I’ve been in data for 10 years now and freelancing for the last 3. Every other month or so, I do a coffee chat with someone interested in learning more about the freelance data lifestyle.
Here I’ve compiled the three most common questions I get from these chats and hope they can offer some help to other freelance-curious data folks:
Why freelance?
How do you find clients?
What do you do for health insurance?
Why freelance?
Flexibility in work hours
One of the most significant advantages of freelancing is the flexibility it offers in terms of work hours. I like to take slow mornings, so if I want to start my work day at 10am I do so. If a friend is in town unexpectedly and wants to hang, I take the day off.
Overall, I generally work a lot less. On average, I work about 20 hours a week.
I work from home almost every day, though if a client is based in NYC, I’ll go in about once a week as needed. Freelancing affords you this flexibility in work location as well. This is increasingly more valuable considering how many companies are starting to mandate in-office work again.
There are certainly full time jobs out there that give you this kind of flexibility (looking at you, software engineers). However, there’s still this unspoken expectation that you should be “available” from 9-5, 5 days a week, so it’s never quite the same freedom you get from freelancing.
Analytics engineering work is better suited for contract
The classic project for an analytics engineer is standing up some version of the “modern data stack” e.g. Snowflake, dbt, Fivetran, Looker. With some experience, these tools are easy to set up; I had a subcontractor working with me on a client who did this for their very first time and was able to get it working in less than a month.
These tools have emerged as a common standard, which means that it’s easy to hand off to a full time person once you’ve finished setting it up. Not only will they likely have had past experience using these tools, but there’s tons of resources online. All this to say that the classic “modern data stack” work is a great value contract opportunity for a client; they get a mostly self-serve solution at a fraction of a full time person’s salary.
As a freelancer you also get the opportunity to implement data stacks at diverse companies. I’ve had the chance to work with clients in finance, healthcare, e-commerce, and more. This exposure to different industries not only keeps the work exciting but also broadens your skill set, making you a more versatile professional.
Higher earning potential
I can earn $20K in freelance income in a good month. This year I will make more than I ever have before.
I was an early adopter of dbt (circa 2018) and have deep experience scaling Looker at large organizations. Given how new some of these tools are, it’s difficult to find someone who has my depth of experience and is open to work. This allows me to demand pretty high rates, historically between $150-$300 an hour.
The highest full time salary I’ve seen advertised for an analytics engineer is ~$200K. No doubt this is high, but it clearly pales to the market rate you can get as a consultant.
Additionally, you have the freedom to take on multiple clients simultaneously; I typically have between 2-3 concurrent clients going at one time.
How do you find clients?
This all sounds too good to be true; but of course, for this to work, you need to be able to find clients. Almost all my business comes from referral from past colleagues.
For instance, the most recent client I worked with started when I ran into an old Spotify colleague at the farmer’s market (so cute I know). We got to catching up and he told me his new company was looking for exactly my skill set. After a brief interview with the CEO, I started a few weeks later and ended up contracting with them for a year working on their dbt and Looker setup.
A small portion of my business comes from people reading a blog post I wrote and reaching out. In fact I got connected to my very first client via this Looker v Tableau post I wrote. A Looker account manager used that post in their sales motion with a prospect and reached out via my Looker account manager at the time whether I’d be willing to help them co-sell Looker to their prospect. I chatted with them and a few months later when I was standing up my freelance business, they were my first email and first successful close.
I attend almost every data meetup in NYC I hear about, mostly dbt meetups and Ethan Aaron’s low-key data happy hour. I’ve gone to enough of these where I can expect to see old friends who I look forward to catching up with. Also, I can never say no to free drinks and food; after all, I’m self employed, so I have to make my own benefits. These don’t immediately convert to new business, but it’s still a good way to get your name out there.
It sounds corny, but at the end of the day it’s all about nurturing your network. I talk to a lot of people who are enticed by the idea of freelance, and I always ask them this simple question:
Are you willing to do a 30 minute networking chat about data with a different person every day for the next year?
If your immediate response is “oh god that is my literal nightmare I’d rather die”, then consulting may not be the right career path for you.
As a freelancer, it’s important to remember that the time you save in actual work needs to be invested back into nurturing your network. That means setting aside the time to reconnect with old colleagues, write blog posts, and find meetups and conferences where you can meet new people.
What do you do for health insurance?
Purchasing your own health insurance sounds scary, but it’s honestly not that bad. Each state runs its own “marketplace” to purchase health insurance. I live in NY so I use https://nystateofhealth.ny.gov/.
The flow to sign up is pretty terrible, but once you give it a bunch of information it shows you available plans as well as if you’re eligible for subsidies (this is based on your income in the past tax year). It’s basically “open enrollment” at a full time job, but with a bad sign up experience and worse plan options.
Personally, I’m on the Oscar Bronze because they are the cheapest insurance that covers One Medical (my primary care provider). I’d value my insurance (factoring in monthly premiums and deductible) at ~$10K a year; expensive, but not enough to make paid health insurance an enticing enough benefit to go back to full time.
To be clear, I’m unmarried, have no dependents, and am generally healthy so I don’t have any recurring medical expenses; the value of employer paid health insurance can be much more attractive depending on your situation.
Besides health insurance, there are lots of other logistics you have to manage as a self-employed individual. Here’s a partial list of tools I use to manage my business:
Bookkeeping - Freshbooks
Accountant - Sargent CPAs
Banking - Chase Business
Payments - Found
Small business lawyer (e.g. for drafting contracts) - Fletcher Law
Business insurance - Next
Conclusion
Freelancing as an analytics engineer offers a host of advantages over seeking a traditional full-time role. From flexible work hours and diverse project opportunities to increased earning potential and enhanced job satisfaction, freelancing empowers you to take control of your career and lifestyle.
That being said, this is all contingent on your ability to find clients. This will require you to go above and beyond when it comes to networking, especially when you’re first getting started. If that doesn’t sound fun to you then freelancing may not be a good fit.
While it may come with its own set of challenges, the freedom and autonomy it provides make it a compelling option for those looking to thrive in the dynamic field of analytics engineering. So, if you're ready to embrace a more flexible lifestyle, freelancing could be that long-awaited next step in your career that you deserve.
Thanks to Tim Finkel for reviewing; he’s also an excellent freelance analytics engineer that you should check out.
Also hat tip to Ethan Rosenthal’s Doing Freelance Data Science Consulting in 2019, which is what inspired me to freelance in the first place.