to her and end up paying twice as much to get it done your way and then the right way.

I want to program everyday for a whole year because I want to use the programming knowledge that I learned and use it in ways that will make me think outside the box. Hopefully, I can grab freelance work as a Web Developer, which has been in high demand these past few years.

I'll be documenting the process on my YouTube channel, which I'll share when I publish the first video.

I will NOT procrastinate... I WILL DO THIS!!

Is it ethical to charge a client for the runtime of a computation? I.e. cpu time?

I usually don't, since it doesn't cost me anything to leave my machine running overnight. But a few of my friends told me that I should.

More context:
I do sometimes freelance work for professors as an RA. At times you need to leave a script running for like +5 hours. During which I just either procrastinate or go to the gym or sleep. The energy cost for computer running is barely a dollar.

I get charged by the hour per work in my timesheet, or sometime for a negotiate price which is also usually computed by the estimated work time it would take.

!rant

Freelance web developers: please talk about yourselves.

How much experience did you have at the beginning?
How did you get started and was it much work to get set up?
How do you find a constant stream of clients?
Do you make a living wage just from your freelance work?

Any other information you'd like to share is appreciated.

I worked a few times for free until the client decided he doesn't need anymore that product so he doesn't need to pay me.
From that moment i started to ask for advance payments, but a lot of times I calculated incorrectly the real price of my work miscalculating the number of hours it will take, ending working for less than 3€ per hour...

I love freelancing, but I'm really bad at evaluating my work.

A short bittersweet story.

Ever since I quit my previous job a couple of months and started working as a freelancer, I haven't felt the need to visit devRant.

Everything that's rant worthy is essentially my fault.

Reasons I'm glad I'm out of freelance:

I want you to rebuild my website but you need to do it here in front of me so if it breaks later, I can fix it.

When your client asks you to pick a color that will "pop" and "speak volumes" 😊🔫

Ok I know there have been a lot of similar rants to this one, but now I have to write one by myself!

Fuck freelancer.com or whatever that shit is called. I once started using it when I was in school because I thought it was a convenient way to earn money on the side without fixed work times, so I could adjust to how much time I have. But soon I realized that wouldn't happen. It is easy for me to make a website, I have written some css templates from scratch and can apply them, but when will these cocksucking assholes learn that $25 for a website is not only a joke, but a fucking insult? Or a logo for 4? In his video on fiverr, pewdiepie has a point on the thing where he said that you can shit out a logo in 2min and make an easy 4 to 5 bucks, but I like doing things more properly and I bet those fuckers will give you shit for not designing the perfect logo. I once accepted a job where I ended up busting my ass 3 days log for $100 and I thought that was the normal mess at the beginning, before you have former customers rate your profile, but I got perfect ratings and still didn't get or even find any proper jobs. Most are complete shit, like write a fucking book for me or design a fucking Website or pull a logo out of your ass, but some projects are just rediculous. I once saw a project where they wanted some engineer to do the layout for the pipes in a huge processing plant. Yeah, because engineers are so poor and unemployed, even when they are entrepreneurs they dont go to those shity sites. Since I am actually qualified for such a job, I applied just to see if I could land a job that is actually not shitty, but of course it turned out the person had no idea what he was talking about. It is basically a platform where people can pay you in exposure. And the absolutely fucking worst thing about it is that they get away with it. There are always a ton of people, mostly from countries where cost of life is significantly lower, who flood the freelance market with cheap, presumably horrible logos, mobile apps, websites, texts and apparently pipeline layouts. I haven't found a similar platform but where there are only high quality biddings. But that is something that I would love to use.

Sorry for long rant, no potato.

Client pays deposit for website, client disappears into thin air. This will be fun

Submitted my first proposal for a freelance gig and didn't win the bid but I don't feel bad about it. Asked for feedback and it turns out I lost because the dev who they chose had a recommendation from someone the CTO (decision maker) highly respected. He loved my proposal and appreciated my efforts on it and my bid was marginally lower than the dev they chose.

