What I’ve Learned from 10 Years of Freelancing in the Podcast Industry

11 hard-earned lessons about finding work, getting paid & surviving a decade of self-employment

Hello again, Besties!

A couple months ago I celebrated my 10-year anniversary working in the podcast industry. In May of 2016 Courtney hired me to record the first episode of Reality Bytes (now Private Parts Unknown) and a decade later, we’re still working together. If you told me after that recording I’d still be working in podcasting 10 years later, I’d totally believe you, because I honestly have no other employable skills. Even so, I definitely wouldn’t have expected how my role has expanded in those years. I’m a one-ish trick pony when it comes to work. I record and mix, that’s it. But over the years I’ve added a few notches on my belt that have served me well. Here’s my story of the absolute grind that is freelancing in podcasting and the 11 biggest lessons I’ve learned along the way.

What brought me to podcasting: Enough was enough

Sometime in late 2015 I decided to quit working in reality TV and go to work for myself. I had no plan, no contacts in the industry, and no experience recording or mixing podcasts, but what I did have was a bunch of experience studying audio in two different college programs. So I felt more than comfortable plugging in a few mics and recording people having a conversation. The first thing I had to do was look for clients, so I did what anyone else would do, I went to a bar and got hammered.

While I was there the bartender (who was a childhood friend) told me that he knew someone who needed an engineer to record a pilot episode for her new show.

Lesson #1: Word of mouth is by far the best way to find freelance work

This is the most important lesson for anyone actively looking for clients. It was true for my first gig and it’ll be true for my next one. There is no better way to get work than having a friend or family member tell someone, “I know a guy.” He gave me Courtney’s number and we set up the recording date shortly after.

Months earlier, a college classmate of mine moved to South Korea and let me have an absurd amount of gear he was using for live sound gigs. He gave me a 16-channel digital mixer, mixing monitors, a bunch of tools and cables, and a couple mics.

Lesson #2: You’ll get lucky along the way

This isn’t something you can plan for or count on, but numerous times throughout my career I’ve gotten really lucky and it’s led to big things. Some say it’s not luck, but rather it’s something you create by always being prepared. Whatever it is, things fall in your lap and it’s up to you what you make of them.

So for that first recording I showed up with enough gear to do live sound for a high school musical. This might have been one of the rare times I didn’t forget any gear for a recording.

Lesson #3: Always do a full review of all the gear you need (plus backups) and set it all aside the night before

When you freelance, your name and reputation account for a lot. I never show up for gigs on time, I show up early. I never have enough gear, I bring extra gear. My goal is to be entirely self-sufficient the whole time I’m there. Prepare for every recording like it’s the most important recording you’ll ever do. I’m always nervous when I do any recording, and since this was my first podcast recording, I was terrified the whole time. Although I had done way more complex studio recordings, this was the first one I’d done in podcasting where someone was paying me and I had enough experience to understand that a lot of things could have gone wrong and it could have been a disaster. I think there were some small hiccups on my end (Pro Tools buffering errors), but it ended up being a good first session.

After a couple hours of recording, I was officially working in podcasting. I have no memory of mixing that first episode, but I assume I did. Courtney contacted me shortly after and told me that she pitched Reality Bytes to a production company and they picked it up for a season that would also air on YouTube and the production would be done in-house.

Lesson #4: Easy come, easy go

When you’re freelancing, there is no such thing as job security. You may have a client now, but it won’t last forever. At any moment I could receive an email from a client saying the show has been cancelled. My big corporate client is an interior design website based in NYC and it’s been sold twice to media conglomerates since I’ve been working for them. The second sale just happened and part of me is waiting for the email saying that the shows have been cancelled. Gotta just wait and hope for the best.

To be clear, Courtney told me beforehand that she was going to shop that pilot episode, but I couldn’t help but hope this recording would lead to more work. Even though at the time I thought this was a one-and-done recording, at least my foot was in the door and I could build from this.

