Embedded Freelancer Series: Only 30mins a day to change career trajectory (7/8)

Don’t have time to try freelancing? No problem.

What if I told you that you can kickstart your freelancing journey just by spending 30 mins a day?

Look, freelancing won’t be an overnight success story. Just like anything in this world, it takes time.

And to start the journey, you can start by just sharing what you know as an embedded engineer.

Take me for example, my freelancing journey was more like an accident. I had no intention of attracting clients on social media.

I just share what I know on LinkedIn, just an honest experience injected with some knowledge about embedded systems.

Little did I know, my action of posting short posts on LinkedIn has completely changed my career trajectory.

I thought I needed to be an absolute embedded expert to work on freelancing projects. I was wrong. I’ve generated thousands of $ from freelancing since then.

It’s a small tweak that leads to a big impact.

Now, if you don’t have much time now, that’s okay.

Well, that’s great actually.

Because at the beginning, you need to slowly increase your online presence so potential clients can find you. It requires time.

And at the same time, you’re too busy to even handle clients.

That’s why spending 30 mins a day building your online presence is perfect.

Because when later you do have time to handle freelance clients, you’ve already built your online reputation with clients lining up to use your service.

Here are the steps to build your online reputation 30 mins a day:

Step 1: Ask what you did well on your main job

Step 2: Share some insights or wisdom about that topic

Step 3: Monitor the feedback from your network. Which topics resonate best?

Step 4: Go deeper on those topics

Let’s say, you are an embedded AI engineer, who has good experience with deploying ML models for embedded systems.

You might want to share these topics:

• how do you deploy the models?
• What tools to use?
• What are some caveats in embedded AI?
• How to optimize memory and performance in MCU?
• How to train and tweak new AI model?
• Which models to use for use cases A, B, or C?

Now, because you are near those topics, you can easily write the post and publish them. See where they go, and check which posts sparked interest from the community.

I wouldn’t recommend you to post memes and funny stuff for the sake of posting. The point is to craft a post with a specific topic to target your potential clients.

Keep doing that, because that way you will increase your luck surface area. And remember, luck is when ability meets with opportunity.

Posting consistently is your way to increase the surface area.

Whenever you're ready, there are 2 ways I can help you:

1. Becoming Embedded Freelancer Book. Learn how to earn more money (even more than your main job) working on freelance projects using a proven path explained from an embedded engineer's point-of-view.

2. Firmware Development Workflow Guide. Upgrade your workflow to achieve efficient development, consistent code quality, robust firmware, and skyrocketed your productivity as an embedded engineer.