Software Engineer Seeks Advice on Landing First Solo Consulting Projects
By
modelcroissant
Tired, dry, slightly forgotten on the back of the tray.
Summary
A software engineer with over a decade of experience is starting a solo consultancy focused on helping small-to-medium enterprises solve back-office operational problems like spreadsheet automation, brittle workflows, poor reporting, integration issues, and practical AI implementations. The engineer seeks advice from the Hacker News community on how to land first projects as a solo consultant, specifically targeting businesses experiencing operational pain rather than becoming a generic agency.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledI'm focused on helping SMEs sort out the messy back-office parts of the business: spreadsheet glue, brittle internal workflows, poor reporting, awkward integrations, backend/platform problems, and AI workflows that need to do real work rather than just look good in a demo.
I'm not really interested in becoming a generic agency. I'd rather work with businesses that already feel operational pain and need someone technical to help untangle it properly.
I've spent roughly the last decade and some change as a software engineer, and recently decided to start a solo consultancy.
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