Consulting work

[subolg123]

I often get asked if I know someone who is available to do consulting work for a funded project. Most of my Engineering friends are either engaged with work or unqualified for the task. Since the world is flat and us EE's have broadband, multimeters, scopes and soldering irons, we can be located anywhere on planet earth (including Australia and most of Canada) never needing to change into street clothes or brush our teeth to make money. Is there a place on this forum where I can post my client's requirements? I am already flush with work so I won't take on any more than I can handle.  Dave, Simon can we start a new "opportunities" category so we sustain our livelihood and pay it forward with consulting opportunities in our "community"? If you create a new category, I will post and possibly others will as well. Does this jive with the Blog's mission?

[nctnico]

A market place section would be cool. But you can PM me with your customer's requirements 

[KJDS]

Put me down for high power or low noise RF amps, switches and filters

[AndyC_772]

Not a bad idea at all. Perhaps it would also be interesting to have an expanded profile available to those of us who do this for a living, which would give us somewhere to list skills, experience and specialist areas of expertise? Maybe a different coloured user ID or similar identifier as well?

Potential customers would then have a way to spot who is available to take on commercial work, plus a way to pick who is most likely to have the relevant skills for a particular job.

I'd be prepared to pay for such a feature, provided it turned out to be commercially beneficial, of course. Maybe subscribe for a year and see if anything worthwhile comes in?

[dannyf]

Depending on how you want it done and what "value-add" you see yourself providing.

The issue from hiring consultants from a website, from the employer's perspective, is unknown quality of such consultants. In this case, "buy IBM" will dominate and you will unlikely take off.

A better arrangement I think is for someone to provide 1) screening of quality consultants; and 2) assurance of service / product delivery. 2) gets the customers to bite and 1) makes sure that whoever assigned to the job is capable of it. For that, you take a cut of the fees charged to the customer. You also take the risk of bearing the costs of re-assigning the project at your expense to somebody else.

Here, the ebay model would be handy: you pay the consultants only after the project has been satisfactorily signed off by the customer.

If done right, it can be a tremendous opportunity - an ebay for outsourced services. If you can replace a $200K/yr programmer here with a $20K/yr programmer in India, or a $50K programmer in Slovenia, you have given yourself a slice into a $180K or $150K pie.

[Richard Head]

Dannyf
That sort of thing exist already in the form of elance and similar websites. You basically compete against each other and the lowest bidder usually gets the job.
The result is that engineers in the developed countries get way undercut by the likes of India, Pakistan, Thailand etc. It's a waste of time for American or European consultants unless they want to work for peanuts.

[AndyC_772]

I'm inclined to agree - and besides, the only competent judge of whether or not a consultant does a good job is a previous customer.

I'm always happy to provide potential new customers with references.

[dannyf]

It's a waste of time for American or European consultants

The way I looked at it, if a train is coming at you, you either take advantage of it or risk being run over by it. Not playing is not an option.

[jaxbird]

In my experience customers want to have face to face time with their consultants on a regular basis, or at least with some representative of the consultant.

And if you work with larger companies they will demand that you have a liability insurance, that usually amounts to about US$ 5K/year, plus a shit load of paper work. Will be a show stopper for most self employed consultants.

[KJDS]

It's a waste of time for American or European consultants

The way I looked at it, if a train is coming at you, you either take advantage of it or risk being run over by it. Not playing is not an option.

There's plenty of decent work out there provided you have the right skillset. There aren't many RF engineers in the world, and even fewer good ones, and it's a tiny minority of those that will go near high power amplifiers. There are probably only a handful in the UK have have their own lab with enough test gear to properly sort out a design. I'll stick to what I'm good at and charging good money for it, rather than spending time chasing scraps and potentially missing out on the good stuff.

[nctnico]

It's a waste of time for American or European consultants

The way I looked at it, if a train is coming at you, you either take advantage of it or risk being run over by it. Not playing is not an option.

There's plenty of decent work out there provided you have the right skillset.

I fully agree. The first rule of doing business as a consultant is not to compete on price. If you are good at what you are doing you'll always have satisfied customers. Don't worry about the Chinese or Indians. Language barriers and different views on deadlines and quality can turn cheap into a lemon quickly. Having a website with past projects and a LinkedIn profile helps a lot to show off your abilities.

[VK3DRB]

Dannyf
That sort of thing exist already in the form of elance and similar websites. You basically compete against each other and the lowest bidder usually gets the job.
The result is that engineers in the developed countries get way undercut by the likes of India, Pakistan, Thailand etc. It's a waste of time for American or European consultants unless they want to work for peanuts.

Correct, Dick. But true too is often the quality of work from third world countries is crap, especially in software. Not always, but usually.

[AndyC_772]

And if you work with larger companies they will demand that you have a liability insurance, that usually amounts to about US$ 5K/year, plus a shit load of paper work. Will be a show stopper for most self employed consultants.

Maybe it varies a lot between countries (where are you?), but that's the sort of rate I've been quoted for work specifically within high risk industries, or from insurers who really don't want my business. It's well worth shopping around.

