I have been a Web applications developer for five years. I’ve worked on enormous projects, small projects and everything in between for the likes of NBC, and MTV as well as small companies and freelance work. Anyone familiar with this sort of work knows quite well that the earnings can be quite significant, and rewarding.

I recently made a switch from corporate cube farms to solely doing freelance work. I found a lot of jobs through odesk.com, however I’ve only made a small fraction of what I would be earning with corporate gigs.

The problem is that buyers on odesk are people that have no money and are just getting started with their business. They have a totally ridiculous idea of what Web developers are worth, and don’t have any appreciation for the complexity of the work involved to get their Web presence online and working according to their own requirements.

Budgets for jobs on odesk are typically beneath $300. And these buyers expect you to work for one or more weeks for that price, and they typically only give you a small amount of detail for what their needs are when they hire you; piling on the requirements after you already agreed to the cheapest work you’ve ever done.

The final straw for me was when I was burned by this dickhead redneck hick named Jack Carrier from some trailer park in North Carolina. He hired me to do what he presented as a very simple job for some bumb ass rate, and then after I already started the job for the agreed upon price he started adding more and more requirements.

This is the best part: He told me to keep track of my time and he would compensate me. My posted hourly rate on odesk was $30. Then when it came time to pay up he laughed at me, and refused to pay anymore than the original price, even though a great deal amount of additional work had been performed.

Any programmer out there reading this that is looking to make a respectable earning should be well advised to avoid the headache of odesk.