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?
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.
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.
I have a master’s in comparative literature and I’ve been working as a front end/full stack developer for almost a decade. (I started as freelance but I didn’t love it, personally - but more on that below.)
Obviously philosophy & literature degrees aren’t going to directly help you - but they can help you shape your career, if you want. If your goal is to work as a developer in a gigantic multinational corporation, I have no advice - but if you want to stay around philosophy and philosophers, you can do what I did: work for institutions, rather than corporations.
I’ve been a developer for 10 years and probably 7 of them were at libraries. I’ve gotten to know colleagues at colleges and universities and it’s a great crowd. I’m currently at an academic library and I love it: I get to work in the academic environment, be around the vibrant college vibe, but I don’t actually have to interact with students, professors, or really anyone other than developers and bosses.
If you go that route, you should be aware that some jobs will just randomly pay super badly - make sure you’re aware of that in advance and don’t waste your time. Those institutions that can’t meet industry salaries should be outsourcing - which brings me to my final tip on that topic:
There are LOTS of academic and “academic-adjacent” institutions that can’t afford developers and so they outsource. The people they outsource to - that’s who you want to find. Go to the websites for events and “initiatives” (ie smaller websites, not their huge ILS or DAMS software or whatever), scroll to the bottom, and find “website by FooBarBaz” - and find those people. They’re usually small, and, importantly, local development firms and usually specialize in that kind of work - and they pay the kinds of salaries one would expect. So that’s another route.
Those “companies” - it’s weird to even call them that, because it’s usually just one or two people who were freelance and just banded together and called it a company; they hired a few yous and mes and they stick with that their entire careers. They’ll often have you freelance for them for a little bit until you prove your value, and then offer you a real job - or just keep you afloat until you find a “real” job.
(Getting back to my “more on that in a bit” from the first paragraph: that’s the freelancing I recommend: freelance for freelancers. This goes for inside and outside the academic/GLAM world: a good freelancer will have more offers of work than they can handle - so they outsource to you, take a cut, and give you experience. It’s not ideal, but it can turn into a solid, long term relationship, and having a developer as a “boss” also means they’ll understand the challenges you’ll be facing as a new developer.)
Good luck.
One other tip specific to library/academic/GLAM work: there’s a thing called Code4Lib that’s basically a community of academic/library developers. They’re awesome and they have great conferences. They have a job board, but, in my experience, it’s a lot of jobs from those places that don’t pay enough - and they post to C4L as though people who work at libraries don’t know how to find out what salaries developers expect. Don’t bother with Code4Lib jobs - but definitely go to their conferences and local meetups.
This is really good advice. I had no idea I about that area of work. It makes sense in hindsight, but having it written out so clearly really gives me some ideas on where to focus. Thank you.
That was the short version because I had no idea if you actually cared. Even the best dev jobs in the academic/GLAM area don’t pay Jane Street money. But, honestly, who does, other than Jane Street.
Anyway, if you want to talk about it now, let me know.
Of course. I am a bit curious about what GLAM is and any other important terms I can search that can help me find this type of work. Generally, I’m mainly curious about the whole starting process, what to look out for, and how to best approach this area.
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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