I was planning for a freelance developer life from my undergrad career. I started to learn basic HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, and JS. Built basic sites. Learn basic WordPress. But, after completing the educational side when I tried to start freelancing, I got a shock. This is hard and this is crowded. So, I had to make it as part-time work.
I joined in an office as thinking I am not ready for freelancing and need some specific niche skills. I am working for 1.5 years. I have learned Angular 2+ and developed application at the office. Now, I am on an intermediate skill position with Angular 2+. I continued to search freelance works at Upwork and Fiverr. But, these places are so crowded. When I see Angular works at Upwork, I see 20-50 proposals, When I post a gig on Fiverr, I get some impressions and then all go away.
There are so many WordPress works and high paid works are confined to specific technologies like React, Clickfunnels, Xamarian, etc. If I want to be a successful freelance frontend developer, what should I learn and add in my portfolio to get good jobs? Should I learn backend languages too like PHP?
Adding some responsive sites to the portfolio is not working and I am bit depressed for not getting good jobs on freelancing. Any suggestions will help me so much.
I’m not a freelancer, so I can’t speak with much authority here, but I would assume that full time freelance work via sites like fivver and Upwork is going to be pretty much impossible.
As I understand it, freelancing is about finding opportunities in real life.
The Freelancers podcast has talked about this at length, especially in the really early episodes if I recall correctly:
https://devchat.tv/freelancers/
Freelancing is as much about your skills as it is as getting and finding jobs. As you found out, there is a lot of competition when getting freelance work. So you will have to be able to “get” the jobs you can do, while at the same time expanding the jobs you can do. (if you really are planning on relying on freelance work) Ontop of all this, you will have to live off what your making, so low-balling to get jobs might not be sustainable or an option. (all depends on living expenses)
There are alternatives such as becoming a consultant and finding clients outside of freelance sites, since the market is very saturated. But doing this requires much more networking, and setting up your own method of gaining contacts, the same way a lawyer would, or similar other profession.
PS. I am also not a freelancer, but work for a consulting company. I have only lightly looked into freelancing and saw the same thing you mentioned. I personally would stick with a full-time job if you can, unless you have a strong network to get freelance gigs thru other means.
a freelance job is one where a person works for themselves, rather than for a company. While freelancers do take on contract work for companies and organizations, they are ultimately self-employed.