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Ask HN: Where can I find small companies to work for part-time?

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Re: Ask HN: Where can I find small companies to work for part-time?

#51

Post by sph »

I'm in the same position, and I am once again asking for "talent management" to become a thing. I am a software engineer, I am willing to pay a recruiter/manager some percent of my revenue to keep sending work my way and find new quality clients.

Yes, I would pay a recruiter to keep around so that I do not have to spend time sending resumes and searching job boards whenever a contract dries up.

Right now I am looking for work. If you're a recruiter (or another engineer for that matter) interested in such an arrangement, email is in my profile.

Re: Ask HN: Where can I find small companies to work for part-time?

#52

Post by itsmemattchung »

There's plenty of part-time work out there: launch your own LLC and multiplex between clients.

Source: I launched my own software consulting business back in July 2022 and I work with a handful of customers "part-time" (e.g. project based work, 10 hours a week).

Re: Ask HN: Where can I find small companies to work for part-time?

#53

Post by n4bz0r »

barry-cotter wrote: post #12
n4bz0r wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the purpose of those? There are countries where this pay is acceptable? Can't really think of a reason to attract attention this way.

You do a great job on crap jobs to get a good rating so people will look at your proposal for decent jobs. A friend did that for financial modeling jobs on Upwork after doing a CFI course and was making $50 an hour within two months. And yes, there are many countries where a $1 an hour job would get a lot of applicants.

The way the parent phrased it, I assumed it's the other way around - $1/hr job offers are being sent out to potential job applicants.

Despite the confusion, though, I think I can see now that there is a place for $1/hr jobs, too, since people are actually looking for these offers.

Re: Ask HN: Where can I find small companies to work for part-time?

#54

Post by nekoashide »

I found that Linkedin job search can be refined to find these out of band jobs as well. When I was looking for a side hustle it helped me land a support job that was part time and after hours remote. It was a small company and there was one interview before I got the job.

Re: Ask HN: Where can I find small companies to work for part-time?

#55

Post by hobo_in_library »

itsmemattchung wrote: post #52

There's plenty of part-time work out there: launch your own LLC and multiplex between clients. Source: I launched my own software consulting business back in July 2022 and I work with a handful of customers "part-time" (e.g. project based work, 10 hours a week).

Would you mind sharing how you found your customers? That feels like the hardest part

Re: Ask HN: Where can I find small companies to work for part-time?

#56

Post by tluyben2 »

busterarm wrote: post #34

If you dislike going through interviews, I'm not sure that freelance work or going into business for yourself (which is the normal model for this kind of thing) is really the right answer. When you're freelancing you're essentially interviewing for your job every single minute you're in front of or have an active project with the client. Soft skills and doing work that has nothing to do with engineering is even more…

Soft skills I don’t mind; grown up interviews I don’t mind. I have done freelancing for 30 years now and had 0 requests for balancing binary trees, time/space complexity of sorting algos; things that are often associated with interviews here on HN and things which I did, you know, in uni, for which, you know, I have a degree to prove I could do them and know what they are. They are generally 100% useless on modern jobs (I worked on specific embedded jobs I needed knowledge like it, but you can look that up as well). I just give my company’s (it is a 1-3 band gang depending on what the others are doing) portfolio and no one requests weird things like that.

Now soft skills are different and 2 of us are good at those and one of us is really bad; so we hire out based on the client, wishes and need for soft skills and a lot of communication overhead or not. And I agree that needs to be a match, however I cannot see how that requires 6-8 gruelling interviews spread over weeks instead of 15 minutes and a portfolio (which is how we get hired).

So yeah, I think OP would do better in a small collective of freelancers or even small consultancy company; I find it much easier to get into anywhere that way than the employee route.

Re: Ask HN: Where can I find small companies to work for part-time?

#57

Post by sph »

jmconfuzeus wrote: post #40

You can try Toptal. I heard good things about them but haven't got in myself because they require leetcode puzzles which I suck at atm.

I did one interview with them with flying colours, 3 puzzles with 100% score, I had one employee contact me before I was done with the whole process to tell me they had a client that needed my exact set of skills, so interviewed with them as well, and passed.

But during the last technical call I couldn't finish one out of two puzzles in time because I initially went for a sub-optimal strategy, so I got told to practice leetcode and apply later.

With 16 years of professional experience, I shall do better with my time than getting good at solving timed Fizzbuzz-type puzzles.

Re: Ask HN: Where can I find small companies to work for part-time?

#59

Post by mattbee »

I write and train for Skiller Whale (skillerwhale.com) who train teams of software developers on React, Go, Typescript & PostgreSQL (with lots of other curriculums in development).

We're always looking for experienced software developers who are personable and can go deep into a topic with learners, work through exercises, help them correct mistakes and so on. It's 1-2 hours of well-paid work per session:

https://apply.workable.com/skiller-whale/j/2D3E071FD5/

(Warning you do have to prepare each session quite well - it's much harder to teach something that you know as a working programmer than as a teacher, because you're probably not used to saying what you know out loud!)

But if you know the topic and like helping other software devs it might be exactly the kind of short-term you're looking for.

Happy to answer any questions here, and I'd probably be involved in an interview session too.

Re: Ask HN: Where can I find small companies to work for part-time?

#60

Post by TruthWillHurt »

From my experience, part-time roles are few and far between.

(It certainly doesn't help that agents post jobs as part-time only to lure you to apply so they can start nagging you.)

The part-time roles that are available are usually either very simple, short-term tasks, Or companies with extremely limited budgets that will under-pay you, and try to squeeze the most out of you and give you trouble with payment and hours worked.

I suggest opening a company, adding some friends, and taking up multiple contracts simultaniously.

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