How to do freelancing in Digital Design domain?

[er.akhilkumar]

Hi all,

I am a Digital Design Engineer and want to work as a freelancer in this domain. I tried to find such platforms for VLSI industry but not succedeed. Please help me with any such platforms.

 

[dpaul]

I am not a freelancer, what is given below are entirely my opinions (based on a few projects I did with freelancers).
I guess it depends on your location....you have not given us any info on that.
I am aware that in Europe there are paid membership websites in which projects for freelancers are published. There might be other platforms, but I do not know about them. Freelancers in Germany are almost always highly experienced with a lot of projects done in the past. Recommendation also works highly for freelancers.

 

[glennramalho]

I work as a contractor and I work for a company that offers contracting services. Then you go as a group. It makes it easier to find clients and also makes it easier to bounce off ideas when you have whom to ask.It also is very helpful to have a lot of experience, as a company that contracts they want someone to fill in a gap they have on a project because they do not have the expertise in that area. So It is important to come in offering what they might want, RTL design, synthesis, P&R, DfT, whatever it is. For example, in one company I was called to do verification, then a need came up to design a few RTL modules, and later synthesis in the same project. And keep a good network too as contracting often occurs because someone in the firm knows your friends and one recommended you.

 

[dick_freebird]

Step back and figure out what valuable service you can provide,
and what would make it so. "Work in VLSI" offers nothing in
particular, to make someone want to give you a PO.

Wanting to "freelance" means you have to find customers in
a field that's oversupplied with low grade / wannabe talent.
The goals in the bigger picture are high confidence in first
pass product release to production. What piece of that "lift"
can you convince anyone to bet their schedule, budget,
reputation of the company on?

The bigger the opportunity and exposure, the less a mature
company will be willing to place a bet on unknown, or known
to be "iffy", providers of services or products. Worked for a
not-that-small RFIC company which struggled for years to get
any business out of the cell phone market, because nobody
wants to hang a $B product rollout on a $M company's ability
to deliver the front end module's core part.

Now here you are, a $K skinny dude looking to jump into that
bodybuilder competition? Better find one that has weight classes.
Look to smaller outfits that happen to need just what you can
credibly offer, and keep looking because even there you have
innumerable "geographically undesirable" remote job seekers
to beat out by a combination of proven execution, salesmanship,
hunting / gathering skills and good fortune.

Stay away from freelancing sites unless you like being d!cked
around for chump change (with not-great odds of getting paid
as agreed, in the end). Put in a proposition at every ASIC shop
you can find, if you need to bulk up the CV. Start your own
company, skinny as possible, because companies do not like
to pay loose individuals on the regular and then deal with
tax questions about status; B2B, it's just a PO.