Overall it was a positive experience and I may have established a good report with the CTO in the process.

rant="""
It's too many features for me to keep up with. And the client just bounces between this matrix of all the possible permutations of them, refusing to admit that he is asking for mutually exclusive behavior in more than one place. I have mentioned to him at least 12 times a year that there is too much going on, not organized, we need to simplify, prioritize, or we will have 100 half baked untested features.

Of course it is more or less made it out to be that this is all my fault, or at least it's hard not to feel that way when I say:

It will be a long time before X will be working, we need 25 other things first.;

Next day he asks:
Have you made any progress on X;

I reply: Now we need 24 things to be done at this rate it will be a month.;

He replies:
Ok but I need this yesterday. How about if you add a new feature Y that does everything X does without those 24 things?;

I reply: That will not work at all like X. Y is just X + 1 more feature.

He replies: Ok well I need Y so when you're done with X I need a way to do it like Y also. I just thought it'd be easier.

EASIER TO ADD MORE FUCKING FEATURES YEAH SURE THATS EASY AS FUCK YOU FUCK FUCK FUCK. He's a nice enough guy, pretty smart compared to my first few paying gigs, but wtf really? How do I come out and tell you I need 25 days and you ADD more work? This was one example.

IN TWO days he has added 12 features. And during the week has asked for 29 UI interfaces to be COMPLETELY different. This is becoming COMMONPLACE. Every week there is either a huge change, or a conversation like about that finds its way into the entire business flow inside an dout.

The worst thing is: I TOTALLY understand what he needs. I feel that HE doesn't. This weekend I spent literally HALF of his retainer on getting equipment into my hands to bring it back to find out it DOESNT WORK. Why aisn't HE doing this so I can finish the features from NOVEMBER that HE NEEDS in order to PROCESS SALES.

I've tried and tried but I just can't get through to this client what a tremendous waste of time his \"process\" is, for lack of a better word. Constant changes, contsant additions, lack of clarity, needless repetition and contradictions, constantly adding moonshot ideas to compete with every industry in the region, and not beta testing anything until something goes wrong.

Fuck this guy! His business is failing and I felt responsible for the longest time but it is clear to me that if I wanted to save his business I would have to ignore 95% of his feature requests. I ignore 50% now because of the stress in trying to determine which of the 3 different paradigms he is talking about changing. I will lose this client, and I feel like he will sue me to get all of his money back. He holds me to very little honestly - BUT WEEKLY reminds me that he won't be able to pay me next month if feature XY and Z arent ready!

If a developer is CLEARLY overwhelmed, it makes NO sense at all to continue to PILE ON feature after feature
"""
try:
while true:
rant+=", after feature"
except DevHeadExplodes as inevitable:
raise YourDevsRatesOrLookElsewhere(inevitable)

As a freelance web developer, should I develop my own website to market myself?

About to start my first ever freelance job. The problem is I think I've overestimated myself and under quoted for the project.

Hoping for the best and I'm any case, this will be a good experience in terms of learning about the freelance world right?

When you want to resign to your full time job but you are having difficulty on making decision.

Reasons to resign:
1. They are giving tasks that are not related to web development such as data entry.

2. I can't see a good future ahead on this company. It feels like it doesn't have a goal to grow. The boss is not focusing on this line and instead she is focusing on her other businesses. The boss also has admitted that she can only give 20% of her time. We don't have new projects and challenging tasks.

3. 4 months have been passed and still we haven't receive the yearly salary increase. It should be effected on February.

Reasons to stay:
1. No salary deduction if you are late or didn't complete 9 hours / day. Sometimes I just work for 7 or 8 hours a day.

2. Office is just 30 mins away from my house.

3. When I don't have a task, I usually do my freelance project at the office secretly. So even though there are no challenging tasks at the office, my freelance project helps a lot.

