How do I get into consulting / freelancing?

Not much. Work as an employee until you build out a network big enough to rely on to get contracting jobs. It's faster if you work in professional services or technical sales roles as an employee already.

The most "organic" way would be to get into consulting/freelancing after you start getting several proposals. You can get into it with no network, but you'll have to work your way until getting one: blogging, showing your work, cold emailing...

I plan to do the exact same thing next year. I don't have all the answers for you, but I would start by asking my LinkedIn network about any contracting jobs <6months and build a CV website. I assume you come from the Tech industry, but a lot can depend on what branch of IT. Developers can get their name out a lot easier than (DevSec)Ops people by contributing to OSS, so give that a try. But either way even a basic Udemy course on the subject can be helpful if you have no idea where to begin.

You do a lot of networking with people you want to work with. Then you talk about working together and figure it out. Lots of small companies or people with smaller budgets will say "oh crap, I wish I could hire you as an employee, but I can only afford a freelancer".

The description fits me perfectly except I am ahead of you. I quit almost a year ago and started consulting for a former employer just now.

I don’t have much advice to give though. It’s hard to get started and even when you do find a client it can take months before the paper work has been sorted if the client is a large (and slow) corporation.

Now I am making money again though after living on savings for almost a year, and I have a much better (more flexible) deal than when I was an employee there.

It sucks. Get ready to do lots of non technical stuff for running a business

By far the best way to operate is via in-network connections you already have. This could be former employers who were happy with your work as an employee, former colleagues at those jobs, people you know from your local university or tech community, even niche Discords / Slacks / forums, and so on: places where you are a known quantity and not a commodity, places where you are not competing with a million anonymous consultants on the Internet.

If you are on Upwork or some similar site, you are in a brutal Hunger Games deathmatch with many, many highly experienced people around the world, all racing to the bottom to be commodity service providers at the lowest possible cost. Avoid that if at all possible.

Devote specific time towards keeping your old connections alive, revitalize that network periodically in accordance with your local business customs and norms (the exact things you have to do to do this vary significantly by region.) That network is highly valuable to you as a consultant. That is the one place in the world where you are not merely a commodity.

Take time too to expand your network: attend conferences and technical meetups. Participate in them as a presenter as much as you can. Ask people in your network for introductions to others.

You will find the networking aspect takes up a tremendous amount of time if done properly. Many don't like this, which is fine; these people tend to go back to being an employee.

Finally, make sure you don't spend all of your income as you get it -- that is, save a significant amount of money to cover the low points in your sales cycle. Your income as a consultant is highly "lumpy," meaning you will receive a lot of money at some points, then no money at all for a long time. Make sure you've budgeted appropriately, and you have enough money in reserve to pay for the "no income" parts of the cycle.

Hope this helps.

I think Upwork is a terrible experience, but also, it's a pretty safe starting point.

It's where most potential clients are. You just need to undervalue your services a bit, bid low, get some good reviews. You do this for a month or two: over delivering, under charging.

Eventually, you get to a point where you have a very solid job history, and your profile stands out because of it.

At this point, you can charge a bit more.

Shameless plug: I made https://contractrates.fyi to help consultants/freelancers figure out how much too charge. It's like levels.fyi, but for freelancers. Also free - I tried monetizing it in the past and failed miserably. Now I just maintain it as a free resource.

There is also the route of Catalant, which is significantly more lucrative than say Upwork, but maybe has a little higher barrier to entry. I know several people though that make insane money on Catalant, because they are billing rates as if they are working for a big 4 consulting firm (~$800+ an hour). Expectations are higher though, and it's much less casual than Upwork. Clients overall are less annoying, in my experience, though.

To begin, you might want to check out UPWORK, as it's where most clients are, and you'll probably find your initial clients there.

Secondly, building a brand or online presence would go a long way. This is a slightly more challenging route, but it's also rewarding. For instance, if you have an open-source project, you could secure consulting projects based on your project. Blogging can also be beneficial.

Lastly, if you're just starting out, definitely start with UPWORK and gradually build your brand/online presence.

Previous thread that might provide value: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21189801

If you have to ask, it's not going to work out for you. The market is saturated with unemployed tech workers. Unless you have exceptional skills at rock bottom prices, there will be nothing anyone will pay you to do. Harsh reality of the current economic situation.

The best freelancing jobs I got were from my network. Mostly people who were contacted by someone for a gig and they referred my name.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Linkedin yet. It's been an essential tool for maintaining and expanding my professional network. I've also found that the occasional life update post gets me in front of a lot of potential clients. It gets shown to those in my network, and if they interact with it, those in their networks as well. To be fair, though, my life has been more "exciting" than most, recently, so your mileage may vary.

I have started and stopped freelancing a few times now, each time basically just starting from scratch again. What works for me in the beginning is casting a net far and wide. You can post in the freelancer thread here in the beginning of the month, join programming Slack channels / Discords, sign up for freelancing services that aren't bottom of the barrel, reach out to recruiters, find forums with people that need your expertise, etc. There are a lot more options I am leaving out, but you get the picture. Once you get a few good clients if they are happy with you they may refer you to people they know, who in turn will do the same. Next thing you know you've got more work to do than you can handle. If you like building apps, you could focus on something that requires some custom work to go along with it. You could also use an app to advertise your consulting services to the users.

Look at Codementor. The pay to do their typical "mentoring calls" isn't terrible, and it's not uncommon for mentoring to blossom into larger consulting gigs.

Upwork is of course terrible, but if you qualify as a US-based contractor, the rates are generally much higher on projects with the US-only filter.

Controversial take, but consider it: try to do some lower-paid gigs on Upwork. The key isn't the money you make, but jump-starting your momentum with positive reviews.

Post your information on the "Seeking Freelancer" monthly posts here on HN.

This is more long-tail, but setup your social media accounts and a blog/website. Make a concerted effort to post content in your specialities, and very importantly, don't discuss anything else.

I wrote this, maybe helpful.

https://typicalprogrammer.com/how-to-start-freelancing-and-g...

Free, no ads, popups, or other nonsense.

I have freelanced for over ten years.

Best advice I have is just to talk to lots of people. Reconnect with old friends, college classmates, old coworkers. Go out to lunch with them, invite them to an activity, whatever. At some point, mention what you're doing and the kind of work you're looking for. Then wait. After a while, one of your friends will message you and ask if it's ok to give someone your phone number/email that needs some work done.

You talk to them and usually sign the deal relatively quickly and easily without any competitors. Usually, for the type of client that reaches out to their network for a personal recommendation, that recommendation is 90% of the way to closing. These types of clients also are often less price sensitive.

[delayed]

Have you considered becoming a Solutions or Sales Engineer?

I switched from engineering management to freelancing/consulting and back to working for The Man as a Solutions Engineer. Honestly, it's all the upsides of consulting (getting to talk to people, solving technical problems, getting results quickly for people) with none of the downsides (chasing people down for money, finding new customers).

As long as customers are happy, my boss is happy. My autonomy is through the roof. There's no sprint planning/story point stuff like many other "normal" engineer jobs. If you're on the pre-sales route, you get to hang around salespeople (which I enjoy) and have no pressure to meet a quota like salespeople do. If I run into a particularly challenging technical issue beyond me, I can rope in an engineer from the engineering team to help if it's a big enough deal.

I wish I would have known about this route sooner. Now there's no way I'd go back to a normal engineering role