Something that really appeals to me is a life that is flexible. I love to travel and anytime I am too regimented in a schedule, I start to feel restless. It might be that the future is consequently laid out before me, like watching the same movie over, and over, and over. Either way, having supplemental income that can travel with me could be very conducive to a lifestyle that I want. Let’s see where we might start freelancing as an engineer.
I looked into a few of the top freelance sites: upwork.com, freelance.com, and fiverr.com to see what its all about. Lets take a look at some of the features of each site and consider some of the opportunities as an engineer. I am also keeping an open mind to see what other opportunities outside of engineering that are available. You never know when and where you will find the next idea!
Upwork
First up, Upwork.com. The general concept is you bid on a job and the lowest bid wins. The profile tiles look like this:
When you open the profile, you can see the number of jobs they have run, a rating, and the cost. In general, there appear to be many CAD requests and only a few true engineering requests. To start this, you can fill out a profile on Upwork which includes your skills, a picture and work description. You earn an overall rating based on existing jobs, so to get started you might have to take jobs on the cheap. Upwork takes 20% of whatever the client pays you. Woof! Steep.
Here is a link to all of the services they tend to offer: https://www.upwork.com/hire/
Freelancer
Freelancer.com works the same way. It may have more engineering options, see a snapshot of a few below. I selected a few categories I might be interested in. You can see how popular a job type is by the number to the right of the description.
It seems like there are a lot of postings that any engineer could find a skill set for. Anywhere from writing engineering articles to CAD design, to designing parts. This site cost $9.95/month and there is a free 1 month trial. Freelancer also requires you to post a profile with a picture. There are definitely a lot of sketchy posts that beg you to question the ethics behind it, which I guess is something you have to consider with freelancing. You might not know exactly what its being used for. This seems to be the case for all the sites so far. Nature of the beast.
Fiverr
Okay, so Fiverr is a little different than the others. The initial concept behind Fiverr was that the jobs only cost $5. Because this is soooo low, many people were providing very little for their $5 services and many said the prices were just too low to actually be of value. This restriction is currently lifted and the cost can be whatever they need to. However, when going through the site, there is still a unique culture where you pay less money for a portion of job (like 30 seconds of a song or Just an outline for a paper) The concept of charging less for a sample or a part of the work, is still an interesting way to get yourself out there with less risk. This site definitely caters more towards creative outlets, see below:
Believe it or not, some engineers have creative outlets! The cost for this site is based on sales, like Upwork. Fiverr also makes 20% on your sales.. You might be able to find something more like engineering in the design section or if you are a software engineer, you could easily find web based design work. For me, I saw more potential here as a test space for my music as an outlet. Maybe my next post!
Do you need an LLC to Freelance?
The short answer is no. However, a Limited Liability Corporation does what its name says. Removes the liability off of the individual and shifts it to a corporation. An LLC would protect your personal assets if you were to get sued, a legit business title makes your operation for attractive to prospective clients (if you have your ducks in a row enough to start an LLC, you probably have other things in order as well), and gives you an opportunity to include business write-offs in your taxes. An LLC would also make if very easy to expand your consulting business past a freelance. Its not something you need right away to get started on any of these sites.
It also seems that some clients might require you to have liability insurance. This is something that is good to have to protect yourself if any client were to sue you or if anything were to happen. As your business grows, these are some things to consider.
Take-Aways
I found it valuable to really look at the postings of wanted work on the sites. You can see what is in high demand if you wanted to develop a skill past engineering. You can get a lot of ideas perusing through the different topics. Some topics I found interesting were science writing, music writing, and graphic design work.
If you are looking for engineering specific work, it looks like CAD design is one of the bigger hitters. CAD work is also especially portable. The downside is that most CAD programs are expensive. PTC Creo Base Program is $2,200, Solid works is $3995. Definitely something to consider.