4. You can play games with your friends when you feel exhausted or you don't have assigned tasks.

I recently received an offer from my remote part-time job to work full time 8-10 hours a day and the salary is twice higher compare to current one.

! Rant
So this project manager from a start up contacted me about a few Jobs are they are looking to get done for their app. They asked for cost and I gave them a ballpark range depending upon the type of work. Anyway, after getting a tour of their over engineered app with 128 menu items for a users to go through to get something done, I gave them the hourly rate on the "higher" side of the ballpark which was $5/hr more than lower. Guess what, next I get an email with 4 huge paragraphs, explaining how I am trying to charge them so much extra and is way over the quote. I passed myself laughing and wished him good luck with their start up...

So how does one become a freelance programmer? I'm thinking of becoming a hobo drifter, but I would like to keep my car.

That feel *facepalm*

I'm so done with indeed and jobstreet. I couldn't find an office job that I passionately love. Most are looking for PHP devs, ASP.NET devs, Java devs or effing fresh graduates with 5 years of experience. I guess it's time for me to learn freelancing.

Ugh, stupid me agreed to do freelance gig to help a friend out on my weekends for the next 3 weekends. I am already overworked during the week, and coming up with the motivation to even start has been amazingly difficult. Never again am I going to take a freelance gig while working. I actually enjoy decompressing on the weekends.

For all freelance Devs out here.
How do you get clients ?

Because am planning to begin with freelancing but am afraid that i won't be able to get any clients.

Clients... How do they work?

context: I'm sort of a self-deprecating guy and I really don't look for validation.

So, i decided to fuck it. I tried to provide the best decisions in terms of money-wise/biz-wise but apparently this guys rather choose what he believes is best for the code... (he knows shit of coding and that's coming from someone who is not a software engineer but rather a physicist who happens to code).
So, now i let him make all decisions. no opinion from me. a few things are going to shit because of him... fuck it. i had it. as long as I get paid. fuck him.

this is probably common... sorry for the rant.

Best site(s) to look for freelance coding jobs?

week 37...
*knock knock*
who's there?
the mailman
the mailman who?
just the mailman...

I work at home and I live alone so no pranks here xD

when the boss puts a job on upwork with 1 line description

I wanna rant about a freelance job but I can't. Tell me your freelancing horror stories instead :D

Everyday I heard people tell me that a college degree is worthless and the student debt will destroy my life. Im a sophomore at university ($75000 a year) majoring in computer science. What are your guys experiences? What the pros/cons of being self taught / getting a degree? I just want to set my life up and be able to provide for my family

Freelance client wanted additions to a website I made( which I had already given them a 50% discount, due to being friends with my boss....) sent them a SoW and they complain because the cost...

Someone just asked me to rewrite their application and lower the time of generating 200 000 html files from over an hour to a few minutes
.
.
Why the fuck would u need 200 thousand html files wtf is wrong with you

!RANT
Web Devs - I need your opinions.

To make a long story short, when my fiancé and I first moved in together I changed cities. One day at the grocery store we ran in to one of his old buddies, whom I had never met. His buddy works as a counselor at a non profit organization for mental illness. His friend asked me some questions to get to know me and found out I was a web developer. He instantly got exited and told us they needed a new website for their non profit, and asked me what I charged. Being shy, put on the spot, newer to the industry (uncomfortable talking $ due to inexperience) and seeing the guy was paralyzed I felt I HAD to say yes. I also said I would consider donating the site to them, as I knew my other web dev friends had done that for other non profits.

They were easy to work with and the build went smooth. We chose Wordpress so that they could go in and update the site on their own. I was under the assumption that I would create the site for them, but that they would take care of changes on their own, that I wouldn't be "supporting it". I even trained the friend 2-3xs on how to use Wordpress and make changes, but they ALWAYS have changes every month, including slides and content creation. Being a noob at the time, I KNOW it's my fault for not being more clear on the I'll build it but not make changes thing, and I've tried to kind of get them to see that I'm too busy, politely.

