If you’re still in high school and thinking about becoming a freelance programmer, you can see if your school has any beginning computer science elective classes.
Depending on your time and budget, there are many different ways you can study to learn programming languages. As an alternative to getting a bachelor’s degree in computer science, sign up for a programming course at a local technical institute or study online in your spare time.
If you’re studying programming in a university or college setting, you could take some public speaking and writing classes to work on your communication skills. If you are studying on your own online, you could look for some free communication courses online as well.
You can do a Google search for “programming news” to pull up some of the most popular sites with content related to developer and programmer technology. Then, choose some that you like and add them to your favorites or sign up for their newsletters so you receive industry updates right to your inbox. For example, sites like Developer Tech and Stackify have a lot of software programming news. You can also follow other programmers and tech industry professionals on social media to receive updates.
Some ways you can start building a good work ethic in your day-to-day life are by making work a priority, not procrastinating, turning assignments in on time, and focusing on doing every piece of work well.
Many freelance programmers start off freelancing on the side while working another job that pays the bills. Expect that you might have to do this, but continue to develop your programming skills and other personal and professional skills that will help you in your journey to working for yourself as a freelancer.
For example, you could specialize in a specific code language like CSS, JavaScript, SQL, Python, PHP, or Ruby. You could also specialize in an area like mobile app development.
Working for a software development business for a while before freelancing can be beneficial because you will learn other professional skills like project management and can learn further programming skills by working with others who are more experienced than you. [9] X Expert Source Stephen Cognetta, MBATech Interviewing Coach Expert Interview. 21 July 2020. An open source project is one for which the source code is available publicly to anyone. There are many open source projects that accept community contributions from other programmers to continuously improve the code.
A basic personal website with a portfolio on it is highly recommended. Another option is to put code you have written on a Github profile.
Be sure all your handles and usernames are the same or similar if you have multiple online presences as part of your personal brand. This way, potential clients can easily look you up and see your different content.
You can also add value to your professional profiles online by writing technical articles about programming projects you’ve worked on or programming in general and either posting them on LinkedIn or on free blogging sites like Medium or Wordpress.
Using these types of freelance sites is a secure way to start freelancing because they mediate between you and the client and help to ensure you get paid for your work. Make sure that any time you complete a new freelance project, you add it to your online portfolio and all your profiles on freelancer sites.
For example, you can look on Meetup or Eventbrite to find tech-related gatherings to attend in your city or nearby. Keep in mind that although in-person networking can take up much more of your time than online networking, it is often more valuable to make real-world connections.
Freelance programmers earn anywhere from about $28-$200 USD per hour, but it varies depending on where in the world they are located. If you are just starting out, you might want to pick a rate at the lower end of this scale, but resist the temptation to charge an even lower rate just to get clients. Keep in mind that if you specialize in a certain coding language or development area you can charge more. If you aren’t sure what to charge, you could start at around $36 USD per hour or the equivalent in your currency. This equals an annual salary of about $70,000 USD, which is the average base salary for software programmers.
When you work as a freelancer, it’s important to be clear about your schedule and availability with both yourself and clients. If not, you might end up taking on more work or projects than you can handle. This can result in a lower quality of work on your end and completely throw off your work-life balance.
For example, if you aren’t proficient in the Python coding language, don’t accept a freelance project that requires you to fix Python coding errors. If you do unsatisfactory work for a client, you are much less likely to retain them as a client or to receive a good review and recommendation from them that can help you get more clients.
There are many freelancers for clients to choose from, so it’s important to provide the best services you can to yours. This will set you apart from others and help you retain clients and get good referrals as someone who is respectful, consistent, and turns work in on time.
Keep in mind that as a freelancer you won’t be deducted taxes from any of your payments. It’s recommended to work with a tax professional when it comes time to do your taxes to make sure you are reporting everything correctly and paying the right amount.
