Ask HN: Becoming an [international] freelance consultant

37 points by kffcc 8 years ago | 20 comments

Hi,

currently, I work part time as a contract programmer, travel the world, have personal projects on the side.

I am able to bring value in management processes, development processes, maintainability, software quality, QA, architecture and implementation.

Keeping my current freedom would be great though.

I am registered at computer futures Germany and France. They mostly have on-site jobs, full-time (that makes me doubt the travelling and remote possibilities.)

1) How to get hired/ find awesome jobs? What are other job recruitment agencies which I should sign up for (especially international and remote wise)? 2) Do I need to stop travelling or is that possible to do fully remote? What is your experience? 3) Can I bring value by being on-site internationally? I am sceptical because jobs in France require spoken French, and jobs in Germany require spoken German (computer futures experience).

A few similar questions like "become an freelance consultant" are on hackernews and have some nice resources. I like to differentiate this question by asking for recruitment agencies or other ways of getting hired and I like to understand if being internationally available is a value or not. Nevertheless don't hesitate to link to other Ask HN posts.

My experience: Java (Spring, Hibernate, …), Angular 2 , Agile Management, Distributed Systems (Master Degree), Microservices, Container (Docker), CI/CD (Jenkins), Software Quality (SonarQube), AWS, GCE, Azure

Thank you so much for helping me kick-starting this.

P.S. All books and other resource recommendations are highly welcome.

CyberFonic 8 years ago |

My apologies in advance, I can't answer your question directly, but your post gave me pause and I might not be the only such person with these reactions.

I agree with @contingencies, Java is the only technology you mention. Many recruiters will probably not read past that if that isn't what they are looking for. There is nothing wrong with it, but it does lock you into being a "contract programmer" vs a "freelance consultant".

Are you making the transition from contract programmer to freelance consultant? If so, then you need to reposition your personal branding / marketing.

In order to deliver value as a consultant you will need a lot of person-to-person interaction. So, as you point out, you need to be able to communicate fluently with the stakeholders and the many people who are working on any given project.

Whilst emails, chat and phone calls are very useful, a lot of essential and (IMHO) critical communications takes place in person. That is basically why teleconferencing hasn't supplanted business travel. So whilst you can continue to travel, you will probably need to be located with the client for at least part of the time. In many organisations working "remote" causes concerns to management. Travelling from project to project is another matter.

In my experience, the best consultant opportunities arise when working for a major international consulting firm. Once you have established a solid track record in that environment it is possible to go freelance. Employers, like recruiters and agencies, look at your track record for proof that you can successfully complete the given assignment. As a freelance consultant you are expected to hit the deck running.

Then there is that massive stumbling block ... being freelance means that you have to market and sell yourself. Having gotten an assignment you need to track your hours, bill and collect. It is for these reasons that I have found working for a consulting firm is less stressful. When you choose your field and company well, travel becomes a given rather than an option.

kffcc 8 years ago | |

Thank you very much for your feedback and your advice.

Thank you, it is very good advice to position myself in an industry rather than technology.

Is there a way to find a good consulting firm or compare some?

BjoernKW 8 years ago |

My slightly aged but in my opinion still relevant general advice is this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12744624 , in addition to this more elaborate blog post referred to in that comment: https://bjoernkw.com/2013/04/28/starting-a-software-consulti...

I also can't emphasise enough that you're in the business of solving problems, not in the business of creating software: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15761354

Focus on particular industries or categories of business problems rather than specific technologies.

kffcc 8 years ago | |

Thank you so much for all the resources.

"Focus on particular industries or categories of business problems rather than specific technologies."

I understand, thank you for that great advice.

zerr 8 years ago | |

Can you comment on how creating a personal website affected your freelancing? Does it help significantly with receiving the leads?

BjoernKW 8 years ago | | |

It most definitely helps with being seen as a professional and as a business rather than an anonymous set of TLAs. I refer potential clients to the testimonials on my website and to blog posts relevant to the clients' problems.

The testimonials establish trust that I can deliver on my promise and indeed have done so for other clients in the past.

The blog posts give potential clients an idea of my expertise and perhaps can already help them with a problem they're having (like choosing a testing approach for their software, for example). Probably the most important aspect I learned about sales conversations is that those shouldn't be actually about selling but about trying to understand where the client is coming from, what his or her problems are and about trying to provide possible solutions right from the very start. The resources I provide on my website help me a lot with this.

In terms of getting new leads it's not like my website gets a whole lot of organic traffic from search engines. That does happen from time to time but by itself it wouldn't be enough for having a sustainable business.

What routinely happens though is that potential clients google my name and find my website as the first search result. Again, this helps with establishing a professional relationship and informing the client about what I can bring to the table.

I write regular blog posts (one per week at least) on subjects relevant or related to my business and post excerpts and teasers on social media and business networks like LinkedIn and XING. This helps a lot with getting new leads from my extended network (again, networking is key).

contingencies 8 years ago |

My advice: Remove Java from your resume, or at least bury it at the end.

