I know what you’re thinking, freelancing? If no one would hire me for a job, why would anyone hire me as a freelancer? What’s so special about freelancing anyway? Isn’t it just working for a company except without the W-2, benefits, and job security? Wouldn’t I be better off sticking with the job hunt for a while? Allow me to introduce freelancing and the ‘Gig’! They’re desperately looking for anyone to solve their problems and they will happily pay for your help.Īll you have to do is find them. Believe it or not, employers like this are out there right now.

Luckily, in the programming world, there is a solution to this puzzle.Īll you have to do is find employers who are willing to hire programmers who have a little less experience. You need a job to get experience and you need experience to get a job… It’s the age old paradox. When we ask employers why they didn’t want to hire someone without much past experience, we usually hear the same thing, “we’re looking for someone experienced”. New grads and people without much past experience have a really hard time getting jobs. Having been one of the founding engineers at a tech recruiting company where I worked on data-science, I’ve had the opportunity to see actual numbers and the picture can be pretty glum. He had spent hours poring over job boards, sending out cover letters, and had heard back from exactly zero companies.

The other day, a friend who was getting ready to graduate from college asked me for advice on how to get a developer job.

Not only is it a great way to learn a lot of different coding skills really quickly, it’s also a lot of fun! The paradox: you need a job to get experience but you need experience to get a job… I got into Silicon Valley’s tech scene through the back door - by building my career with simple, quick freelance gigs.

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