Changing of the living place. Repurposing. Distant work. Where to begin?

Question

Freelance

Hello, Habrasobshchestvo!

I ask for your advice.

Due to family circumstances, he is forced to change his place of residence from the capital to the outback. Accordingly, all the following questions arise: work, salary, etc.

I'll tell you a little about myself: 30 years old, higher engineering education (electric drive and automation of industrial installations), worked in fairly large foreign companies, in various positions, including small management ones.
The main direction is the automation of industry and civil buildings, programmable relays, frequency converters. Good experience in discrete automation, electric drive systems with vector control, programming control panels for power distribution and metering systems (CodeSys environment).

Unfortunately, in the region where I will move, my direction is still in its infancy, with all the ensuing factors. That is, to put it simply, it is very difficult to find a stationary job according to the profile, for a sane payment (everything that is offered here, in dollar terms, is a maximum of $ 250-350).

Therefore, I am considering various options, including freelancing. So. I perfectly understand the specifics of freelance work and the weak compatibility of “industrial. programming" and the development of systems for industry on a remote principle of work. Therefore, I am now looking towards retraining and further work under the Web.

There is little experience in layout, including using CSS frameworks, php - "for fun", ActionScript (true 2.0). Worked with various CMS, including writing small plugins for my own needs, for my hobby (for WordPress, Joomla). I did localizations, translations of interfaces.

Your advice and opinions are very important, perhaps some experience in the following matters:
1. Where to start. Probably the most difficult question, but I know from experience that a correctly set vector is the key to success.
2. What technologies / techniques now, and in the near future, will be in demand and promising and convenient for remote work.
3. I look towards node.js. In my opinion, a beginner, the framework has a fairly loyal entry threshold, wide distribution, and the prospect is visible. I would like to know the opinion on this issue from people with experience in this area. Should I start with Noda?
4. I understand that it’s a stupid question, but where do you start “freelancing” itself, and from what level of study of this or that technology? I understand perfectly well that with each project you get a portion of new knowledge / experience, etc., but, nevertheless, with zero experience, you should not take on a project either in order to learn the language / technique at work - you can successfully fill up a project, even a small one .

Of course, any other advice and wishes are very welcome for a person who, in principle, is radically forced to change something in his life.

Thank you very much!

Answer 1

Considering your specialization, perhaps you should consider starting your own business? There are also many small factories in the region. They could use your knowledge.

Answer 2

As a direct answer to the author's question.
The world of web development is now dominated by two technological approaches - LAMP (and similar) and Java.
LAMPis development in PHP, or Ruby, or Python. Under any option, there are quite convenient frameworks. The languages ​​themselves are also well developed. PHP leads by a significant margin in terms of prevalence among both developers and customers; largely due to the popular belief that PHP encoders are cheap and plentiful. Salaries are actually very different, usually depending on the degree of technology orientation of the company. LAMP is usually small and medium orders, mainly website development. In any case, in freelancing it is quite difficult to get a large project. Although I was once offered a long-term remote job for an American hoster for ~$2000 per month.
Java is, in my opinion, the hottest salary area in web programming. And it continues to be fueled by enterprises both in the Western world and in Russia. I have no data on the success of using Java in freelancing. There should be enough customers. Developers too. Java is a developed platform that provides a huge amount of all sorts of libraries, frameworks and other crafts for free. Many are very well designed. I do not understand the specifics of your work well, but it seems to me that in your case, the presence of real-time libraries and the demand for Java for hardware development can be a plus. The disadvantage of this option is the high entry threshold. To master the mat-part of Java (especially the web) you have to spend a lot of time.
As just for fun. I have a neighbor in my grandmother's village who makes good money at a construction site and sells lumber. On average, he gets more than me a year. And by the way, I get a salary in Moscow. And the plumber in the same place, with my grandmother, drank all the blood out of me in the form of cash savings. ;-)

Answer 3

Here's how I became a freelancer and went to
Thailand pumainthailand.com/kak-ya-pereehal-zhit-v-tajland-hronologiya-soby-tij/
and here are all the answers about the American freelancing exchange odesk.com
pumainthailand.com/

Answer 4

If I were you, I would start with something light and easy to digest. The fastest growing web platform in the world today is Wordpress. Start actively studying the topic, learn how to write plugins and everything will be fine for you in the next decade.

Answer 5

How is your knowledge of English?
As an option, you can search for a remote vacancy abroad.

Answer 6

Ukraine. I work on Odessa, now I write under embedded devices, C/C++. I earn enough. I will be happy to help with setting up a profile and looking for a job on Odessa. If interested - write.
did not hit, and with an error, sorry. How can I delete the answer above?

Answer 7

What about developing for Android or iOS?

Answer 8

two options:
- tighten up weaknesses
- strengthen strengths :)
if the question is about remote work, then maybe you should use your strengths as knowledge of discrete mathematics in the CodeSys environment? To look for a job, you can a) search on freelance exchanges
b) write directly to companies that are engaged in these areas (surely a good specialist is interesting to many, albeit remotely)

Answer 9

Hmm… isn’t it easier to somehow agree on shift work in the spirit of oilmen or sailors? It's just that I understand that, according to past work experience, the positions in terms of salary were not bad. But in a new place, such specialists are simply not needed and the salary is low, respectively. But in case of re-profiling, the positions will be absolutely the same, because the previous skills will hardly help here (they will definitely not affect the level of salary), and at the first stage it will be a junior-level salary. I don’t know how it is in your location, but in ours, a 30-year-old junior is synonymous with a loser. I mention this to the fact that it can turn out psychologically very difficult. Is it worth it?

Answer 10

It will be hard to switch from serious products to all sorts of Joomla and other crooked code. Everything is on crutches. Also, if you do not have good knowledge of technology and skills, it will be very difficult for you to compete with those who have them, and with those who do not have them, but who are ready to work for food.
Node.js has both advantages, in the form of a pleasant language at the core, and disadvantages, in the absence of some libraries.
Maybe you should try your hand at programming game products, such as any server modules for browser games? There, just node.js can come in handy (although C ++ / Java, of course, would be much better suited). Or they advise you, applications for iPhone / Android - there are few good specialists, but there is a demand.

Answer 11

1C is still a good option. Demanded now and in the future. And it's easy to learn.

Answer 12

Many thanks to all who responded and gave advice and directions for reflection!
I'll try to unsubscribe in a couple of months what I have and how it happened.

Answer 13

Oh, colleague :) Is it Chelyabinsk/SUSU/Energofak for an hour? And then the set of basic skills is very drawn to our drive department.

Answer 14

I read your post, there was a direct deja vu, a lot of coincidences, in order:
I have exactly the same specialty (I graduated from the South Ural State University of Energy), I also worked in the outback in my specialty, went to freelance, returned to a permanent position and left again (after reprofiling as a freelancer ) to float freely. Actively worked in the Flash direction, now switched to mobile platforms.
Where to look:
1) mobile (Java, Swift, C ++)
2) nodejs is a cool thing, now on the crest of popularity for its tasks.