Let’s be honest, being a data scientist in 2021 is not easy. Although the demand for data scientists is still high, and the supply is also as high, finding a job in data science can be very challenging and, at times, frustrating. If you’re a data science newbie, who just got done learning the basics, built a few projects, and is ready to apply for jobs, then you know that getting a job is not that easy.
Even entry data science jobs require some experience — I will not get into how that doesn't make sense. But, to gain the experience required to land a job, you need to have a job or have an impressive project portfolio. So, how can you gain that experience without actually getting a data science role in industry or academia?
One of the great options for data scientists today, both newcomers and experts are freelancing. Being a data science freelancer gives you a lot of freedom to choose your projects and control your time and wage. It is also a great choice for beginners looking for more practical experience by building real-life projects.
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It can also be a great choice for those wanting to be their own boss or those wanting to work remotely in other countries. As a freelance data scientist, you will come across different types of gigs (freelance jobs/ projects) that you can apply for/ bid on based on your preferences and knowledge base.
If you’re looking for a freelance data science job, you can find plantly of posting on websites like UpWork, Topal, Angelist, Coding Ninjas, or simply use the LinkedIn Jobs finder with job type “contract.” In this article, we will explore some of the options you may find on these websites.
№1: Data visualization projects
We will start with the most common gig you will find, and it requires a hint of creativity, visualization projects. Many startups and people look for data scientists to create efficient visualization that makes communicating the data easier and better.
Gigs for data visualization projects, you will find requests for creating interactive graphs, dashboards using a specific technology, like Tableau, Power bi, or any other tool. Data visualization gigs average start from $58/ hour or higher, depending on the experience level, quality, and work speed.
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№2: Teaching and tutoring
Next up is one of my personal favorites and an option that I did more than all others, which is teaching or tutoring data science topics. If you know the basics of data science or you’re comfortable with in-depth topics, you can offer to teach these topics to others.............................
This option also covers mentoring and supervising projects. I found teaching to be the best way to help others better understand data science and programming topics while improving your own. You can specify an hourly rate for sessions, often starting from $15/ hour and go up to $60 or $80. The session duration based on your client's needs.
№3: Data cleaning
When dealing with data science projects, one of the essential first steps is data cleaning, which basically means putting the data in a format that can be used later to implement different algorithms. Unfortunately, this task is often routine and boring, and some data scientists may hire others to do it for them to focus on modeling.
Data cleaning jobs often require some knowledge of data manipulation, the ability to obtain the relation between the different columns, and how to spot anomalies and trends. Starting pay for this kind of task varies from $50~$90 based on the complexity of the dataset.
