Ask HN: How does an old timer find contract work
Freelancer at 62 here, 40+ years programming and system admin experience. My opinions&#x2F;advice:<p>Word of mouth and professional connections work best. With your long career you must know a lot of people who run companies, or still work in the field. And they know people. Word of mouth and referrals remain the best way to get leads.<p>Freelancers should focus on <i>solving problems</i>. Employees get hired to <i>fill roles</i>. Freelancers don&#x27;t need a resume. They need demonstrated expertise that they can apply immediately to solving business problems. My approach comes down to getting the (potential) customer to list and describe their top five or ten pain points or needs, in priority order, then knocking those out for them. If you can deliver no one cares about your age or what you did before or where you went to school 50 years ago. Working remotely also helps, because you won&#x27;t get the &quot;not a good fit with our culture&quot; excuse (i.e. &quot;too old&quot;).<p>If you mean contracting like a temp employee that usually works more like an employee arrangement -- resume, interviews, etc.<p>You can work through an agency (disclaimer: 10X Management represents me). A good agency does the marketing, contracts, legal, invoicing, payment for you (for a cut). They can expose you to opportunities you would not otherwise know about.<p>Focus on your strongest skills, don&#x27;t try to do everything. For example I concentrate on relational databases&#x2F;SQL (core ideas and techniques almost unchanged since the 1980s), Linux system admin and cloud infrastructure (old hat to anyone who grew up with Unix), and web application development. I started freelancing by finding customers who had abandoned or broken projects (plenty of those, like 60% - 90% of all software projects) and offering to fix the problems. Debugging and maintenance pay just as well or more as green-fields development.<p>I have several articles about freelancing on my web site typicalprogrammer.com. No ads, sign-ups, pop-ups, or affiliate links. Good luck.