3-YOE SWE asks how to start AI automation freelancing: skip N8N, go straight to clients?
prois99 · reddit · 2026-10-30
A software engineer with 3 years of experience asks how to break into AI automation freelancing — torn between fearing AI's impact on his job and loving the build speed it gives him.
Hands-on background: he built his own automation app, practicing context management, custom MCP integration, and multi-agent orchestration where a frontier model (Codex) implements and a local model reviews. He notes that frontier models alone now act as their own orchestrator, spawning sub-agents as needed — Anthropic's docs even advise against extra harnesses.
Open questions: is N8N outdated and not worth learning? Should he skip RAG/vector DBs for now and hunt clients directly via LinkedIn, events, or cold email? The discussion is useful reading for devs eyeing the same path.
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