We'll, 3+ years later I've now found success in a different career path that takes up ALL of my free time after my 9-5 corporate web dev position, and am no longer interested nor able to do freelance work, including supporting existing sites. Since we don't have a contract in place, and they've never given me a cent, i was thinking of giving them a notice at the end of this month saying as of 2018 I will no longer be able to take care of their website, and that they'll have to find someone else by that time? I feel bad because it's a non profit and they don't have a lot of money. I'm afraid they won't find someone else nor be able to afford it. The situation is a little more sticky since this is my fiancés friend and I don't want them to feel like I'm leaving them high and dry, cuz I know they're very thankful for the site. I just wish they understood that I never promised to do changes for them every month. Even if they offered me money, I just don't have the time. I'm 100% fine if they want to keep the site and my code, although they really could use a redesign anyways cuz my code back then was terrible. What are your thoughts on this? Is 5 months fair? Am I doing the right thing?

Okay, had a freelance JavaScript gig (with Three.js 3d lib). Usually I put the code on github so I have easier time switching between Desktop and laptop during work, unless I have to sign an NDA or something. Today at 5 AM I got mail from freelancing site support that client reported me for having code on public repo (but it's not like it is a proprietary software, it's based on threejs editor). I made repo private and went to sleep. Later I'm reading through messages, guy was cursing me, threatend to sue me etc. Ended up dropping the client. Did I do something really unprofessional? Unless I'm told not to, I want to show my code and I don't believe in not showing it by default. What do you guys think?

Sunday is for the freelance

In getting a remote job, go to a lot of online job boards. Filter their feed for remote work or work from anywhere. Get the RSS feed (if they don't have it, make one yourself), and add them to your RSS reader, like Feedly.

Do the following daily:
Go through the feed, study the job post ad, apply for the job as per their instructions. Archive those you don't have an interest in and those that you have applied. Repeat.

This also applies for hunting freelance contacts too.

On Holiday break from work, and get a morning email to do some freelancing. Yeah, sure i !will do it today.

Where is the best place to pick up freelance work that actually pays a realistic amount?

I’ve been on sites like o-desk where there are folks looking for pretty big jobs and they have a budget of $100.

Using my new dashboard from previous rant already and came across this, sounds really creepy and doesn't even pay well for 550$

Fuck the internet...
This is completely useless.

Service's like freelance and people per hour are a farce. It's just a constant race to the bottom price-wise.

'Yeah sure I can make you a blog website in 24 hours for £5'

I had a dream freelance job recently. It was a lot of a fun and I really wanted to continue to work there.

However it started to become apparent my manager was a mess. He would often turn up hungover and couldn’t follow conversation. When asked about docs he said he wouldn’t keep any documentation “so no one could take over”. The whole attitude and professionalism was awful.

Some days on release he (and another member of the team) would turn up to work four hours late as they’d been out the night before. I would absorb all of the impact. Technically I felt he was quite significantly junior than myself. Management saw, directors saw, no one did anything.

To cut a long story short - I raised it with HR, I was told unless I raised an “official grievance” nothing would be done. I asked if I could move - I was met with a shrug “we don’t know”

I eventually reached a point where I felt my only real power is to walk away.

I now have no confidence in HR at all. I don’t think I’ll ever involve or raise anything with them again. 😔

When a client keeps trying to bring down the price and then keeps adding on changes needed to be made to his website....really about to just walk away. FMDL

How do you guys know how much to ask for freelance work? I'm always scared to ask too much and lose a client

Could a freelance dev let me know how they find clients? Not just the ones from sites online and such, but the good clients, 3-4 month projects, proper prices?

!rant

As a company director that’s just starting out down my freelance journey, I still find it so scary taking money out of the business, even though I know I have the money to replace it.

The spectre of getting my taxes wrong even though I’ve got established accountants looking out for me is insane.

Just because they brought it , they want me put it
SOMEWHERE SOMEHOW !

