I have a little bit of experience with tutoring from TAing a senior-level CS course in college. Even at that level, there's a big need for it, and as a tutor, it feels great to see that lightbulb moment when a student suddenly groks a concept you've been working with them on. If the idea of teaching appeals to something inside of you, go for it.
That said, it can be a massive time sink, and very frustrating, especially for students for whom programming just doesn't click at all (and they are out there). You can probably make significantly more doing freelance work, so if you know you don't have the patience to, for instance, repeatedly explain that their Python script isn't working because they're trying to invoke it from the wrong directory, you might want to pass.
That's a guideline we use focused on the k-12 subject matter areas (still our main focus). It's where the "being a teacher" piece is a response to parent feedback.
Here, for the hacking side of things, we think the dynamics are a bit different. We still want great people, but the formal teaching piece is not a requirement.
We've only built it out for the US for now. If you're international, Fill in your city and hit the zip with all 0s. When we rejigger it to allow for international, we'll let you know.
This is a pretty interesting idea and I like the idea of the site itself. What percentage of tutors get work at the rates they have posted and how many hours do they get on average? I'm curious to know if anyone is doing anything besides getting beer money (so to speak) with the site right now.
100% of tutors are booking lessons at their posted rates, actually - no real haggling going on. I think it's a different situation relative to, say, freelancing. You're not negotiating with a business over a deliverable, you're part of a transparent framework where people are trying to get educated. It's a different kind of motivation.
That said, it can be a massive time sink, and very frustrating, especially for students for whom programming just doesn't click at all (and they are out there). You can probably make significantly more doing freelance work, so if you know you don't have the patience to, for instance, repeatedly explain that their Python script isn't working because they're trying to invoke it from the wrong directory, you might want to pass.