My first year as a freelancer (Data Science)

In April this year, I left my job. It's been 8 months that I work as a freelancer (Data Science) and my experience might be interesting for people in this sub.

It was a good job, as a Senior Data Scientist, in a US company, working from Italy. I was paid well above the Italian average. I had stocks and bonuses, private medical insurance and various benefits I never used. Overall, I made more than €100k in 2022, and I was on course to make even more in 2023. I left it anyway. I feel like time is passing, and I wanted to prove to myself that I could be useful outside employment too. I also realized that I don’t have the energy to grow a side business and have a full-time job at the same time. Some people do, but I am not one of them.

Without a job and a salary, I started looking for freelancing opportunities. I already had some contacts from last year and started with an Italian client. Not much work, but it was a start. I kept applying to more jobs on Upwork, reshaped my LinkedIn profile and also paid for the Small Bets membership, to increase my chances to get some job opportunities and learn about building an online business.

In May, I got in touch with an Italian online school for Data Analysts and started to teach there until mid-July. It was a part-time gig, as I was only doing it for 3 days a week, 2 hours each. I worked a lot to prepare the lessons, much more than the hours I was paid for. In the end, this gig took a lot of my time (at least 2 full days a week) and paid less than €800 per month. Helping people to change their career trajectory was very rewarding, but financially it was a disaster. I will not do it again. Are all teachers paid this little? No wonder there are so many bad teachers around.

In July a friend of mine suggested me another gig with an Italian start-up. I started to work with them on some Data Analytics stuff. The rate is not amazing but the job and the team are great. I am still working with them. In August another opportunity came up, through the Small Bets community. More Data Science related, with another great team, a fair rate and a long-term commitment. In the meantime, I was also getting some more gigs on Upwork and was able to increase my rate and get more reviews there.

Over the last 8 months, I was in more than 50 between conversations and job proposals on Upwork. At the end of the day, only 6 of them turned into job offers. That makes it a 12% conversion rate, which doesn’t look that bad. Most of the rejections come from Upwork anyway, a tough platform.

I am satisfied with my freelance journey, but I think it should not take more than 50% of my time. Ideally, keeping at 2-3 days a week should leave me the time to pursue what I really want to do. Build an online business.

I have published more details about it in an article in my blog.

I often write about my freelance experience in Data Science on Twitt...X.