Client Of The Day : Hi, I would like to have a website. I went to an agency but are too expensive for me. Can you do me this website for less than €150 ($170) ?
Me : -_-

So, question. What is your minimum for a freelance assignment ?

Describe one instance when you thought, "Fuck this shit, I'm done with this client". Preferably when the client came up with stupid/impossible requirements

How to become a freelance web developer?

I always promise myself that I won't take any freelance projects during that specific semester because I need to study for college and already have projects to do.

I always fail and get stressed out later with the amount of things that somehow I got involved with and delivery dates are always close.

I feel such a sadomasochist when I accept this freelance projects and hate myself for doing it.

The promise for fast/simple projects (that always becomes complex later) and the quick $$ get me.

Friday 4 pm, the time when clients change the specifications. FML!

I want to freelance when I'm not doing my full time job. To those that are freelancers, how should I get started? What is your experience? How do you guys get customers?

I am freelance, fullstack, and there are days, like today, that I get up, and I spend hours in front of the screen and I can not do anything, practically boring and without a bit of motivation to do anything, I could defecate while I'm sitting, not It would affect me in nothing .....

What are some of the worst problems, faced by you, as a freelancer?

Had this client for which I did some work on agreement. The agreement was fairly well laid out and the work was well defined. We delivered on time and he was all good. Move forward a couple months and this guy comes back asking for changes, upon which I said we'd need a new agreement because the last one expired when the job ended, but he didn't want a new agreement and to not make a point of it we didn't. We made the changes and I invoiced him, as we do, and then he starts accusing me of trying to rip him off and calls me a child. Stopped working with him after that

Sorry if this isn't very dev related:

Does anybody know any good freelancing websites for artists, illustrators, ui/ux designers, etc. ?

I've seen upwork, but they're so uptight they don't accept everyone.

I wanted to make some extra cash so I decided to do some freelancing. Gotta do it in style though haha

I am so excited just after getting a job with a startup company and also received my first freelance gig only thing is I'm in my final year of college so amount of work is staggering but never been as excited to have so much work to do and help expand my skills and looking forward to ranting more which is most important

How to pass yourself off as a Web Developer.

Download Wordpress.
Install theme.
Install plugins.
Activate plugins.
Customize theme.
Email client: "Done, invoice attached."
Receive sum of $10,000.

Client from hell (if you've read my past rants) came back asking for information that he had provided me months ago.

I'm not your Google Mr client from hell, search it up yourself.

That's what I said, only in my mind though.

Unfortunately, I went to be his Google. Am I too kind? Should I just reply with a nicely worded "I don't know".

What's a better freelancing medium than upwork.com? The competition there makes it very difficult to land anything with a good price if at all.

Opinion question: When is one prepared to freelance?

Well, this happens time to time...

I'm freelancing as a backend guy. I like to take care of all infrastructure before really starting to build anything, this mostly includes dev/staging/prod environments with some linear promotion strategy. So.. I did this API. Still on staging, proceeding with the development as planned, everything goes according the timeline.

And then.. this happens... At some point PM told frontend guy that it's time for production (without notifying me), so the frontend guy does what "anyone" would do in this case - tells PM to create DNS record for production to point to staging app.

Time passes, I'm still unaware of this. But I'm starting to see some quality entries in the DB, not the usual QA crap. I write to them that they're doing good job and continue with my tasks.

One of the tasks required some major DB change. I could've written migrations script, but since we're not in "production" yet, I just wipe the DB and recreate schema as I need it.

In 10 minutes the furious PM starts shouting that "production" is down and I need to fix it ASAP.

I'm lost, I'm asking questions, I'm slowly understanding what's happening...

So I want to grab some coffee, sat back down, wrote politely that they suck, added a finger emoji and terminated the contract.

Felt like the right thing to do as I definitely don't want to continue within the same "team".

Finding work that first freelance gig is pain in the ass.

Freelance web devs: where can I find some examples of industry standard pricing?

