freelance programming

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Hey guys! I'm looking to get into freelance programming, and I'm curious to see if anyone here has done the same. I'm confident in my abilities, but I'm not quite sure how to find clients. How did you guys start out? Also, do you have any other tips or advice?

Thanks!
aeio

I have a friend who is a freelance web developer and he gets most of his clients through contacts that he knows from previous jobs he had in web development. Have you had previous employment in programming? He also goes to networking events and has a good internet presence through his website and twitter page.

Good luck!

Yeah, I have a couple contacts, although it's entirely possible nothing will come of it.

Part of it, though, is that although I've been programming for a long time and I'm quite good at it, I don't have much to show off. Unless I have some sort of direct external motivation (e.g., if you don't finish this, you don't get paid), I get distracted and switch projects very easily. I think the last major personal project I finished was an interpreter I wrote for a Python-like language. That was 7 years ago, when I was 16. Somehow I managed to finish it in a month, although I'm not especially proud of the code, or of the language it implemented.

Furthermore, I don't have much employment history, I've never been especially involved in open source, and I don't have a degree. That being said, I do have pretty decent writing skills, and I can do pretty well with interview-style questions (although the social aspects of an interview are another matter entirely...).

I think my plan at the moment is to just contact local startups and see if they need any programming work outsourced. If they were to give me a problem to solve as a test, that'd be great. I'm just really nervous about what to do when they ask for qualifications.


Thanks!

I know that having a good portfolio of work to show is pretty essential when working as a freelancer. If it's good then it would overshadow the lack of qualifications. Perhaps you could motivate yourself with the fact that if you can finish some personal projects then you'll get a job out of it?

I know it's also possible to find short qualifications in programming, rather than a whole degree. For example, this online course in Java which would get you a certificate: http://www.dundee.ac.uk/admissions/dist ... ficate.htm
Might be worth checking out if your local further education college runs any courses too.

Thanks! I'll look into that.

Check out sites like oDesk, elance, freelancer, and guru. You can usually pickup projects there. Only drawback is you'll be competing with offshore developers who are willing to work for really cheap.

Exactly what kind of programming? Some employers will pay for you to learn certain programming skills.

Reach out to small businesses with ideas of how applications can help them.