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Imagine being able to get up unhurried in the morning, drink your coffee and enjoy a fine view somewhere new. The ideal balance between work and life is achievable through freelancing. In this article we work out what a freelancer is, what income to expect, what it takes to become one, and which tech professions suit this way of working.

What is a freelancer?

A freelancer is an independent specialist who works for themselves, chooses their projects and sets their own terms. Unlike office employees, freelancers are not tied to a place of work and can organise their own day. More and more people choose this arrangement, particularly in tech, where flexibility, remote work and good pay make freelancing the most attractive option of all.

What a freelancer earns depends on their professionalism, their experience, the niche they chose and the volume of work. People starting out can earn $500 to $1,500 a month, while experienced professionals earn from $3,000 to $10,000 and beyond. Rates in tech are often higher, thanks to strong demand for specialists and to the difficulty of the technical work. It is worth noting that a freelancer's income is unstable, particularly at the start of a career, and requires constantly finding new clients and new work.

How do you become a freelancer?

Switching to this arrangement requires no special knowledge beyond the field you consider yourself an expert in and intend to work in. The transition itself is fairly simple and comparatively quick. Here are the steps that will move you towards freelancing:

Settle on your specialism. If you already have skills in a particular area — design, copywriting, programming — start by building a portfolio. Even small projects and personal work will show your potential.
Keep learning and raising your qualifications. Studying new technology and trends regularly is essential to staying competitive. Online courses, webinars and professional communities will keep you current.
Build an online profile. Register on the popular freelance platforms. Describe your skills, list your projects and add client testimonials.
Build connections. Networking and taking part in professional groups will help you find your first clients and earn recommendations.
Manage your finances. Do not forget budgeting, taxes and financial planning, so as to keep your income steady.

What matters most in all of it is understanding whether the arrangement suits you: whether you have the skills and the self-discipline, and whether you have experience dealing with clients. If you are settled on the decision and do not want to wait another day, simply act.

Office work vs freelancing

It sometimes feels as though this debate will never end. Both arrangements have their opponents and their advocates. But you will not go wrong following your own instincts and needs. Let's compare the two so that you have no doubts about your choice.

Office work

Advantages:

Stability and social protection — office work usually means a fixed salary, paid holiday and sick leave, pension contributions and other benefits.
Structure and support — responsibilities are clearly divided, and there are managers and colleagues ready to help with hard problems, while regular meetings and training can support professional growth.
Social interaction — face-to-face contact with colleagues strengthens a team, encourages the exchange of experience and helps new employees settle in quickly.

Drawbacks:

Limited flexibility — fixed hours and the need to be in the office can cut into the personal time you have for hobbies and everyday tasks.
Commuting — daily travel to an office costs time and money and can leave you tired and less productive.
Corporate constraints — a rigid structure and company rules can get in the way of creativity and independence, and bureaucracy will certainly slow decisions down.
Separating work and life — the office format sometimes makes it harder to switch off after the working day, which can lead to burnout and general dissatisfaction.

Freelancing

Advantages:

Flexibility and freedom — freelancing lets you set your own hours and choose your projects, which makes it easier to fit work around your personal life or other commitments, and to choose where you work from.
Choosing your projects and clients — you decide which commissions to accept, which lets you work on what interests you most and what pays best, both financially and in terms of the experience it gives you.
Potentially high income — built well, a freelance career can pay more than employment, particularly once you are an expert in your niche and working with large clients.

Drawbacks:

Unstable income — freelancers meet periods when work is thin or absent entirely, which makes income unpredictable.
No social protection — unlike office work, freelancing brings no paid holiday, sick leave or other benefits, so insurance and retirement savings are your own responsibility.
A sense of isolation — working alone can feel socially isolating, since there is no regular interaction with colleagues and no team atmosphere.
Administration — a freelancer has to handle their own accounts, taxes and search for new clients, which takes time away from the professional work itself.

Freelance directions and the popular tech ones

A great many fields offer freelance work. Beyond tech, these are in demand:

Copywriting and content marketing: writers, editors, SEO copy specialists
Design: graphic designers, illustrators, branding specialists
Marketing and social media: digital marketing experts, social media managers
Administrative support: virtual assistants, project managers

But in recent years choosing a tech direction has become particularly worthwhile, thanks to the pay, the constant demand for specialists and the room to grow professionally.

The main tech freelance professions

Tester (QA engineer) — checks software systematically, finds defects and bugs and writes detailed reports for developers. They can test web services or mobile applications, keeping the quality of the finished product high. A freelance QA engineer in the USA earns $25 to $70 an hour.

Developer — writes and maintains code for web applications, mobile programs and other software products. They not only build new features but optimise existing code, improving an application's performance and security. Depending on the specialism, the technology and the experience, a freelance developer's rate can reach $40 to $150 an hour.

DevOps engineer — responsible for automating development, testing and deployment, which makes continuous integration and uninterrupted operation possible. They build and adopt tooling that improves how the work runs and resolve infrastructure problems as they arise. In the USA the rate runs from $50 to $140 an hour.

Cybersecurity specialist — protects information systems against attack, runs security audits, analyses vulnerabilities and develops the measures that close them. They often take part in assessing risk on large projects and help companies minimise threats. The hourly rate in the USA is usually $50 to $150.

Web designer — builds the visual presentation of sites and web applications, attending to aesthetics and to usability alike. They produce design mockups, work out the structure of an interface and how a user interacts with the product. Thanks to the creative approach and the ability to turn ideas into something visually appealing, a web designer's rate can range from $30 to $100 an hour.

iOS developer — specialises in building mobile applications for iOS devices. They use Swift and Objective-C to build functional, convenient, high-performance applications suited to Apple's ecosystem. In the USA such specialists earn $50 to $150 an hour, which makes them sought after on the international mobile development market.

Machine learning engineer — freelances by building algorithms and models for analysing large datasets and bringing artificial intelligence into business processes. The work covers both research and the practical delivery of projects involving prediction, classification and optimisation. In the USA the rate can reach $60 to $180 an hour, which reflects how specialised and how sought-after the field is.

If you are tired of the office, the endless flow of tasks and the burnout that comes and goes, and want to change how you work and stop living for work alone, the best road into freelancing is tech. You can learn every specialism above from scratch at PASV and start a career now. Our team will advise you on which profession to choose and what steps to take to become a tech freelancer in the USA.