Learned Python, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Flask, and currently learning Django - How do I get into backend development as a freelancer without corporate?

Bonvi · Aug 28, 2024

I did the Codecademy courses and got the certificates. But I hate Fiverr, as I keep having a bad time with impressions and exposure, and I also don't like corporate jobs, as I don't like to work in an office or locally at all.

I am a total newbie in backend development and have no real life experience, but feel like I have the basics down. So far I make my money on fiverr building webscrapers, clean excel sheets and offer B2B lead generations. but as I say: I just try to get away from Fiverr.

A main leg up is: I am german with amazing english skills. I know that gives me an advantage to deal with. Broken English is often a dealbreaker, I had many clients come to me when they failed to communicate with the cheaper indian guy, they tried to hire before me.

Of course not easy, but how would you get started finding freelance work? I am thinking going to Upwork and get a friend to "hire" me a couple of times to boost me up there, I feel Upwork is a lot better than Fiverr, but no experience, as I never really worked on there. How do I find work in the field without freelance platforms?

PHPInjected · Aug 28, 2024

So, let's start out with the basics. You need a portfolio.

Everything you've ever worked on needs to be in the portfolio. The portfolio itself should be in a creative website format as well. Think outside of the box and make it unique.

Start with creating a linkedin account and following everyone you know in your home country. Start looking into colleges within 200km of your home and aim to 'connect (friend request) with students near you.

Join/follow all big groups related to programming, gfx design, video editing, etc that are on Linkedin.

You should do this for all of your social media.

Upwork, freelance, and fiverr are good ways to pad your resume with projects.

You can also upgrade your account here on the forum and open a sales thread.

Bonvi · Aug 28, 2024

PHPInjected said:
So, let's start out with the basics. You need a portfolio.

Everything you've ever worked on needs to be in the portfolio. The portfolio itself should be in a creative website format as well. Think outside of the box and make it unique.

Start with creating a linkedin account and following everyone you know in your home country. Start looking into colleges within 200km of your home and aim to 'connect (friend request) with students near you.

Join/follow all big groups related to programming, gfx design, video editing, etc that are on Linkedin.

You should do this for all of your social media.

Upwork, freelance, and fiverr are good ways to pad your resume with projects.

You can also upgrade your account here on the forum and open a sales thread.

Do you have any good resumes that include Upwork or Fiverr projects that I can look at just to get an idea what a good resume looks like?
My fiverr jobs are not at all related to what I do now and I am not getting any traction on my backend gigs so I think of starting outside of fiverr, even though that's my biggest income and pretty much only incomestream right now.

Portfolio is a good idea. Should a portfolio website be something like a mock up website showing interesting features that I can build? I am not overly creative honestly, but I can analyse problems well and solve them. One of the reasons why I try backend instead of fullstack or frontend.

PHPInjected · Aug 28, 2024

Bonvi said:
Do you have any good resumes that include Upwork or Fiverr projects that I can look at just to get an idea what a good resume looks like?

So, figure out which language or type of design you're looking to work in. If it's front end dev or UI development or scripting or whichever path. Create a hiring profile on Fiverr and Upwork. Then create a job looking for a complex project to be completed that you yourself can actually do. State that you have a moderate budget. Then check the resumes that come in. Compare the best resumes to your own. That's your competition.

If it's backend, look into maybe an API for a new social media platform, or a real time chat app, data aggregator, or even inventory management database.

Bonvi said:
Portfolio is a good idea. Should a portfolio website be something like a mock up website showing interesting features that I can build?

A portfolio should be projects that you've worked on. You can also buy a domain and create some projects on subdomains and list those. Take a look on Youtube for good project ideas in languages, frameworks, or libraries you're comfortable working with.

Some clients require you to get clearance but moving forward with all new clients ask them if they would mind if you could use their project in your portfolio when it's completed.

Portfolio websites like:

https://www.stevewolf.co/
https://www.wenxinwendyju.com/

OccultKingdoms · Aug 28, 2024

You're not on a programming forum but business mixed with other.

Ditch this asap if you don't want to make huge regress as a human being. It doesn't work because it's been designed 70 years ago and soon will collapse.

I found major errors and flaws in computer programming. It has some strong, primitive assumptions.

Do offline engineering is my advice and that's what I'm doing since my realizations.

Sample issues of computer programming:

- Programming constrains creative thinking.
- Predefined tools limit innovation.
- Software developers follow set paths.
- Constraints may stifle original ideas.
- Screen-centric development narrows vision.
- Programming paradigms create mental blocks.
- Fixed systems discourage radical innovation.
- Constrained environments breed similar outcomes.
- Psychological impact: reduced cognitive flexibility.
- Programmers risk tunnel vision thinking.
- Screen dependence may limit creativity.

