Programmers afloat a business idea

[Davidhoy]

Have any of you tried using UpWork (http://www.upwork.com)? I have been quite successful so far finding side-work on this site, which I hope to evolve to the point that I can quit my day job and go off sailing.

-David

[Chipg]

Originally Posted by Davidhoy

Have any of you tried using UpWork (http://www.upwork.com)? I have been quite successful so far finding side-work on this site, which I hope to evolve to the point that I can quit my day job and go off sailing.

-David

Also take a look at Freelancer.com, I'm not a programmer but I have hired about 30+ developers from Freelancer.com over the years, If the developer speaks fluent english I'll always pay more for them than the cheapest bid from a guy in Inda with no english skils.

[ShipOfFools]

I am in the same boat so to speak! my background is in IT and ive just recently considered living aboard a boat to avoid the cost of a NYC apartment.

Originally Posted by tbodine88

Once I was living in the carribean. I built a data center for a company. A short time before the company went bankrupt, my wife met a guy at a restaurant who was the director of a government agency that needed a database upgrade. So when my old job ended I contracted with him to write their database app. I made a really good wage for a short time sitting on my boat in St Thomas harbour doing it.
Unfortunately since I knew no one else who needed such work,that was the only gig I got doing that.

So here is the idea. Myself and a few other floating programmers get together an pool money. Hire an agency to get us "remote" software writing gigs which we can do as we have internet connectivity.

My question how viable is such an idea?

Your input is appreciated.

[hellosailor]

SoF:
Given the paucity of liveaboard slips in the greater metropolitan area....and the expenses and time of transit into the city from them...even with our ridiculous rents, I think it would be a long shot for you to be "saving money" by living aboard a boat anywhere near NYC. Probably cheaper to find housing on the mainland and deal with whatever the two-state taxation is these days.
You're probably looking at something in Port Washington if not further out.

[john61ct]

Counter example, at least for a single liveaboard

https://m.ebay.com/itm/EXPERIENCE-AL...e/202300564863

[hellosailor]

The old World's Fair Marina has some limits. First, on the number of liveaboards and where they can be docked. Possibly five feet to the two eastern docks, half of that to the western docks. Then, there is the location. You are literally under the flight path from LGA, so there's the noise of jet traffic from about 6AM to midnight and later. And since it is under a flight path, when the jets are using full rich mixture...your decks will be coated with black soot in short order. NOT very pleasant. You're also next to the BQE/Whitestone expressway, with constant traffic noise. And, in the desolation outside the parking lots of Shea (excuse me, Citifield) Stadium. You don't want to walk alone there at night.
Yes, you can hike out to the Number 7 train on the far side of Shea. Or wait very patiently for a Northern Blvd. bus.
And car access becomes really complicated, since you are wedged into the strip between a highway and the mudflats. (Nice smell at low tide, too.)
On the bright side, sitting in the mud on the west docks you never have to clean the bottom, nothing much grows there!
Waterway Guide and Active Captain seem to indicate it is closed now (the status has changed in the past with various contractors) but also that there may be ferry service down to Wall Street now. I've no idea what's really current on that. If it is back under NYC control...dunno.
But...really? It is more like living behind a dumpster, next to a minefield. It isn't the worst place to stay...that would possibly be "the mudflats", a marina NE of it, across in College Point. In a desolate industrial section of what we used to call a "two fare zone".
Assuming they're still taking liveaboards, and that a new owner could legally remain on an existing boat...You're right, it might be done.
Note that the boat is currently inoperable, in a storage yard in NJ to boot. And the poster has a Colorado phone number.

[dpods]

I've always thought about something similar myself, although it's always been down the freelancer route, rather than starting/joining a development agency. Unfortunately I haven't done much freelance programming during my career so I wouldn't be able to bring in enough steady contract work to make it viable in the short term.

I'm sure if you've got a pretty good freelance business going and can handle the selling side of bringing in new business you could definitely make it work.

[ggutshal]

I've written software for well over 30 years. Currently I write back-end components for that big software firm, that everyone knows whose name starts with "M"... If you do get this spun up, let me know!

[arsenelupiga]

no it is not going to work.

reason is IT jobs are mostly fake jobs, so entice people in thinking that their job is important and take mortgages and this stimulates economy.

Taking such a job and not doing mortgage/spending part is 'leakage' and will never be supported.

sorry to pop your bubble.

i was expert in an area commanding very good pay rates. Indians came at lower rate working remotely with 0 skills trying to do same thing with 10 x more people. I offered to take pay of 1 indian minus 20% and been rejected.

you need more solid setup.

