It has been a long journey to get here. I had a good time and got lots of experience in different areas I never thought I would have, but also faced challenges I never knew I would. All of this built my experience, I hope it may encourage you to try something new.

How the idea started

In 2019, my journey began while I was employed at a company, feeling dissatisfied with my financial situation as the paycheck barely covered my bills. It was during this time that I stumbled upon opportunities to work as a freelancer on various projects.

Intrigued by the possibility of supplementing my income, I decided to give it a shot. After my regular work hours, I dedicated additional time to freelancing from home, hoping to improve my financial standing and find greater fulfillment in my work.

The first platform I tried is the one I worked on until today, Upwork.

But it was not good in the beginning, I remember my first project paid me $50, and I spent hours and hours on it. The client does not even respond to my questions. The next few projects were not that different, I remember some days I could only sleep for something like 2 to 3 hours before work.

Then, one day a client asked for a larger project, and $500 was the budget for the project. I had to create all the codes to automate a procedure for him, all using Python and GDAL. I remember that I spent 2 to 3 months to finish this.

All these projects I had to do using a notebook with an i3 from 3rd generation, 4GB of only, and no SSD in the computer. It was a hard time. Only opening QGIS seems like I was an eternity, like watching a tortoise complete a Rubik's cube!

When I finished all these projects, I decided to buy my first computer with the money I earned. I remember how happy I was to be able to do this based on all the effort I spent.

So, a new question was raised to me, should I quit my job? In just three months of freelancing part-time, I earned more than a year at my full-time job. But working as a freelancer is uncertain, I may find work today, but not tomorrow. After some time thinking about it, I decided to quit and start my journey as a full-time freelancer.

The journey begins

In 2021, I took the plunge into full-time freelancing with just enough savings to sustain my lifestyle for six months. While specializing in Python for GIS posed limitations in job availability, the silver lining was the scarcity of experts in this niche field.

Embracing the challenge, I made a strategic decision to expand beyond my comfort zone and accept Python projects across various domains. This willingness to adapt marked the beginning of my freelancing journey.

Some projects I worked on in the first year:

• Building a website (not related to GIS), took me 1 year to finish.
• Automate procedures to process satellite datasets, convert this to information, and then, send the information in vector format to a PostGIS database. (one of the biggest)
• Small projects focused on solving code problems in Python with geopandas.
• Google Earth Engine code automation.
• Processing SAR (sentinel 1) images for different use cases.
• Tutoring for Master's degree project
• Python automation for AWS tasks.
• Among others

The first year was the most challenging one, and it was due to 2 main reasons: Experience and English.

Besides, I knew how to speak English, but I didn't have much experience. Working as a freelancer for people all around the world got me much experience.

About the experience, I had to deal with lots of different kinds of projects, as you can see in the above list. I learned a lot in this first year, working and learning at the same time.

How it has been?

One of the main benefits of working as a freelancer is being able to manage my own time. Right now, I can choose what time I start and what time I finish working per day.

Some things changed from the beginning, for example, I stopped working on projects that pay less than $50. The problem is, usually there is time to talk to clients, prepare for the job, understand all the ideas, to be able to do good work. These small projects usually are not worth, the time spent, so I focus on larger projects.

The projects changed also, with the experience I got, I started working on projects I didn't have experience with before, like:

• Applying deep learning models to satellite image
• WebGIS applications (you can check my own here)

Besides Upwork was my starting point, I tried others like "Freelancer", "Fiverr", "PeoplePerHour" and others, but Upwork works better for this specific area I work on (at least for me).

Some clients started to reach me on Linkedin also, two of them were my clients for long-term projects. It's another good option to find clients, but for me, they reached me after seeing my Upwork profile, so, if you would like to work only using Linkedin, it will need you to create a great network.

Conclusions

• Most of the time I had impostor syndrome at the beginning, but if I hadn't tried, I would never had the experience to work on it.
• Working as a freelancer changed my life for good, I would be stuck in a job that barely paid my bills. Even though I change my mind in the future and start to work in a company again, all the experiences I had will be forever with me.
• One thing I didn't mention, you will find amazing clients and bad clients. They are not measured based on the amount of money they pay you, but on how they treat you. Some of them will understand how you work and you can agree on the project previously. Others will try to extract all from you, ask for things that were not agreed upon before, and give you bad rates, and some will do all of this and not even pay for it. After some time, you start to know who is a good or a bad client previously. Always remember to only do what was agreed previously.
• As Spiderman said in the Miles Morales movie, "It's a leap of faith", you don't know if it's gonna work, I tried, and it worked, do your best, all the time.

DONE!! There was much more information, but it was getting too big.

If you like this kind of post and would like me to create more, consider supporting me by buying me a coffee. You can also reach me through the links on my website and see some of my projects on my Linktree.