Currently, you might get some joy using a cost argument as GBP is so poor. Generally, it doesn't really fly though; there are much cheaper places than the UK for general development. In my experience, there's more mileage from specialist experience. In my case finance but I could imagine it's true for, say, biochem or high performance vehicles too.

You might get questions or objections around timezones and taxes, so have answers ready. In general as long as the relationship clearly meets IRS rules that distinguish employees from contractors there’s no US tax liability for the hiring company.

Expect some customers to offer local (UK) rates rather than US rates. US companies outsource to India to save money. How much you can charge will depend on the skills and experience you bring and price relative to US freelancers.

I’d find it strange if a US-based client expected me/us to do a project for them at typical UK freelancer rates. There’s little reason to take on all the extra risks and overheads that would come with the international relationship if the fees weren’t significantly higher as well.

Looking at the recent threads about rates here on HN, it seems rates of $10K-15K per week are not unusual for good freelance devs in the US, but half of that would be doing relatively well for most freelancers in the UK so there’s definitely room for both sides to win financially.

Companies outsource overseas mainly to save money. They may do it because they can’t get US-based employees or freelancers. If they have to pay US rates for foreign contractors they will prefer to hire Americans. The unfilled demand here is for experienced senior people, so if you can position yourself as well above average you can charge more.

Hiring freelancers overseas doesn’t present any actual new risk or overhead to either party. Companies may imagine it does out of ignorance or inexperience. Hiring foreign employees does create tax and labor law compliance issues, which is why outsourcing to freelancers and overseas contract firms is so popular.

This is the bracket I’m most interested in myself: people who are sufficiently skilled and experienced that you can send them a spec for something you need to build, communicate further as needed during development, and then expect to have a good product delivered when they’re done.

In real life customers rarely have the ability to write a complete and consistent spec. That’s why we have iterative development and agile.

The model I use is much more incremental, with a list of clear deliverables and expected cost. Work with customer to define requirements, write those down with estimates, agree, deliver, review, repeat. My customers see constant progress and can change direction at any time, they never owe me so much money I would suffer if they don’t pay.

If you try to freelance with the waterfall/BDUF method you describe you’ll run into problems.

Well, yes, that’s the “communicate further as needed” part, isn’t it? :-)

The number one complaint I hear from my customers is the last guy/firm stopped communicating, or took days to answer emails. The second most common complaint I hear is that the last guy didn’t listen to what the customer actually wanted. Customers ask for solutions to business problems. Freelancers too often think the customer is asking for thousands of lines of React code.

My intended point was just that I’m talking about the level of freelancer with enough skill and experience to get a good job done themselves and with minimal disruption or drama. That kind of person isn’t likely to be charging sub-£500 day rates over here so I’d be very surprised if they were charging sub-$500 rates across the pond.

I find I get better-quality customers with a higher than median rate. Depending on the niche you specialize in you have to find a rate that advertises your competence without going so high you exclude most customers.

I prefer not to work hourly, and I never take on big fixed-fee projects. My niche is taking over the big fixed-fee projects that fail (as they seem to most of the time). I charge by deliverable unless the customer can’t handle that and wants to go hourly. Even when they want to pay hourly I’m giving them binding estimates for specific deliverables and tasks so it works out the same.

I have worked through a US-based agency since 2014, they take care of contracts/legal, billing and payment, and marketing for 15% of gross. They get better rates than I was getting on my own before signing up with them so it works out.

Enforcing a contract or collecting payment (or getting quality work) are problems with US-based relationships, generally too tedious and expensive for both parties to bother with.

You reduce risk by setting clear deliverables and expectations up front and not getting into the position of the customer owing you a lot of money. Other than the minor hassle of wire transfer and currency conversion I’m not aware of any significant overhead due to contracting from outside the US.

Another is that my company’s professional insurance costs would apparently increase significantly if we did any business with US clients.

What professional insurance does a freelancer need? In 15 years freelancing I got asked about errors and omissions insurance exactly once. I told the customer they would have to cover that since it’s an unusual requirement. Larger companies and government agencies demand that kind of thing, not my customer base.

Are there not withholding obligations under US tax rules for the customer, though, unless they have something like a W-8BEN or W-8BEN-E? I’m by no means an expert in this area, but my understanding was that without providing the official paperwork, the customer would be required to deduct US taxes for US-sourced income before paying their bill.

What professional insurance does a freelancer need?

We carry professional indemnity, among other things.

If you’re working remotely the only liability you can have is breach of contract, which is covered by law. E&O (errors and omissions) coverage exists but I have been asked about that exactly once and when I said I don’t have it and won’t pay for it the customer dropped the issue. Because of the time and expense involved even between two US-based parties in our legal system I think it’s best to avoid situations that can lead to such disputes. That’s why I don’t do green fields projects with big up-front payments or deposits.

I don't know US market that well, but I imagine 15k per week is mostly for either short engagement (a couple of weeks) or for mid-term engagements of someone really senior that can come on-site often.

Any suggestion where I can find such jobs?

You can work through an agency like I do. TopTal is another option, and you can find many companies with the same outsourcing firm/contract shop business model.