As I started looking for clients, I realized that it made more sense to target businesses rather than just individuals. They would potentially have larger budgets and they would be willing to try new things to market to their customers. About a month after that first recording I found out about a weekly tech meetup in Pasadena where rotating speakers gave talks about various topics in their industry. It was held at a co-working space and was free to attend. I went to the next meetup and loved it. It was great for networking and being exposed to a lot of great business owners and entrepreneurs. I waited a few months before I approached the lead organizer about recording the talks and making it into a podcast. He mentioned that someone years before had offered, but never followed through. I showed up the next week with my giant digital mixer and started my first tech podcast.

Lesson #5: Don’t be so afraid of being told “no” that it stops you from asking

Why did I wait several months to approach the organizer about starting a podcast? Why didn’t I approach him the next week with my idea? It was because of the fear of being rejected. It was because I was afraid that a successful business owner was going to think I was stupid, laugh at me, and tell me no. For months I built up the courage to ask him. I replayed the conversation a million times in my head and made up scenarios for objections he would give and the comebacks I would use to win him over. Besties, this guy was just a volunteer. He owned a business down the street and was using this for networking just like I was hoping to. As soon as I asked him, he was more than happy to let me. I was useful and he knew it.

Lesson #6: The majority of the business world is just people making it up as they go

No one really knows what they’re doing. Apple is one of the biggest companies in the world and they bombed with their Vision Pro VR glasses. Remember the metaverse? That was a gigantic failure. And here I was worried about asking for permission to record a public talk. Just because they’re wearing a suit, that doesn’t mean that they have it all figured out. They’re as clueless as anyone else.

During this time I was reading a lot of business books, blogs, and listening to marketing experts on podcasts. In retrospect, so much of it was a huge waste of time. Sure there’s some great stuff out there, but most of it was just marketing to get you to buy something. By far the best advice I ever read was from a book by Harry Browne called The Secret of Selling Anything. The core of his message is basically to find what people want and give it to them. That’s really all it comes down to. I made the mistake early on of thinking that every business needed my service. You need more sales? You need a podcast to advertise your product. You want to be a name in your industry? You need a podcast to elevate your reputation. My mistake was that I was a hammer and everyone looked like a nail. When I pitched them to start a podcast, I was trying to solve a problem they didn’t actually have. Besties, any business owner, or person for that matter, loves talking about themselves. If you ask anyone, “Tell me the worst part about your day/business,” get ready for them to go on and on about their problems. After you understand what their problem is, give them a solution that actually helps them. If you can do that, you’ll get work.

After several months of recording the tech meetup podcast, I was introduced to a member of the meetup who had her own show and needed someone to mix it. She was a partner at a venture capital firm in LA and her show was about other VCs in the industry. She did this as a passion project so I agreed to work for pennies.

Lesson #7: Learn to negotiate and barter

I was desperate so I said yes, but what I should have done is ask what else she could offer me. Bartering is something that has been forgotten in 2026, but in retrospect I should have said, “OK, it sounds like money is an issue, so how about every week after the meetup we meet for a half hour and I ask you about your job? I’d love to know how you approach companies to invest in/acquire them, how you negotiate, how deals are made, etc. Does that work?” I’m virtually positive she would have agreed to that. Besties, do you know how valuable that would have been for me? I missed a golden opportunity to learn from someone doing high-level business because I was only focused on money. Please don’t make that same mistake.

Reunited and it feels so good

Several months later Courtney contacted me again asking if I’d do a live recording of her podcast, which ultimately led to us working together on a regular basis. At this point I was also working for a friend’s live sound company, so I started to accumulate more work, but it was nothing resembling an actual living. So I decided to apply for a position in a Facebook podcasting group about a guy who owned a “podcast studio” in Torrance and needed an engineer. If you aren’t familiar with LA, it’s massive and this studio was basically in another state once you factor in traffic both ways, but I was desperate and needed the work so I agreed. It’s hard to put into words how much I hated working for this guy. The second I met him there were red flags everywhere. Long story short, I worked with him for several months and at one point he told me that he wanted out and offered to sell me his business for $2K. At the time $2K might as well have been $20K, but I could have borrowed that money and paid it back. But nothing about his business or clients felt right, so I declined.

