@library_squirrel@weirder.earth Disclaimer: am not in the global south, but I *did* start freelancing without a corporate career.

The summarized version of my trajectory went something like this: dropped out of high school, worked on my own projects instead, squatted and lived in poverty for years doing odd jobs here and there (transcribing audio, basic design, etc.), answered a lot of questions and provided a lot of help on IRC.

Eventually I found work that was ethically compatible with me: someone I helped on IRC suggested that I should do paid tutoring, which I did (well, code review + tutoring), and that paid the bills for a while. Some students came from Google search results, many came from IRC where I continued helping folks. Some from a link on some technical articles I wrote.

Also found a FOSS development job (again freelance) through IRC after someone came into the channel looking for someone to hire to solve a really urgent (and costly) issue, which led to more long-term work on that codebase because they were happy with the results, after they agreed to my requirement that the result be FOSS.

Currently I'm mostly doing FOSS dependency auditing work, for a client who reached out to me after reading some analysis I wrote about a malicious package on a Github issue thread, as they needed people for auditing work. I negotiated it to be on a freelance basis, and they agreed. That's been going for a few years now.

In summary, most of my paid work comes from stuff I was already doing anyway for unrelated reasons, while being easy to find/contact, and strictly negotiating my own freelance terms. Especially if someone reaches out *to* you, they will agree to pretty much any reasonable demand/requirement.

Also, I'm very upfront on my freelance website that I have experience with weird stuff and enjoy working on complex and seemingly unsolvable problems, and that I can figure stuff out. Mentioning that explicitly helps a lot to set expectations.

(I should also note that "where I'm geographically located" generally doesn't even get mentioned until we're already 80% of the way to signing a contract, and even then usually only for timezone reasons, though I *do* come across as a native speaker to a lot of people, so that may be a factor there)

Imposter syndrome continues to be a problem, but is at least somewhat softened by talking about my own projects to people, and having them be stumped as to how I can even do all of that...

As for skillset building; pretty much all of my skills come from doing stuff. Initially from working on my own projects (and that continues to be the case) but also just "learning on the job" with customer projects.

I've never had a client be difficult about needing time to figure out how to do something right, but that's also something I bring up upfront before signing a contract ("I'd rather do it well than do it fast"), and the rule of "the more you charge, the less the client complains" applies here too.

I'd say that the most important thing in making freelancing work, for me, is communication - I'm always very upfront about what I can and cannot do, and why I make certain decisions, but explained clearly/simply enough that it's understandable.

Likewise, I always ask the client what they actually want the software to do and why, rather than *how* it should work. Both of these things have been repeatedly brought up by clients as the specific reason why they like working with me (-> stable/long-term income), and they appreciate the occasional tailored infodump :)

Hope this is helpful!