Ask HN: Questions about freelancing as a new grad | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Questions about freelancing as a new grad

2 pointsninetax3 comments

I'm a senior at a mid-ranked college, majoring in CS, and I'm going to graduate in December. I am looking at several different options for work when I graduate and one of them is working as a freelancer in a town not known for being a major tech hub. My questions are:

What do you think about going straight from college into contracting? If it doesn't work out after a year will I still be able to pursue the kind of opportunities I have now? What kind of experiences am I giving up to work on my own?

The other options I'm considering are: working for small to medium size tech companies in San Francisco or Boston. I have a few interviews and a tentative offer.

I have some good experience from 2 internships (A larger company, and a smaller one), and I think I could hack it on my own since I have a couple friends who freelance and could give me some work to start with. I can build things on my own initiative and can pick up new stuff pretty quick.

Thoughts?

If you're weighing freelancing vs employment, I'd recommend doing medium term contracts instead. Look for the typical 3-12 month contracts and go from there. You'll get decent experience, have some stability, and it won't be terrifying financially. Keep focused on building up connections to clients, stay active in your local community (meetups, conferences, user groups, etc), market your services, and establish a business presence (LLC, business bank acct, office space, phones, website). But at the same time, your bread-and-butter financially can be your contracts, until you're able and comfortable moving to pure freelancing. You can also try to structure your contracts so that you're paid on a 1099 instead of a W-2 and that way you can start filing as self-employed and get the full deduction for health insurance and the assortment of other tax breaks (but get your own tax advice; this isn't it). Note that you should expect more money being paid on a 1099 since you pay self employment taxes (I usually discount W-2 work at 15%). But if clients want to control your work day, they'll be reluctant to pay you on a 1099 because of IRS rules.

If you just jump right into freelancing, I'd worry you'll never get the opportunity to really see first-hand and in-depth how businesses are run and that you'll always lack something in terms of project, team, and management skills.

Unless you have significant pressing debt the most important thing to prioritize is learning. In my first year working at a reasonably large tech company I learned more than my entire undergrad and grad programs.

So I would stay away from freelancing since you won't have the opportunity to learn from more senior people.

- I think it is a good idea to go straight from college into contracting/freelancing. You'll learn alot. However I think freelancing should be like a part-time job and you should have a CS job as a day-time/full-time job. Not only for experience and networking but most importantly for the money. Freelancing IS REALLY COMPETITIVE and it may be difficult at first to get as many jobs that will be needed in order to pay the bills.

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