Lesson #8: Trust your gut

If a business move doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. Could I have bought his business, changed the name, and renegotiated the rates with my new clients? Sure, but his clients came to his space to record (this was pre-Zoom) so I would have had to rent that same space or find a new one and then I would have been responsible for a lease and all the other things a brick-and-mortar business deals with and that is definitely something I’m not interested in. I like flexibility and low stress, and this decision solidified that. He ended up shutting down that business and I was out of that income.

I was back to looking for more work and came across a guy online who asked if I had ever done a tape sync before. I wasn’t familiar with that term, but once he explained what it was, I was definitely interested. Tape syncs are used in radio for recording an interview when people aren’t in the same location. He worked for NPR for years as a technical director and had a small business doing podcast recordings all over Los Angeles. He was busy and he needed help, so we ended up working together for about a year. This was my first exposure to professional radio/podcasting. Before this I had only been working with hobbyists/independents, and this was a major change for me. I immediately began working for huge radio stations and podcast production companies.

Lesson #9: Get work with high-level professionals

There is no way to get that kind of experience other than getting that kind of experience. Could I record a 15-piece studio big band coming right out of college? Hell yes. I’d mic the shit out of that group. Could I run a session where someone paid me to record a 15-piece big band at Capitol Studios? Hell no. I’d have been laughed out of that control room. Although I’d technically done it before, that doesn’t mean that I could do it professionally. I didn’t have the reps and experience that studio engineers gain from doing it over and over again for years. But with tape syncs, I did get those reps and now I have the confidence that if you put me in any situation, I have the skills to get a great recording.

This was also the time when I started getting comfortable asking for rates. At that level, it’s actually way easier to ask for better rates with professionals than it is with independents. One obvious reason is that radio stations and production companies actually have money to spend. Budgets are set, money is allocated, and they understand that making a product costs money. Once you get accustomed to a rate that an industry sets, then it’s way easier to see the value you provide and you become more inclined to fight for what you deem as “fair” compensation.

Finding work online

The biggest source of work for me was the Google group called publicradionyc. It’s a listserv where people from New York (and around the world) post jobs 24/7. I got A LOT of incredible work from that group. The problem is that it was first come, first served. If you replied to an email first, most times, you got the job, especially for tape syncs. I was glued to my laptop/phone just waiting for job offers to come in and I responded immediately. Somehow, some way, I started landing several big jobs, from organizations like The New York Times Magazine, BBC, ESPN, etc. This was a massive shift for me and I was hoping it would lead to full-time work with one of these companies.

One tape sync job I failed to get was from LWC Studios, a podcast production company on the East Coast. The owner, Juleyka Lantigua, responded to me saying that job was already filled, but she would keep my info in case something else came up. My first thought was, “Yeah right, sure you will,” but I thanked her and went on with my day. Boy was I wrong, because a few months later I got an email from one of her producers asking if I was available for some edits. I was thrilled. I knew I had to take this job, but I was hesitant because I technically had no experience editing podcasts on my own. This was pre-Descript, so my workflow with my clients was they’d either send me timecode for where they wanted cuts in an interview, or they’d transcribe the whole interview, then cross out what they wanted cut, and I’d have to do it manually. But since I had been doing that for so long, I’d seen what got cut from interviews and began understanding what really matters in a conversation. I explained that to the producer during a phone call and she hired me on the spot. The initial job was cutting three hour-long interviews down to 30 minutes, but after I did those, they hired me for the next two and a half months of around-the-clock work. The schedule was BRUTAL. I worked on four different shows and had a different role on each one. One show I helped produce (I had zero experience producing podcasts BTW), one show I just edited, one show I edited and mixed, and the last show I just mixed. About halfway through they offered me a producing gig for a full episode of a podcast series they were doing with The Aspen Institute. I had to conduct the interviews, edit them, write the script, record myself narrating the script, and edit and mix the whole episode. It was insane. I was easily working 16-20 hours a day for those two and a half months, but I was getting paid well for it.

