Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Best practices for hiring software contractors?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 46 posts

Re: Ask HN: Best practices for hiring software contractors?

#31

Post by iudqnolq »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #13

It depends a lot of you size and your project scale. But here are a few advices. Do not pay by day/hour if you can avoid it. Define small deliverables then objective tests to validate them and attach fixed price to each piece. You don't have to come up with it out of thin air, the contractor is supposed to do that with you. You don't have to define all of them up front neither. In fact, they will probably change duri…

I'm a student trying to get my first contracting job. I have very little experience, and and essentially no past work. I believe I'm competent enough to do some of the tasks I see on sites like Upwork, but I'm not having any luck. The jobs I'm applying for are basic things like write Google Apps script to send emails based on contents of a Google Sheet, not large projects.

I'm not going to lie about who I am and what experience I have. Do you think I have no chance getting a contract at this point?

Re: Ask HN: Best practices for hiring software contractors?

#32

Post by emmasz »

Agency here with a remote team.

We get all our hires through referrals. We keep things simple, our clients are not protected in a particular way when hiring us. We use a general contract - we only had problems once, when the hiring company went bankrupt and failed to pay our last invoice.

Client relationships are stable, none turned to another software contractor for the past 8 years of existence.

The company is registered in Romania.

Re: Ask HN: Best practices for hiring software contractors?

#33

Post by mikekchar »

tacon wrote: post #30
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends of the scale of your project though. If you have $10k dollar, you may have to choose between the one click build process and some features or documentation. Regular audits and updating list of risks have a cost and affect the deadline. Change the team regularly ? Do you know the cost of introducing anyone new even to the best made project ? What if you are an individual ? What if you are a start up ? Wha…

Yegor has direct and extensive responses to each of your points, and many more. Not that he is always correct, but he never avoids the questions you raise, and is happy to engage in discussions. Since he himself ran a development shop in Ukraine for many years, he is pulling back the curtain and sharing tips to stabilize a difficult process, especially for non-technical customers. He even has his money where his mout…

On the "one click build process", I recall once talking with a friend of mine who worked on a fairly large Java project back when Java was first developed. There was no build system that was associated with Java and for reasons that I don't quite understand the development team were very unhappy using proven solutions like make. So they had this very fragile set of scripts for building the application. After about 2 years (!!) of development, the startup ran out of cash and they were rather desperate to ship a product. It actually worked quite well. The only problem? Nobody could build the whole thing and make a single image! The company exceeded their runway before anyone could figure out how to ship. It's stupid, but it happens. Whenever I start a project I remember this and consider that that absolute top priority of any project is to be able to ship. You should do that first. (As an aside, it's pretty weird that your first story is often to ship nothing).

I think if you have a $10K project and you know that you are going to be really, really tight on resources, you don't skimp on the build process. Rather you back up and choose tools that are proven and reliable. If you can't get your 1 click (or equivalent) build process up an running in a day for a $10K project, then you have selected tools that are much too risky. That's my 2 cents, anyway.

Re: Ask HN: Best practices for hiring software contractors?

#34

Post by wiseleo »

iudqnolq wrote: post #31
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #13

It depends a lot of you size and your project scale. But here are a few advices. Do not pay by day/hour if you can avoid it. Define small deliverables then objective tests to validate them and attach fixed price to each piece. You don't have to come up with it out of thin air, the contractor is supposed to do that with you. You don't have to define all of them up front neither. In fact, they will probably change duri…

I'm a student trying to get my first contracting job. I have very little experience, and and essentially no past work. I believe I'm competent enough to do some of the tasks I see on sites like Upwork, but I'm not having any luck. The jobs I'm applying for are basic things like write Google Apps script to send emails based on contents of a Google Sheet, not large projects. I'm not going to lie about who I am and what…

Your first few projects are essentially to build credibility. Don’t try to make money. You are trying to level up. Think of it like playing an RPG. You start with easy quests designed for newbies with no experience and eventually unlock treasure.

What can you do that takes you no time and is in demand? I figured out how to something that takes 4 hours in 15 minutes and charge flat rate for it based on the original 4 hours. There is a handful of annoying errors other techs make that I instantly fix without sharing my secrets. ;)

Context: I have first refusal rights in my territory as a field tech on another site. I bill $5000+/mo in gross receivables. It didn’t happen overnight. I started by doing a few unprofitable tasks.

Re: Ask HN: Best practices for hiring software contractors?

