Made more money as a contractor than as a freelance developer. Help!

29 points

8 years ago

I've been trying to find some work on the side in order to build up my savings and achieve my dream of buying a home for me and my wife, so we can start our family. I'm a full-time senior software engineer, 8+ years of experience, proficient in both backend and frontend development.

Unfortunately, my adventures through sites like Freelancer.com, Gun.io, and UpWork have been hard: most developers win projects with rates like $7/hr or $10/hr. That's pretty much impossible to beat, specially for someone living in the US.

As a matter of fact, since I haven't been able to find quality dev freelance work, I've been making some money as a contractor. I'm pretty good assembling furniture, plumbing, painting, stuff like that and my wife suggested that I used NextDoor to offer services. My rate is $30/hr and my nights are full (I think people who work like my schedule?).

How do you guys find good projects to work with? Is there a secret circle somewhere or something? Like a Freemasonry of software development?

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