Finnish contract developer FAQ

Starting out as a freelancer after years of working on permanent positions might feel very exciting and challenging. However, the transition to a foreign territory might turn out to be a bit tricky, and quite a few developers end up having questions regarding the opportunities on the market, the interview processes and the way we collaborate with freelance developers. This article provides the answers to the most popular questions regarding our contractor projects.

How does Toughbyte work with contractors?

The way we work with contractor developers is that we first get some basic info, namely:

• technologies you want to work with
• whether you're able to work onsite and if so where
• your availability: starting date and number of days a week you're available
• your hourly rate expectations
• your LinkedIn profile, GitHub profile and your CV
• confirm that you have a legal entity from which you can invoice; if not we can provide some info on how to set one up

Once we have this information, we start presenting you with relevant project opportunities. When there's something you're interested in, we present you to the client right away. In case the client is ready to proceed, they typically run one interview, but sometimes two in the case where our client is not the end customer and the end customer wants to get to know your experience in detail.

When you pass all the interviews and the client makes an offer, we need to sign a time and materials based subcontracting agreement between Toughbyte and your legal entity before you can start working. When working on projects, we ask that you log the hours using a service we provide for you. We report the hours spent weekly to clients and invoice them for the work done the previous month at the beginning of each month.

What kind of technologies are in demand on contractor projects these days?

Quite a few of our clients are always looking for fullstack, frontend or backend developers (e.g. Java or Python and JavaScript), as well as cloud consultants (AWS/GCP), mobile developers (iOS and Android) and coding Scrum Masters. Other languages, such as C++ or C#, are often in demand as well.

How do you present my profile to the client company and what’s included?

When presenting your profile to the client, we send them your CV along with a short summary of your experience with relevant technologies, as well as the date when you’ll be able to start working, your location and your hourly rate. Some of our clients are also eager to see a few code samples from the candidates, so having an updated GitHub account would definitely be a good idea.

What about the projects’ duration? What should I expect?

The projects offered by our clients are typically long-term gigs (>6 months) with several extension possibilities. However, we also work on projects with shorter duration (e.g. 3 months) where no extension is provided. In order to suggest only relevant opportunities, we always clarify your preferred project duration before suggesting a new opportunity.

Do you work with fully remote projects?

Most of our projects are Finland-based gigs where you can work onsite in Helsinki or remotely from any other city in Finland. We don’t typically work with contractor clients outside of Finland or remote contractor projects these days, however, there might always be a few exceptions.

How much can I earn as a freelance developer in Finland?

Freelance developers in Finland can charge anywhere between €40 and €110 +VAT an hour or even more, depending on their skills and whether they can work onsite or only remotely. At the lower end of the spectrum are developers working with CMSs and blog engines like WordPress, and at the higher end are big data architects. If you’re a full stack developer who’s just starting out freelancing, you should expect to be able to charge somewhere around €50-70 an hour.

When working remotely it's harder to log the full eight hours each day, but when you work onsite it's relatively easy to log 7-8 hours daily. So, assuming a rate of €60, you can invoice €400-500 +VAT a day or around €9000-10000 +VAT a month. Even though you'll have to pay more taxes on this than your salary, you should still expect to earn 50% or more than what you would if you were employed.

In case you’re looking for a new contractor challenge or eager to launch your freelancer career in Finland, we’ve got that part covered. We’d be happy to get in touch and discuss your project preferences in detail so that we could start lining up only the most relevant and interesting assignments.