How do freelance web designers and web developers obtain work from agencies?

[Stephen89]

I've come across a few LinkedIn profiles in England, a university graduate among them. Went straight into freelancing after university.

Moreover, I've looked at their professional websites(you can type in their name and title on Google) which they state they work with agencies.

On another LinkedIn profile it states the individual works with agencies.

I'm not sure what they did to obtain freelance work and by what agencies.

Some of these individuals have been freelancing for well over 10-15 years now by their professional profile.

By agencies?

I ask this question as this is something I wish to do, however, I do not know how they exactly receive work, what they did to receive freelance work from agencies

 

[RoadKing_Rabbit]

Great question. I know I can't answer it. I don't know who on SS knows a good answer to it either.

Here's a question of my own. Did you reach out to these LIn profiles and ask them how they got started? It'd be a welcome break from those spammy crap messages that they likely get on a daily.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

Most of them have likely built up a client base over time and use common templates that they tweak based on what customers want so they can have them up and running quickly.

 

[HaleyBaron]

I've come across a few LinkedIn profiles in England, a university graduate among them. Went straight into freelancing after university.

Moreover, I've looked at their professional websites(you can type in their name and title on Google) which they state they work with agencies.

On another LinkedIn profile it states the individual works with agencies.

I'm not sure what they did to obtain freelance work and by what agencies.

Some of these individuals have been freelancing for well over 10-15 years now by their professional profile.

By agencies?

I ask this question as this is something I wish to do, however, I do not know how they exactly receive work, what they did to receive freelance work from agencies

A lot of hustling and a lot of clientele building. But the outsourced indians companies are spamming every company every day, making it tough for any start ups to get ahead. So at the moment, imagine companies like hot blonde girls with many thousands of indians messaging her every single day.

 

[ManlyMan]

Website design is not a good field to get into. I read somewhere the average pay was $8.00 per hour. As a website desinger not as a developer. But AI can make websites in minutes now

 

[nicksaiz65]

Website design is not a good field to get into. I read somewhere the average pay was $8.00 per hour. As a website desinger not as a developer. But AI can make websites in minutes now

Wow, it’s that low? I’m thinking that being just a well rounded full stack dev should be the best route. I’m doing software testing these days.

 

[Lauel]

Great question. I know I can't answer it. I don't know who on SS knows a good answer to it either.

Thanks I do.


So to reply @nicksaiz65. I am 22, and I started freelancing because the job market didn't accept me last year. I am AI/ML engineer btw, I work on anything I can, currently I am working on some other programming language. Sorry, I can't name it.
I started with Outlier, they paid me $13.5 per hour, which was more than enough for a Third World country where we are paid $4per hour on average. Anyway they kicked me out and didn't like my work (I hate working with Indians).
Then I joined Alignerr (you can get my referral if you want, but currently active projects are a bit low). Alignerr has been my home, and sincerely the best thing that ever happened to me ever.
I started with 20$ per hour, then 30 then 40 then 60 then 75. Again, mind you this all might seem less in your terms but I am from a poor country in general, and 2 dollars here enough to get one time's meal.
Then I worked at 90 for few months, it was with a client whose AI you probably use every day. Then another client we are working with now is a giant too.
Regardless, websites like Alignerr and Mercor are considered gold standard, outlier is stuffed with scammy Indians and what not, extremely full of surveillance too.
Client is handled by these platforms themselves, and not our concern in any manner. We are workers, we are paid, we ship with respect and dedication. Client is happy, contractor is happy and worker is happy.
Please don't try to find out, or excavate or stalk me on any PIIs. My anonymity means a lot to me.

 

[Lauel]

Wow, it’s that low? I’m thinking that being just a well rounded full stack dev should be the best route. I’m doing software testing these days.

Go AI if you can. The bubble won't burst for at least a few years. If AI is too mainstream for you, go something very specific and irreplaceable like Management, devops, or backend, which for sometime or half a decade won't be handed over to AI.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

Website design is not a good field to get into. I read somewhere the average pay was $8.00 per hour. As a website desinger not as a developer. But AI can make websites in minutes now

For simple websites that are just landing pages, etc, sure, that's easy enough to do with AI.

For something like e-commerce or a site where you are gathering customer data or selling stuff, definitely not something you want to be using AI for unless you want that data to be hacked easily.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

Go AI if you can. The bubble won't burst for at least a few years. If AI is too mainstream for you, go something very specific and irreplaceable like Management, devops, or backend, which for sometime or half a decade won't be handed over to AI.

The people at greatest risk are the ones who:

A) Have no fundamental software knowledge and no way to judge what the AI is providing to them

B) People who are quality engineers not using AI

The first group because AI simply multiplies what you are. If you are a poor software engineer, AI allows you to put out garbage at 10x the speed.

The second group because they have the capabilities to use it properly, but they will be replaced by other quality engineers who use it and are 10x more productive than them by using AI as an assistant to help them, while still maintaining oversight.

 

[Lauel]

The people at greatest risk are the ones who:

A) Have no fundamental software knowledge and no way to judge what the AI is providing to them

B) People who are quality engineers not using AI

The first group because AI simply multiplies what you are. If you are a poor software engineer, AI allows you to put out garbage at 10x the speed.

The second group because they have the capabilities to use it properly, but they will be replaced by other quality engineers who use it and are 10x more productive than them by using AI as an assistant to help them, while still maintaining oversight.

Honestly we all will be replaced, that is the dead serious goal of this system and AI in specific.
If I go deeper on this you might ban me for conspiracy theory/anti-semitism, but regardless this whole AI conversation started in 70s funded and led by some very specific people. The conversation was seriously dead by 2000s, until it came back up in 2005s because now we had Python, some research had already materialized and a better compute. Most ML developments were lead till 2012, beyond which it slowly started forming into the bigger AI world.
Starting with cameras, text detection, photo detection, number plate detection etc. were usually the earliest purposes. Then, when the transformers model was given birth to in the tech giant like Google, it was clear what was going to happen.
The major problem with it is that without AI you have these human resources which can't be replaced, are hard to exploit, and in some way force this wealth transfer from elite to poor/non-rich. With this comes a danger that anyone of these can become an elite or someone harming you financial institution, so what if you have an emotionless human-replacing entity which is owned by companies you own, runs on resources your company produces, and the whole system remains within your reach, well that's AI.

All groups A, B and C will be replaced in with A earliest and D would be the normal human existing.

 

[FlexpertHamilton]

Forget agencies. You can do this yourself by essentially cold calling. One way to do this is look for local businesses on Google maps that have poor web presence (no website/bad website, no google my business, no social media, no reviews, etc) and offer some initial services for free and go on to establish a long term contract/partnership with them to maintain their website, hosting, IT security, etc. Over time you can build a reputation and client base. Most likely you would be working with local, small businesses; medium/large companies will almost certainly do all of this in-house or from charlatans from whatever useless agency they are partnered with.

Doing something like this at an agency as an employee (whether its contract or salaried) sounds retarded to me. There's zero reason not to just do it yourself. You might not make much but you have total control and it's almost pure profit instead of what I assume is either commission based or a crappy wage if working for an "agency". The problem is that you cannot be both the salesman and the web guy. Majority of companies, even small ones, have seperate roles for this. So either you work off commission and don't get to employ and grow your skills, or you make what I assume is probably a crappy wage/salary with no revenue-sharing while making the heads of your "agency" more rich.