#35

Post by iudqnolq »

wiseleo wrote: post #34
iudqnolq wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a student trying to get my first contracting job. I have very little experience, and and essentially no past work. I believe I'm competent enough to do some of the tasks I see on sites like Upwork, but I'm not having any luck. The jobs I'm applying for are basic things like write Google Apps script to send emails based on contents of a Google Sheet, not large projects. I'm not going to lie about who I am and what…

Your first few projects are essentially to build credibility. Don’t try to make money. You are trying to level up. Think of it like playing an RPG. You start with easy quests designed for newbies with no experience and eventually unlock treasure. What can you do that takes you no time and is in demand? I figured out how to something that takes 4 hours in 15 minutes and charge flat rate for it based on the original 4…

Got it. Most of the projects I've seen are by people who want to bill hourly. Upwork provides some sort of "recommended" wage. How much would you discount that by? I'm afraid that if I'm too cheap even people looking for minimally skilled cheap coders won't want to hire me. Also, so far I'm zero replies for two proposals (a few hundred words each, not copy-pasted). Roughly what should I expect?

Re: Ask HN: Best practices for hiring software contractors?

#36

Post by elamje »

I just wrote a post[0] about contracting, from the contractors perspective, and why I left my safe job for it.

IMO, developers that like a challenge and like dynamic work make good contractors. A lot of times having ambition and a passion for programming is a good sign. Many people I know do software to make a living and could care less about architectural decisions, best practices, and self-motivated skill growth.

I would be happy to help you evaluate a few contractors if you want some guidance:-)

[0] https://www.towardssoftware.com

Re: Ask HN: Best practices for hiring software contractors?

#37

Post by zerr »

elamje wrote: post #36

I just wrote a post[0] about contracting, from the contractors perspective, and why I left my safe job for it. IMO, developers that like a challenge and like dynamic work make good contractors. A lot of times having ambition and a passion for programming is a good sign. Many people I know do software to make a living and could care less about architectural decisions, best practices, and self-motivated skill growth. I…

> from ... C# to ... Clojure & React

that seems like a downgrade to me :) Do you find it easier to go self-employed with dynamic languages?

Re: Ask HN: Best practices for hiring software contractors?

#38

Post by BiteCode_dev »

iudqnolq wrote: post #31
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #13

It depends a lot of you size and your project scale. But here are a few advices. Do not pay by day/hour if you can avoid it. Define small deliverables then objective tests to validate them and attach fixed price to each piece. You don't have to come up with it out of thin air, the contractor is supposed to do that with you. You don't have to define all of them up front neither. In fact, they will probably change duri…

I'm a student trying to get my first contracting job. I have very little experience, and and essentially no past work. I believe I'm competent enough to do some of the tasks I see on sites like Upwork, but I'm not having any luck. The jobs I'm applying for are basic things like write Google Apps script to send emails based on contents of a Google Sheet, not large projects. I'm not going to lie about who I am and what…

Don't start your career as a contractor. Find a job first, even part time, if you can. Few people can get away with zero structure to shape them first.

Re: Ask HN: Best practices for hiring software contractors?

#39

Post by iudqnolq »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #38
iudqnolq wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a student trying to get my first contracting job. I have very little experience, and and essentially no past work. I believe I'm competent enough to do some of the tasks I see on sites like Upwork, but I'm not having any luck. The jobs I'm applying for are basic things like write Google Apps script to send emails based on contents of a Google Sheet, not large projects. I'm not going to lie about who I am and what…

Don't start your career as a contractor. Find a job first, even part time, if you can. Few people can get away with zero structure to shape them first.

Interesting. I've got a monthlong holiday break and want to get some work experience in it. My expectation is that no one will want to go through the effort of hiring me for that. I don't need the money right now, I'm trying to create a history of having reliably done something for money that I can point to in the future.

For example, a project I bid on was offering $200 to implement an email signature with two columns and basic styling from an image spec. Since it looked trivial and interesting I spent two hours learning a DSL for emails (MJML) and making it and then submitted a bid with screenshots of it in a few email clients.

I'm not trying to get a job creating something of significant scale or significant duration right now.

Re: Ask HN: Best practices for hiring software contractors?

#40

Post by bobongo »

mikekchar wrote: post #33
tacon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yegor has direct and extensive responses to each of your points, and many more. Not that he is always correct, but he never avoids the questions you raise, and is happy to engage in discussions. Since he himself ran a development shop in Ukraine for many years, he is pulling back the curtain and sharing tips to stabilize a difficult process, especially for non-technical customers. He even has his money where his mout…

On the "one click build process", I recall once talking with a friend of mine who worked on a fairly large Java project back when Java was first developed. There was no build system that was associated with Java and for reasons that I don't quite understand the development team were very unhappy using proven solutions like make. So they had this very fragile set of scripts for building the application. After about 2…

> don't skimp on the build process

Another advantage of a "one click" build process is that it documents, perfectly, the product. What lives where, maps to what and how, how each element is configured, etc. That "one click" is your way into the whole project.

Post reply on HN