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Comment by hahla | Hacker News Reader

I hire freelancers frequently. I never ask them what their age is, I ask for their portfolio and what they are skilled in. Maybe you should look into contracting.

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At my age, being able to move around is limited and being able to stay in one place and work is preferred as it assists in keeping a more stable lifestyle which helps with foucs that tends todecay with age. Since contracting typically is for short terms, and requires frequent changes in job location, it's not as attractive as it would have been at an earlier stage in life.

Ideally, find a contracting role / freelance locally, but work remotely. Doing it "locally" will help build up your network and reputation and lead to more opportunities down the road. Maybe meet 1-2 times every 1/2 weeks and work remotely. More frequent communication should be limited to agile-like questions that come up and should be able to completed over email if you pick your clients well.

Needing to find clients towards the end of each project takes it's toll on the worry related centers of your mind and should ideally be avoided . This helps you maintain continuity with what you are doing and helps you with your output efficiency. The having to find a new contract every once in a while throws a spanner in this wrench.

I don't know where you live or what you do, but as a front-end dev in the UK, I get approached 2 or 3 times a week by recruiters offering me new contract roles (usually 3 - 6 months), just by having a linkedin profile with my work history.

That said, this also works for permanent jobs, so if you're struggling to find those then maybe you are out of luck.

What kind of freelancers do you usually look for?

That's honestly the question when it comes to this type of thing, there are so many different skillsets and not everyone can find contracts as easily as they'd hope; or it's not as reliable as they need for their life.

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