Rationale: Generally only relevant to Android development and bigco. Your major clients in consulting will be SME.

kffcc 8 years ago | |

I see, that is great advice. Thank you!

FearNotDaniel 8 years ago |

I'm really not sure what you're asking. Could you possibly clarify? You are already working as a contract programmer, which is a freelance of sorts, and already travelling the world. Are you saying that you travel on your personal time, i.e. when you're not working, but that you would now prefer to travel further afield (more than France and Germany) specifically to work on projects? Or are you saying that you are already travelling for programming work (France and Germany being examples of this), but that you now wish to transition into a more management-consulting focused role instead of programming, i.e. more involved in the business process and strategy end of things and less on the technical side?

kffcc 8 years ago | |

Thank you for your questions, those are really good.

" travel on your personal time, i.e. when you're not working"

Currently I am a software developer working 100% remote. So I travel for personal reasons or professionally (rarely) when I need to go on-site to a customer (of the company which employs me) to fix something or develop a solution. I really enjoy being location independent and would like to it that way. The comments about Germany and France coming from the job opportunities which I see online or at recruitment agencies, they are 95% on-site in towns or in different parts of Paris. That is not the type of travelling I am looking forward to. That's were the idea of an international freelancer comes from: I assume most well payed jobs need people on-site and mobility comes with a premium. So why not going to awesome destinations?

"when you're not working, but that you would now prefer to travel further afield (more than France and Germany) specifically to work on projects?"

Exactly I like to travel more than just France and Germany. I enjoy mobility/travelling on an international scale. But what I see from the most job positions is that they need people in Paris or in different towns in Germany. I like to avoid that.

"now wish to transition into a more management-consulting focused role instead of programming, i.e. more involved in the business process and strategy end of things and less on the technical side?"

Ideally I like to stay in technology as much as possible. But I like to avoid being a freelancer on Upwork and compete with low paid people from all over the world and getting Upwork type of jobs. I also enjoy a lot working with clients, doing their requirement analysis and getting solutions done rather than writing code.

So I am looking to increase my salary by doing what I enjoy and what I am good at. And I feel like I am hiding behind my computer just looking for "programming jobs". The point is I wish to keep my independent lifestyle and deliver the most value which I can possibly deliver.

Does that make sense?

JSeymourATL 8 years ago |

> What are other job recruitment agencies which I should sign up for (especially international and remote wise)?

Toptal has an interesting platform > http://toptal.com/

itake 8 years ago |

What I did was work for a company and then transition the job remote after 11 months.

I kept my "california" salary and actually earned a lot more money than when I was sitting in an office.

Best of luck!

kffcc 8 years ago | |

Thank you for sharing you experience.

Did you transition to remote work or did you try to move into the consultant direction?

itake 8 years ago | | |

I told my boss, while I enjoyed working for the company, I was unhappy living in San Francisco and I needed a change of scenery. I had a ticket to visit Vietnam (in 2 weeks) and I wouldn't come back to the office again.

Because he was happy with my services and I was a crucial part of the engineering team, he let me work remotely full-time w2 while I traveled around the world.

astawiarski 8 years ago |

I've been sitting at both sides of the table via TopTal. First I went through their interview process, which I didn't like and the experience afterwards wasn't great. More recently I helped to hire people via Toptal to work on a project I consulted for, and that was good. Really great developers, and what I can see they have a lot of flexibility.

However, have you considered remote work instead? There is more companies open to that setting and you can also have a good time flexibility. I work for game studio in Dublin - we offer fully remote setup, "unlimited" holidays and flexible working hours. Your skillset matches exactly what we need. But even if you aren't interested in making games for a living (python & java fullstack development) there is tons companies like us. I know because we have to compete with them for the best talent.

kffcc 8 years ago | |

Thank you for your answer.

Thanks for sharing your Toptal experience. I was looking at Toptal as well. I don't feel that I am bringing value to the marketplace of Toptal, maybe I am wrong. As a Software Developer I am very focused on software quality, good coding practices, maintainability; basically I always try create the best and most maintainable solution, over the fastest hacked mess but done (I know it's black and white and reality is not always that easy). I don't see many businesses looking for that.

Yes I am considering remote work, I see a only few interesting job positions for remote work.

Sorry, but if it is not asked too much, can you name a few portals (or the main one) on which you compete with "tons of other companies", I am looking on https://remoteok.io/ .

If you like you can link your company website, I like to have a look.

zerr 8 years ago | |

The problem is that not many companies mention REMOTE even if they would consider it... This is the case for your company as well - not a single word mentioning that you're open to remote candidates.

anon1094 8 years ago | |

When you were hiring developers was Toptal the only platform that you used to hire developers? Did you choose it because you were on it previously? Did you try any others?

ole_gooner 8 years ago | |

Hey, Is there any link to where I can apply?

zerr 8 years ago | | |

Here: https://www.digitgaming.com/careers/job-listings/