Hey guys,
I was wondering whether learning until the front-end libraries enough for me to start freelancing on Upwork and other websites. I really need to start earning something since I am jobless at the moment. I’m trying my best to finish the tasks and lessons but it’s just too much.
thanks,
Hi @Kardo !
I don’t think there is anything wrong with getting started as long as you are realistic with what type of earnings you will get.
As your skillset continues to grow you will start to become marketable. But you have to start somewhere.
Sites like upwork and fiverr take a percentage of what you will make.
I would definitely research that.
You will also need to research how to best put together a profile and write good bids so clients will choose you over the other freelancers.
You can start researching with these articles
Hope that helps!
Just from a purely technical standpoint…
I’m certainly no expert but I did a little bit of freelance work.
When can you try to get some freelance gigs? Anytime you want. Really, there is nothing wrong with asking. That being said…
I interpret your “learning until the front-end libraries” to mean the things that precede the front-end libraries, meaning HTML, CSS, and basic JS, but no libraries. Since most modern web sites use some kind of library, that would be a hinderance. When I search on upwork for example, if I search for “HTML”, most of the job postings expect more than HTML. True, there may be a few jobs out there for just your skill set, but there are a lot of people that have that skillset, at your level. A lot of them live in countries that have very low costs of living so they will work for much less than you will.
I don’t want to discourage you, just to give you realistic expectations. A more realistic goal would be to finish the FCC program (or any fullstack program) and spend 6 months applying that on your own projects. Maybe then you’d be job market ready, but even that might be pushing it.
Again, don’t get me wrong, go ahead and look. And if there is a job you feel you could do, go ahead and bid on it. Just remember that you are bidding against more experienced people, some of whom can live on $10k per year. But still, looking for jobs is a good way to get an idea what is out there and what you need.
But go ahead and try. Maybe you’ll get lucky and find things like this. But I also don’t want you to assume that you’re ready to support yourself doing this. It’s possible, but imho, unlikely. I think the dev community is irresponsible in how they make it sound like you will study for a few months and then easily get the job of your dreams. It’s more like work your ass off for a year or two, work your ass off to find a job, and then land the job of your dreams.
Again, I don’t want to discourage you from looking. But if you are desperate for money, I don’t want you putting all your eggs in this basket and end up homeless.
But I’m not an expert - perhaps some disagree. These are just my observations.
Yes, all this kind of survivorship bias, cherry picking etc. lead to a very unhealthy behaviour.
I think one approach to solve this is having a look at a lot of people who actually do what you want to do: Go to Linkedin and look at some employees from Google, Netflix etc. Look at their CV. Most of them invested 3-5y at college to get their jobs.
No, you don’t have to go to college. But you should get an alternative training for the most important topics to learn what they’ve learned in their college years.
And six months of self-taught coding probably doesn’t match this experience. And this is just the technical stuff. There are also soft skills.
Everything that @kevinSmith said is spot-on.
When it comes to people who want to freelance my advice is to spend some time on these freelancing websites (the ones that don’t require you to pay to browse). For some, there will be gigs listed. Look through those and ask yourself “Could I do what is being asked, at a professional level?” if you are confident that you can, estimate how long you think it will take. Increase that number by about 30%. Then ask yourself how much you would need to be paid for that to be worth your time. Does the time and cost seem reasonable to you? Then bid for it. Other freelancing sites are based around workers creating profiles and portfolios. Look at the portfolios of the people who would be your competition. Can you do what they’re doing? Could you do it for the same price? If so, give it a shot.
If the real question you’re asking is “how soon can I stop learning and get paid?” you’re going to be really dissapointed.
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