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What is it like freelancing? Is it a viable option to earn income? (self.cs_career_questions)

submitted 1 year ago by Decide to c/cs_career_questions

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I know some basic HTML, CSS. JS, and very little React -- I'm learning it currently. One of the things I see mentioned online is freelancing as a way to earn income. Now, I've tried this before in the past on UpWork, and it was nearly impossible to get anything out of it, I rarely received a response and that required submitting a lot of proposals which in turn cost a lot of money.

When I go on UpWork, many of the jobs need WordPress developers or an array of skills I simply do not have and appear to require a lot of time to learn.

Furthermore, I'm in an odd place financially and career wise, where I can't seem to get a job anywhere, not even at places that would've hired me before, and certainly not as a junior developer.

I suppose I'm asking for advice. If freelancing is an option to pursue, how do I go about it in the cheapest and most cost effect way possible? If freelancing is not the right option, then what can I do with what I do know? Lastly, is the job market in a weird state for every sector?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (11 children)

What’s your background generally. Do you have a degree in something CS related?

I learned more in my first 6 months of hands on work than I did in all of my schooling. So if you have a cs degree and can learn enough of the basics and interview questions you’d probably be fine applying to jr dev positions whether your concentration is programming or other.

Really hard question to answer with that info though.

[–] Decide 2 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I have a degree in philosophy, which, as far as I can tell, is more of a "support" degree that says I like thinking and learning a lot. I've thought about going back and seeing what I can do, but I'm honestly so broke that it's not a viable option.

Related, but how much time per day did you put into learning practical skills? I put in a few hours each week, maybe somewhere between 5-10 hours, but it feels like I'm really low-balling the amount of time I should be coding and applying what I know.

[–] hairyballs 4 points 1 year ago

I have a degree in philosophy (and no other diploma) and I make $200k/year as a senior developer. The degree does not really matter.

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