With more systems designer approach you can get:

- Open-ended approaches encourage unique solutions.
- Freedom fosters unexpected breakthroughs.
- Breaking molds sparks New solutions.
- Engineers cultivate adaptable problem-solving skills.
- Freedom breeds genuine problem-solving.
- Freedom nurtures confidence in ideas.
- Offline work encourages broader perspectives. offline Engineers imagine without boundaries. - Offline work stimulates divergent thinking
- Diverse tools inspire diverse thinking.
- Traditional engineering allows experimentation.

My friends got addicted to drugs. I lost them. I saw major fallacies of this industry and how it sets back you in life generally. It has this "1st industrial revolution - 1760" edge to it - you work 12 hours a day or you're not getting anything.

I noticed it requires a huge amount of resources and automation+ outsourcing of programming itself to be profitable. You can't tell humans to do it by themselves. Typical AI isn't enough. You need strong tools to do it. It's very hard to craft those tools.

Programmers manipulate themselves into thinking this job is a gem. It's only for team leaders and people who got c level entries. You can get into managing projects without any coding skills. Problem solving and systemic thinking is enough to be a good team leader of innovative projects.

Non innovative projects and engineering don't go well together. It's boring and wasting engineering/ systems design potential.

OccultKingdoms · Aug 28, 2024

Here's this alternative process.

1. Build based on clouds.
2. Solve real problems.
3. If something cannot be done quickly with big companies, it's most likely not economically worthwhile.
It's because big companies do large scale research finding big opportunities.
4. Cooperate with big companies. They employ millions of people and sell to billions. You can trust them and also help them become even bigger.
5. Find niches inside top 500 companies. Research tech companies.
6. Consider building on top of powerful things. For marketing that'd be building video using after effects automation, automated blogs using Claude+ corrections in few shot learning, then comparing info to facts.
7. Consider enterprise solutions like SAP, ERP.
8. Don't focus on programming languages but multiple instances for multiple people (orchestration and containers + apps on .iso images).
9. Use affiliate programs of companies for which you develop software. For Adobe there's a program but access is only for those who show keen interest in video production industry.
10. Analyze big image and potential failures in each step, then that gives solutions as seeing errors dissolves them.

Consider different industries that you like and found passion in. Build for those.

For example, instead of automating someone's social network, build your own and use cheap PPC / push / pop / video / email ads. Leverage global network of people instead of doing ultra targeting - it's not working well for beginners.

OccultKingdoms · Aug 28, 2024

Here is my experience with programming.

In other words, it's nothing but programming of people who think programming computers is more powerful than programming real, high throughput systems like factories. No, being a programmer is a shortsighted vision for life and not a long term path on its own.

A visionary, a strategist, a manager, a leader, a t-shaped person - all of them are long term positions. But they're real and not synthetic specializations.

Marketing of software companies plays a heavy role in making programming seem like an attractive job. It created a whole space of amateurish software that junior software developers are deemed to develop and provide fixes of 0-planning systems.

So called debugging and fixing software can happen before it's even built. There are tools to do that but as I said, really hard to find as most people in software don't plan forward and don't predict. I use spreadsheets and diagrams for now to write down consequences of implementations, but I'm sure a soft for that exists somewhere.

I would maybe consider something stable like Shopify or making own social network. Sounds interesting and powerful in terms of business, doesn't it.

https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/react-angela-vs-jquery.1595937/page-2#post-18047354

Bonvi · Aug 28, 2024

OccultKingdoms said:
You're not on a programming forum but business mixed with other.

Ditch this asap if you don't want to make huge regress as a human being. It doesn't work because it's been designed 70 years ago and soon will collapse.

I found major errors and flaws in computer programming. It has some strong, primitive assumptions.

Do offline engineering is my advice and that's what I'm doing since my realizations.

Sample issues of computer programming:

- Programming constrains creative thinking.
- Predefined tools limit innovation.
- Software developers follow set paths.
- Constraints may stifle original ideas.
- Screen-centric development narrows vision.
- Programming paradigms create mental blocks.
- Fixed systems discourage radical innovation.
- Constrained environments breed similar outcomes.
- Psychological impact: reduced cognitive flexibility.
- Programmers risk tunnel vision thinking.
- Screen dependence may limit creativity.

With more systems designer approach you can get:

- Open-ended approaches encourage unique solutions.
- Freedom fosters unexpected breakthroughs.
- Breaking molds sparks New solutions.
- Engineers cultivate adaptable problem-solving skills.
- Freedom breeds genuine problem-solving.
- Freedom nurtures confidence in ideas.
- Offline work encourages broader perspectives. offline Engineers imagine without boundaries. - Offline work stimulates divergent thinking
- Diverse tools inspire diverse thinking.
- Traditional engineering allows experimentation.