[zboss]

Originally Posted by arsenelupiga

no it is not going to work.



reason is IT jobs are mostly fake jobs, so entice people in thinking that their job is important and take mortgages and this stimulates economy.



Taking such a job and not doing mortgage/spending part is 'leakage' and will never be supported.



sorry to pop your bubble.



i was expert in an area commanding very good pay rates. Indians came at lower rate working remotely with 0 skills trying to do same thing with 10 x more people. I offered to take pay of 1 indian minus 20% and been rejected.



you need more solid setup.

I’m about to pop your bubble. IT jobs are definitely not fake jobs....

I build and manage IT tiger teams for my clients in fintech, health tech, and government and I will tell you that the reason more Americans don’t get hired for the jobs that the Indians get hired for is because they don’t interview well and they put restrictions around their employment, such as being unwilling to move to the job location.

Yes, price is a concern but that is more because of our staffing margins than it is because of the client.

There have been issues with offshore projects and there are a lot of reasons for this but in general, these issues are largely mitigated these days. Prices for Indian engineers, in India, have been rising and India is no longer considered the bargain it once was but what they do have is a very large and well educated workforce. I don’t really hire an Indian these days that doesn’t have at least two masters degrees or maybe a PhD. They speak multiple languages. The Americans we hire demand a lot more money for their education, which prices them out of the market.

Americans get hired for American jobs because their core skill set is an exact match, the timing is right, they interview well, and are flexible with their work place. I don’t know about you but I’m not a spring chicken anymore and I really don’t care to commute two hours each way, something indians regularly do.

So while it would be nice to believe that there is a specific reason why Americans have a tough time competing against foreign labor it’s because of a wide range of reasons, most of which are due to the Americans needs and wants. Seriously, what makes you believe that a person with a bachelors in civil engineering is only worth 55k a year and a guy with equivalent IT engineering experience is worth twice that? Supply and demand only. Now that business is taking a growing role away from IT is running systems, this is going to put additional downward pressure on salaries.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by arsenelupiga

no it is not going to work.

reason is IT jobs are mostly fake jobs, so entice people in thinking that their job is important and take mortgages and this stimulates economy.

Taking such a job and not doing mortgage/spending part is 'leakage' and will never be supported.

sorry to pop your bubble.

i was expert in an area commanding very good pay rates. Indians came at lower rate working remotely with 0 skills trying to do same thing with 10 x more people. I offered to take pay of 1 indian minus 20% and been rejected.

you need more solid setup.

Get laid off recently?

If you are getting paid for work then its real. Reality is not static.

I held a variety of these "fake" IT industry jobs for 20 years.

[nelly]

I like OP's idea.

How can we get a group together to brainstorm? Discord?

[ssmoot]

Originally Posted by arsenelupiga

i was expert in an area commanding very good pay rates. Indians came at lower rate working remotely with 0 skills trying to do same thing with 10 x more people. I offered to take pay of 1 indian minus 20% and been rejected.

Some career advice here. Maybe only worth the electrons used to view it, so take it for what it's worth but...

You might look into updating your skill-set. There are a lot of jobs (even telecommuting) in niche environments that are basically impossible to out-source.

Get into React, Clojure (and Clojurescript), Scala, Haskell, Kotlin basically anything in the Functional or Reactive Programming realm. All the action is happening on the JVM these days. Look into Akka, Spark. I would avoid anything .NET as the more corporate ecosystem is going to be more geared to butt-in-seat hours. I would avoid anything mobile as those are lower paying, very demanding jobs with boutique development shops running a dime a dozen competing for them.

The Functional and Reactive platforms are high-paying jobs that don't see much in the way of out-sourcing. Your reputation is your currency there. The easiest way to build that up is to contribute to open-source projects and build a solid Github profile. Do that, attend local user-groups when convenient, go to conferences a couple times a year to network and build connections.

If you're capable and determined, you *will* find work, and it will likely be in the low 6-figure range.

I would avoid Silicon Valley as well personally. Too much local competition willing to sacrifice too much. Look to New York, Chicago, Austin, Dallas, Portland. There are so many small businesses willing to pay if they feel like they can actually get what they need done.

The Github profile, user groups and conference networking is so so important though. That's your "in" in this corner of the market. The overseas developers you'll be competing against for jobs will be freelancers like yourself, used to American wages as well.

Basically just live on news.ycombinator.com for a few months and you'll get a good feel for what you need to be doing to get work in this field.

HTH.