this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2026
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no, that most probably won’t work.
Being a freelance software engineer myself for four years I can only advise against persuing a career as freelance developer at this point.
The market is fucked up, it’s nearly impossible to get new gigs and LLMs are a big part of the reason why. Also they give companies a weapon to negotiate lower rates. There’s a special place in hell for these people.
Unsolicited advise incoming: Do you have any relevant work experience or are you even an employee? Of so: Great! Hold on to your job to as long as possible or get one.
And join a union!
how to get a job? * no degree, only some projects, what would you recommend?
In my experience software employers don't really care about degrees. If you can code well that's all you really need. If you have no previous employers you might need some personal projects to demonstrate that skill though.
(At least that's how it was before AI. I have no idea now... By all accounts entry level is fucked.)
applying to jobs, learning in the meantime
I don't have a job and I have been trying to find one for like 2y now. The job market here in my country (Canada) is so messed up thanks to the government and it doesn't seem to be getting any better. Thanks to the government for flooding the job market with way too many immigrants from the 3rd world who are happy to work like slaves for less than the regular minimum wage, subsidizing up to like 30% of their wages, intentionally not punishing the businesses for fraudulently selling LMIA's (which is illegal) for very high prices, and also allowing them to make a whole lot of money from giving the immigrants a whole lot of PR's! And the government keeps bringing them in for votes.
I have tried getting a job at places like McDonald's, Tim Hortons, Bar Burrito, the local grocery stores, bakery shops, .etc, but with no success. The people who work at these places are mostly immigrants from the 3rd world.
And yes, I have also tried asking my friends if their company is hiring, but that didn't work out, thanks to the government for destroying the economy as well.
Don't have anything against the immigrants themselves, it's just the bad government policies and greedy companies.
As your southern neighbor, in skilled fields, the last thing you want is companies to outsource their skilled labor to other countries instead of bringing immigrants to your country to work there since they can create jobs, and if their position becomes vacant again, it's still in your country. In unskilled jobs, when you decide to kick them out of your country, you're left with a lot of vacant jobs that nobody wants to take.
The real issue is rampant exploitation of immigrants. With fair wages, you actually favor non-immigrants because of the additional costs associated with relocating someone from another country. When you're unfairly exploiting them, the upfront cost becomes less relevant.
Anyway, I agree that getting into freelancing is going to be a nightmare. Trying to convince skilled devs that LLMs generate garbage in bulk is already difficult enough. Doing that to a non-dev manager is practically impossible.
what projecst would you reccomend to stand out for a non cs degree guy, living in the u.s ?
Work on open source projects, especially those that people use. Show that you can take user feedback and turn it into features. Show that you can work with others as a team on a large project.
Those will look the best.
Harsh truth, if you can't get a job in the food or service industry, there is likely a real problem that is also going to make it very difficult to make it as a freelancer. You are basically asking if it is possible to start a business and be successful. Generically, yes, people do that all the time. Can you do it? That is less likely.
That xenophobia is huge red flag that the problem is more you than anything else.