freelance

[jimmyjames12]

Hello everyone, I have been doing arc-flash studies for the last 2.5 years, but I recently quit because I wanted to travel as I have never traveled outside of California(I am 29 y.o). I decided to build a camper van to travel across the U.S.

Do any of you guys freelance. If so do you have any tips on finding freelance (remote) jobs? In my case, it should be possible because most of my job was performed on a computer.

P.S
passed the PE exam last year, so I should be able to get the license I am just waiting to get my last reference.

 

[jghrist]

A lot of the work in doing arc flash studies is field data gathering, so you need to travel to the job site. Also, consider that you will need to be registered in each state where the project is.

Make sure you have good professional liability insurance. As an independent engineer, you don't have company liability insurance and you are dealing with safety issues.

 

[DM61850]

I think it will be hard. Arc Flash studies in of themselves are not complicated. The solutions are where the real work is. You'll need to be registered in every state you are offering engineering so you'll probably want to get an NCEES record to make that easier.

The remote work that I have been offered has come from small shops that couldn't find people due to their location or it was very specialized.

You might have a better chance of working remotely if you work in a field that is closely related to engineering but isn't like NERC Compliance. You don't have the red tape associated with needing a license in each state and your engineering experience will be valued.

 

[jimmyjames12]

I gathered site data for close to half of the studies I completed the rest of the site data was gather buy electricians which was a p.i.t.a but they worked out in the end. While working I got a side freelance job on upwork.com which was about updating a study, but now I don’t see any on the website.

I do have an electrical engineering degree, but I am not too confident about working in a different field because each electrical Eng. subfield is specialized.