[gremlinsinc]

Best thing to do is look on r/forhire on reddit, build up a portfolio on upwork/etc, and check all the remote job boards like remoteok, weworkremotely, etc..

Freelancing is hard to start - -you need to be part marketer, you don't get paid for the time finding new clients, but AFTER you have a steady stream of good business, it gets a bit easier to keep filling your pipeline with jobs through word of mouth / etc.

[laurent123456]

About how much can a relatively skilled developer get on upwork or similar? My feeling when bidding for projects there was that I needed to go incredibly low to compete with businesses in India or Pakistan. Or does it get better as you get more clients?

[gremlinsinc]

I'm still aiming a little low, but I've seen a lot of profiles of devs who charge 80-100/hour and seem to have a solid history on there.

My thinking is you need to start low till you build rep/reviews then you can start charging more per hour.

Edit: Also there's a lot of people who want u.s. or english native speakers. I'm in u.s. not planning on traveling much but I like working out of my basement and not wasting time commuting.

[borplk]

r/forhire and upwork are absolute piles of garbage with 90% of the jobs being "edit my shopify theme for $25".

If you are an experienced engineer with more sophisticated skills and don't live in India and Pakistan just don't bother.

[gremlinsinc]

I totally agree it's my emergency site when I can't find clients or need money. Reddit had been real good for me as has word of mouth on LinkedIn as well. I think remote job boards are good to if a steady but remote job is preferable over freelance contracts. I definitely am not stumping for upwork at all unless you're in a bind, but if you have a decent grade on there you can get the better jobs but it's still a pile of crap I agree.

If only there were like a global dev Union or something so the price of devs was standard everywhere or at least had a minimum wage of like $20-30 per hour.