[satvikpendem]

Both, if I wanted freelance work I asked them, usually they say no, but sometimes they say yes. It's much easier if you're talking to the founders of a startup, rather than a recruiter, since the former are much more flexible.

I'm not sure how people find freelance work for big companies like Google though, unless they go through an agency that has prior connections.

[gregjor]

Agencies like the one that represents me (10X Management) place people at Google, Facebook, etc. Another route is knowing someone inside the big company -- I know freelancers who got gigs at FAANG (or whatever it is now) companies through contacts.

That's not a good match for me because I prefer smaller companies with well-defined discrete business problems and shorter timelines, and because I usually live overseas and travel a lot -- full-time remote in other words, and not available for daily stand-ups or lots of meetings.

I generally don't work for startups. I have, but they too often lack the focus to get good requirements from, need a lot of interpersonal interaction with the team, and want to pay in equity. Great gigs sometimes but not for me. For me the best customers are small/medium businesses not in the tech industry, profitable and established, who can't attract/hire/keep software/system admin talent. For every job opening at a startup you can find 100 small companies who can't get anyone.