[dannyf]

In my experience customers want to have face to face time with their consultants on a regular basis,

That's your value-add: you are here and the $50K/yr programmer from India isn't. But he has a significant cost advantage. So the combination (of you doing the marketing and him doing the actual work) has tremendous value.

It will happen, sooner or later. It is better that it happens with you taking advantage of it, not it taking advantage of you.

[miguelvp]

In my experience customers want to have face to face time with their consultants on a regular basis,

That's your value-add: you are here and the $50K/yr programmer from India isn't. But he has a significant cost advantage. So the combination (of you doing the marketing and him doing the actual work) has tremendous value.

It will happen, sooner or later. It is better that it happens with you taking advantage of it, not it taking advantage of you.

Has happened and he was promptly fired, well not too promptly since he pulled it off for a long time:
http://www.slashgear.com/developer-fired-for-outsourcing-job-to-china-16265513/

Although there might be others out there doing the same???

[Clear as mud]

I'm looking for some work.  Just basic, bare-bones PCB design.  I'm in the USA.

Last year, I got fired from a good job - actually it wasn't that good since I was no longer interested in working there anyway. Then I decided to go into business for myself.  My girlfriend wanted to work with me, and she wanted to do electronics work, so I agreed, although I stressed that this would be a really hard way to earn any money.  I focused too much on the little development boards that she was designing so that we would at least have something for sale.  I focused too much on getting stuff done on the house (I can't believe I spent a more than a month of full-time work just installing a new furnace and new ducts and insulation in my attic).  And I focused too much on projects with no immediate payoff, like re-organizing Kicad's parts libraries and designing/building equipment that we intend to use for PCB manufacture.  So now I have NO money left, and really could use anything that comes my way.

A couple of weeks ago, a man from the Netherlands posted in the Buy/Sell/Wanted section about being willing to pay 1000 euros for 100 boards, a simple little USB button project that was similar to things that my girlfriend and I had been working on.  I didn't see it for a couple of days, so someone else got the job before I replied.  But, that did inspire me and my girlfriend to get our act together and figure out the software side of things, so that now we have a PIC development board with a USB port that we know actually works.  And, that means we now have two different products available for sale, so we felt comfortable opening up our web site, although honestly, I still think it sucks that I've been working on this a year and that's all I have to show for it.  My ideas that I wanted to develop last year are still in the concept stage.  Nevertheless, the web site is up and working at www.paxelectronics.com.

If nothing else, we have learned a lot over the past year.  We are ready to do PCB layout jobs, or assembly of single or small runs of boards.  $35 per hour is enough for us to live comfortably, and we can work out a price before beginning any assignment.  But I am not sure where to go with this.  I only started applying for jobs in earnest (as a full-time job itself) about 3 weeks ago.  But I hesitate to list our company Pax Electronics as employment history because it is so underwhelming.  I feel like we've gotten nothing done, and when potential employers see that I was fired and then had a year off without a job, they don't even want to give me an interview.  I can work as a taxi driver, but I am not sure if I will earn enough to make ends meet.  So I would definitely appreciate any electronics-related work that could come my way.  And we will definitely ask permission before outsourcing any portion of the job to China or any other country.  The way we see it, being in the central USA is an advantage for anyone who is also in the United States and wants prototypes built quickly.  Here is where we have listed our services available: http://www.paxelectronics.com/store/t/DesignServices.

-Daniel Narvaes
Stillwater, OK, USA
BA, Physics (Carleton College)
MS, E.E. (Oklahoma State University)

[nctnico]

@Clear as mud:
You made products before selling them. That is a classic mistake. Before developing a product you need to make sure there is a market and have a budget to advertise it. I don't know why you choose to make PIC boards??? They can be bought from Ebay for peanuts! You should dump the PICs and learn how to use ARM controllers. People who can program PIC controllers are a dime a dozen. No money to be made there. You have an MS degree in EE so that should allow you to take on more difficult projects than doing layout work and putting boards together. It is better to work as a consultant and build electronics for customers. That way your customers take the risk and you get a decent markup on providing the electronics.

Also try to specialise on something you are good at and keep looking for projects on internet fora and news groups. It also helps to start your own business slowly in your spare time and jump off the cliff when your wings may be big enough. Creating your own products can be nice but you should expect the payback in terms of knowledge gained. Earning money using that knowledge comes later. About ten years ago I decided to build a USB oscilloscope and try to make a product out if it. When Rigol came out with their cheap scopes I realised I was too late and (reluctantly) stopped the project after spending hundreds of hours. Currently I'm working on a high precision distributed network oscilloscope project for one of my customers. I'm cashing in on my USB oscilloscope project again!

This book is interesting for people who want to start a business: http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/flemish/elssch1.htm

[AndyC_772]

Excellent advice there. Every product I've designed 'for me' has ended up a useful way to learn new skills, and they've been a great tool to prove to potential customers what I'm able to do. Indirectly, I've done very well out of them, even though I've not sold a single unit.

Be ambitious. Nobody is ever going to buy a PIC board, when anybody who might want one almost certainly has the skills to make their own. If you have spare time, design something that's currently beyond your capabilities. By the time that project is complete, it won't be - and you'll have the tangible proof.