My partner has an opportunity to design a site for a newspaper she writes for, but has never done this before and doesn’t know what to quote...

Many of you commented on my previous rant regarding my first ever freelance gig that I would definitely be back with even more to rant... here I am.

What was supposedly a 1 to 1.5 month long project became one that is stretching beyond 3, if lucky, else 4 months long. Requirements and scope evolving more complex and with variations more intense than pokemon evolutions.

I fucked up. I signed a contract that nobody would have. I didn't plan or protect my ass enough to prevent such shit from happening. I severely underestimated and hence under quoted. This is one of the nightmare situations a freelancer could be in (in my opinion). I mean it could only get better... Right? I'm preparing myself for one hell of a payment at the end of the project. Brace yourself, payment is hopefully coming as fast as the number of seasons it took for winter to come in GoT.

On the bright side, I'm currently working on a new project with a client that is indeed much much better than this first. I mean he is a nice person and communications thus far has been nothing short of great.

I guess it's good to start with your expectations rock bottom, that way nothing else can be worse, I hope.

I spent several hours today looking for remote jobs on freelancer.com and this new platform called kalido. just a waste of my time.

All these platforms doesn't work for me.

Ran out of projects :(
What should I eat now?

Thinking about freelancing, any freelancers here who can help me get started?

I have a bit of experience freelancing being a designer but not yet as a programmer. Im currently a student but have made a few programs.

What do you guys think?

When a university student approaches you, to do their coursework for them! 😡😓

It's a shame how you as a freelance web developer complete a project and hand it over to client and you check it over and over and you never find the client use the project.

It hurts my feelings really really bad.

I've just started freelancing on PeoplePerHour. I'm in talks to secure a job migrating a C# webapp to a desktop scenario using HTML5 embedded within WPF, but I've never done this as a solo project before. What sort of price is sensible to charge for this? I'm working in GBP

I am going to go freelance (starting a company and will be my own first employee) at the end of the month.

Was wondering what software some of you, who are also freelancers, are using to manage everything.

Quotes, invoices, jobcards, etc.

The bank through which I will be registering the company appears to offer some sort of online service for that purpose, but I have not seen it yet.

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

sometimes I miss working in a team as a freelance dev, more opportunities for personal growth IMO

Screw Joomla. And screw the agency that put together these sites. I'm almost impressed, I can only assume from the state of things that whoever worked on them has successfully created multiple websites by smashing their face into the keyboard and hoping for the best.

Just wanted to share with you that I just finished my first ever mission as a freelance !

After a lot of information gathering and administrative cumbersome tasks to become a freelancer and a student at the same time, I have finally managed to acquire my first client and complete my first mission !

Excited to see what’s will come next !

People always say thet you should not quit your job before you have the next job lined up, but what if you plan to do freelance? This is my dilemma.

A bit of context (rant).

My current job is my first official job. Small company, VERY HIGH staff turnover rate. I have been here for 2 and a half years. My commute on a good day is < 20 mins, and money is relatively good.

During the last 6 months, all devs above me resigned, which lead to the system maintenance being passed on to the few devs left. Our biggest system is a legacy system (Windows CE), and new clients are actively signed up and new features requested. The codebase is not even worthy of being called spaghetti, changes break every client, I need to wash my hands every couple of minutes. Seriously, I would rather maintain obfuscated code. It is like a bunch of highschoolers wrote the system, though I think they would have done a better job.

Management is nice and understanding, but the state of the codebase is killing the spirits.

I fill my nights and weekends moonlighting to keep my mind off of the 'daymares' at work. I have never been a team player, and thrive on my own. I have been thinking quiting and going full freelance/contract the last couple of months. Should things not work out, I can always go job hunting (see issue in par. 1)

I hate it when I got severe sickness like fever that disable my focus and concentration, everything that i have planned to finish in a week is delayed, and any arrangements and meetings are postponed. It reduce me everything, productivity, income, client's trust, and it will eventually reduce my reputation.