There are many great articles on the top ten skills needed to become a data scientist or a developer. Those skills take years to develop (despite the boot camp promises). In the meantime, you can apply the talent you have right now in the gig workplace. Experience with working real-world problems with (or without) real-world requirements gives you a leg-up on the hopefuls who stick to only toy problems.
The jobs on gig economy platforms can be hit or miss. Competition is fierce, especially for those postings that are global. There are some things you can do to improve your odds of landing good jobs.
Self-Assessment of skills
Awareness of what is available is the first step. First, make a list of the skills you feel confident performing on time with professional outputs. Some ideas: Excel Formulas, SQL queries, query tuning, web scraping, SQL server stored procedures, visualizations (Tableau, Power BI), python, R, regression models, churn models. For programmers, this list might include various programming languages, database design, cloud and AWS components such as S3, RedShift, Elastic Compute, ETL.
Analysis of requested skills
I did a snapshot analysis of all of the jobs posted on guru.com on Sept 1, 2020. Specifically looking at the Software and Programming jobs, I created a Tableau Dashboard with my findings. You can access this dashboard on Tableau Public at this link (click here).
You will find many tabs across the top of the viz. These are some of the more common Data Science type tasks. I’m adding more as my curiosity strikes me or requests come through in the comments.

What is the demand?

Demand for the Programming languages is always high. So, where do typical data science skills fall into this list? Python, SQL, Web scraping are all in the top third of the chart. These are some of the foundational skills you should have to be successful. Picking up gigs is an excellent opportunity to put those skills to use and earn some money.
Is there money in it?
Yes, there is money in freelancing. There is a nice sweet spot of budgets shown in the chart below. Admittedly, "under 250" is a significant span from totally not worth the fuss to a satisfying payday. There are times where one successful job with a client leads to another. Perhaps that leads into a higher-paying job. This happens often, though you should be warned there are consequences about taking Work ‘off platform’. The platforms make their money by taking a cut of the budget, they want to keep you there.

Ensuring a Good Gig
There is a learning curve. I can help give you some pointers, but you still need to learn from experience. Here are some of my lessons learned.
- Is the request ethical? I’ve been asked to create fake product reviews or complete someone’s homework assignment. I turn these offers down. I also turn down anything in the financial space as I work in the financial industry.
- Are the requirements well written? I only pick requirements that appear to have been written by a professional who wants professional work done. They provide the required information and have a set expectation of what they want in return ( a report, code, data).
- Is the request reasonable? Do you think you can code and deploy a brand-new app for $200? Is someone asking to create an app ‘like Facebook’? Nope. Let some other fool pick that work up and get slammed with a crazy amount of work for little money.
- Is the work worth the pay and vice versa? I’ve done jobs from $5.00 to thousands of dollars. Sometimes the quick $10 hitters are good to keep your spirits up, as long as the work requested is something you know you can do quickly, within 15 minutes. Some requests seem reasonable, and then once you get into the details, it blows up. Be a professional. You are contracted to do this work for this amount. If you’re pretty close to being done, finish it up. Sometimes it’s entirely out of control, or the problem can’t be solved with the architecture or technique they are requesting. In that case, write up a thorough statement of what you accomplished, what you found, and what you recommend the next steps will be.
I’m wary of 30 hours a week jobs for six months. You are working full-time without benefits or protections. That’s not a gig, that’s a J O B.
- Is the client reputable? Will they pay you? Most sites will provide feedback on clients as well as how much money they have spent in the past. I will sometimes filter to clients who want workers located in the United States only. The added benefit is that there are far fewer bids on the jobs, so your chances are better.
- Lastly, are you capable of completing the request? Do you have a skillset of an appropriate level? Pick something out of your league; you could find yourself in some trouble. Also, does the request require any special licenses? Tableau development comes to mind. While Tableau Public is free, the enterprise license is pricey. They need to provide you with a key to use.
Use what you know to prioritize your training.
Now that you’ve taken a look at what’s out there, it is time to compare your skills list with the requested skills. Is there an area that has job availability that you’re not yet trained up? That might then become next on your training list. This self-assessment will assist you in prioritizing your training based on overall value. The latest deep learning models are fun, but solidifying the basics of requirements gather, project management, professional presentations, data munging, and basic statistics and analysis will take you far. Very far.
Conclusion
Hopefully, you have a better understanding of where your skillset matches up with the freelance market. Use this information to guide your training and gain experience today with what you know already.
For those who are interested, please shout out in the responses if you want more info on the following skillsets: Game Design, General Programming, Website Development, Database Design, Troubleshooting, Angular, Node.js, App Development, all of the Cs, Cloud, Graphics, Hardware, Content Management, CRM, CSS, eCommerce, Development, and more.