Lesson #10: You’ll be asked to do things you have no experience doing, and it’s up to you if you want to do it

I’ve never been the type of person to say yes to something and then figure out how to do it afterwards. I suck at that. I have a very narrow field when it comes to jobs. I only record, edit, and mix. If you need me to do show notes, publish the episode, run the social media clips, etc., no thanks. That ain’t for me. But in this particular circumstance, the producers walked me through everything and gave me invaluable experience. I’ll forever be grateful for that opportunity.

This is finally what I wanted. Steady, good-paying work in the podcast industry. The whole time I was hoping that they would offer me a full-time position, I needed it badly, but I remember about halfway through that intense podcasting bootcamp thinking, “I’d be totally OK with never doing this again.” The people I worked with were great, the subject matter was interesting, the pay was fantastic, but the pace and amount of work was insane and there was no way I could do this long term. This gig really drove home the point that podcast production companies are a rat race and it wasn’t for me. Once my time was over, I was equipped with new skills and I went back to being glued to Gmail looking for tape sync gigs.

About six months later, in June of 2021, I responded to yet another Google group post looking for someone to edit and mix a show for an interior design media company based in NYC. I had a phone call interview and it was going great. It was a long-term gig and now that I had experience editing interviews, I had no doubt I was capable of doing the work. We got to the part of the interview where the rate per episode was discussed and it all came to a crashing halt. I had done this for long enough that I knew what the job would entail, and for the rate they wanted to pay, even though it was a long-term gig, I knew I couldn’t justify that much work for that little pay. I told the interviewer, “I have no doubt you’ll find someone for this rate, but I can’t do it. No thank you, but I wish you the best.” The phone call ended and I went back to staring at my email hunting for tape syncs. A few days later I got an email from the interviewer asking what rate I would do the job for. I told him I would do it for double what he offered. He agreed and the job was mine if I wanted it.

Lesson #11: Know your worth

This is a topic that I’ll go in depth for paid subscribers in a future post, but desperation is what drives low rates. Trust me, I’ve been there. There are plenty of times when the saying, “Any work is good work” is true, but the sooner you realize that NO ONE will advocate for you better than yourself, the sooner you’ll begin to actually get paid and you’ll kick yourself for not doing it sooner.

Landing that gig really opened up a lot for me. I was finally making a (humble) living in podcasting. I began purchasing field recording gear, bought a car, deleted my LinkedIn account, and began traveling for work. And going through COVID only strengthened my resolve for continuing to work remotely. At 47 years old I’m unemployable when it comes to regular work at this point. The thought of having to make a résumé and go on a job interview is horrifying to me. There’s no way I could function in an office setting. So the question becomes, will I do this for another 10 years?

Now what?

For now, I’m just going to keep the work that I have and keep on truckin’. Work is steady, but I’m almost positive I won’t do this for another 10 years. Another five years? Maybe. I think the biggest lesson that I’ve learned in this time is that working outside of “the system” is possible. But where I currently stand, I’m not thriving. I’m not building wealth for the future. I’m paying bills and able to make purchases for different types of audio work in the future, but who knows where that will lead. The economy is trash and doesn’t appear to be getting better. Making a drastic shift right now doesn’t make sense, but I think at some point a career shift is inevitable.

There are a lot of pros and cons that I’ve gone in depth about for paid subscribers, so if you’re interested in those, you can check them out in a bonus post coming out in a couple weeks. Hopefully this recap has been helpful. As always, if you have any questions, please reach out. Courtney and I are both available to help.

See you next month, Besties.

Michael Castañeda, Your Engineering Bestie

So… ROLL CALL! 🗣

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from podcast freelancing?