My friends got addicted to drugs. I lost them. I saw major fallacies of this industry and how it sets back you in life generally. It has this "1st industrial revolution - 1760" edge to it - you work 12 hours a day or you're not getting anything.

I noticed it requires a huge amount of resources and automation+ outsourcing of programming itself to be profitable. You can't tell humans to do it by themselves. Typical AI isn't enough. You need strong tools to do it. It's very hard to craft those tools.

Programmers manipulate themselves into thinking this job is a gem. It's only for team leaders and people who got c level entries. You can get into managing projects without any coding skills. Problem solving and systemic thinking is enough to be a good team leader of innovative projects.

Non innovative projects and engineering don't go well together. It's boring and wasting engineering/ systems design potential.

I mean, I am doing quite okay right now and I am really only limited by fiverr with its ups and downs. I live off of it since 2-3 years by now. And that's just simple web automations, scrapers and file cleaning tasks for 75% of my tasks.

So from my very own personal opinion, I disagree. But thanks for the input.

Bonvi · Aug 28, 2024

OccultKingdoms said:
Here's this alternative process.

1. Build based on clouds.
2. Solve real problems.
3. If something cannot be done quickly with big companies, it's most likely not economically worthwhile.
It's because big companies do large scale research finding big opportunities.
4. Cooperate with big companies. They employ millions of people and sell to billions. You can trust them and also help them become even bigger.
5. Find niches inside top 500 companies. Research tech companies.
6. Consider building on top of powerful things. For marketing that'd be building video using after effects automation, automated blogs using Claude+ corrections in few shot learning, then comparing info to facts.
7. Consider enterprise solutions like SAP, ERP.
8. Don't focus on programming languages but multiple instances for multiple people (orchestration and containers + apps on .iso images).
9. Use affiliate programs of companies for which you develop software. For Adobe there's a program but access is only for those who show keen interest in video production industry.
10. Analyze big image and potential failures in each step, then that gives solutions as seeing errors dissolves them.

Consider different industries that you like and found passion in. Build for those.

For example, instead of automating someone's social network, build your own and use cheap PPC / push / pop / video / email ads. Leverage global network of people instead of doing ultra targeting - it's not working well for beginners.

Actually good advice, even though I disagree with your first comment, I do like this one.

Maybe I should start scraping my own lists and then push my own products and services on them. Never occured to me honestly. And when it does, it keeps being pushed back quite quickly.

OccultKingdoms · Aug 28, 2024

Bonvi said:
And that's just simple web automations, scrapers and file cleaning tasks for 75% of my tasks.

That's one of the most lucrative general programming niches. It's a good match and use case but it's still not something I would find pleasant unless I was living an easy going life.

And it's not that hard.

But the trick is people are doing things such as unique apps, startups, saas for like $5 an hour cause they can't gauge the industry as it's a tricky one. Or they work on some crazy projects being desperate for a job which is pointless.

I'd resell readymade solutions for automation but I didn't find much potential in that unless I would be charging per unit used. Per account / profile. Nonethless, updates of that would need to be outsourced in my opinion.

Data collection is a marketing / business industry. Programming alone is coding UIs, clustering dependencies, writing sites and apps - a terrible job. If we add cloud on top of that, it becomes a little better.

I found free AI on AWS and on Google Colab. So I think it's not a bad thing.

Bonvi said:
Maybe I should start scraping my own lists and then push my own products and services on them. Never occured to me honestly. And when it does, it keeps being pushed back quite quickly.

Yeah. Automation + email collection on landing pages, then automated sales / sending offers via email are powerful ideas, but first you need to make all that stuff.

Which will require testing 10 niches and once you get stable conversions, push it to the limit.

Bonvi said:
I disagree with your first comment, I do like this one.

That was about my experience but that experience kicked me hard and told me that getting into hard things, is better done with a 20 year long vision.

All that stuff is real and it doesn't happen to everyone. If you get selfish boss etc, the experience is work, work and no rewards. So people tend to change their jobs frequently if they're programmers without any business edge.

I don't like programming for people as an idea because it doesn't create auto pilot income. I don't like working with informatics and having no informatics benefits. Automate all or nothing then that scaling can happen, but that's the hardest part to first find out how to automate everything.

Bonvi · Aug 28, 2024

OccultKingdoms said:
Yeah. Automation + email collection on landing pages, then automated sales / sending offers via email are powerful ideas, but first you need to make all that stuff.

I already have created crawlers like that, and I have created email automations before, ain't difficult. Just need to find out what I want to push and who to target now.

OccultKingdoms said:
I don't like programming for people as an idea because it doesn't create auto pilot income

I don't need to automate it, I am okay working it as long as I make money from it.

Learned Python, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Flask, and currently learning Django - How do I get into backend development as a freelancer without corporate?

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