Freelancer dot com

[LiviuM]

Hello,

What's your experience with this site?

I've tried it several times and so I believe most projects are just scam, possibly money laundering.

Other projects are homework or job work for which the employer is just too lazy to do it, and so he goes to sleep why some other guy does it for him for less than 10% the so called employer is paid.

Recently I saw a request for a Fortran direct solver, linear, frames only, various load patterns, 3D, banded matrix, ...
It looked like homework or semester school project, the employer was offering about 50-250 AUD, and the winner was an Phd Indian univ. assistant for 110 AUD and 10 days of work.
The employer had cocky requests like: describe in one sentence why should I hire you.

In my humble opinion this work is more expensive than 110 AUD, e.g. I might do it for at least 1000 AUD.
The proper money would be like 2000 AUD, for which I might provide a simple GUI.

Given the experience required: file input structure, joint renumbering algorithm, load pattern calculation, Timoshenko beam, frame sections, materials, Gauss with partial pivoting, and output file structure including: joint displacements, reactions, frame forces... add also error checking and reporting.

I mean wow, you have to know some stuff to do it, engineering, math, programming, and common FEA algorithms for this.

Am I too expensive?


An engineer in let's say Western Europe makes about 2000-5000 Euro/month, or the same in GBP, or the same in $ if in US. (He knows & understands Fortran, finite element analysis algorithms, file storage and problem requirements, so he is a smart dude with knowledge)

Let's take 2000$/month, if working for 8h/day, 5days/week, about 170 h/month (average), that is: 2000/170=12$/hour

So projects like the above must be solved in 10 hours? Most likely in less like 5 hours, because you don't know if you get paid, you have to seek the next job....

Forgot to include taxes in all above.


There was another, something like: in at most 18 hours extract phone numbers from 2000 websites for 5 AUD. There were a lot of bidders.



So what do you think? and what alternatives are there for decent freelancer work?

Regards

[avscorreia]

I've looked into this site before and noticed the same problems as you did but, in reality, what kind of client posts a specialized work like civil engineeering in a site like this? Are you sure that you want to deal with a guy like this?

There will always be someone who outbids you in this globalized world. If you try to compete with them, you'll end up doing your specialized work for bread while some rich guy takes all the profits selling it for 20 times more.

Try to build a strong network of connections, go back to university to get additional training, and most of all, try to maintain strong personal relationships with your clients and always deliver more technical expertise than you were asked for in the first place. That's the only way to compete with a random guy from another part of the world who can get by with only a few bucks a month.

I work exclusively as a freelancer but I don't take this type of jobs. I have built a small network of connections while working for other companies and institutions for 10 years and I decided to fly solo as soon as I got a steady flow of projects. However, if someday I run out of projects, I can guarantee you that I'd rather leave the profession and set up a flower shop instead of being enslaved by these guys.

My 2 cents.