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Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

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Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#81

Post by ThePhysicist »

imaginenore wrote: post #38
ThePhysicist wrote: post #8

I recently made it through the Toptal ( http://www.toptal.com ) screening process but haven't taken on any work through their site yet, the hourly rate that you can ask there seems to be quite reasonable though compared to sites like upwork.com, where you will mostly compete with people that are willing to work for 10 $ / hour (which for someone living in a developed country is just not possible). For Germany, Gulp (…

What kind of rates do you see on TopTal?

at Toptal you can set your own rate in advance

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#82

Post by godzillabrennus »

andreasklinger wrote: post #7

I used to do a lot of contract work. I can't tell you what you should do - but here is what i did and it worked for me Two approaches: 1) Work for one large client and essentially become an employee (consider this. a lot of startups pay good money for remote employees) 2) Work for multiple clients Focusing on #2 here Core rule: You want to be paid premium for quality and service. Avoid marketplaces - it's very hard t…

There are a couple of things you didn't mention.

Contracts Do this. Get familiar with contract law and make sure your customers execute one that's favorable to you getting paid. Also, ensure you assign at least a license to the client paying you to avoid any problems down the road if you intend to reuse code.

Big projects If you intend to tackle big projects you usually need to deal with net terms. Find an invoice factoring company to help you cashflow those deals. They base interest on the loans on your clients.

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#83

Post by embwbam »

aggieben wrote: post #21
andreasklinger wrote: post #7

I used to do a lot of contract work. I can't tell you what you should do - but here is what i did and it worked for me Two approaches: 1) Work for one large client and essentially become an employee (consider this. a lot of startups pay good money for remote employees) 2) Work for multiple clients Focusing on #2 here Core rule: You want to be paid premium for quality and service. Avoid marketplaces - it's very hard t…

Don't charge by the hour but by the value This sounds like a recipe for disaster to me without a lot more explanation. Time is the main cost to a provider, so it's very natural that time would also be the driver for billing. "Charging for value" sounds like you're trying to say "fixed price" without actually saying it. I have many, many issues with trying to do fixed price projects of any appreciable size (say, more…

It's vague, because it's a high level idea. I want to earn more than I can by time, therefore I have to get clients to start thinking about how much value they are getting and paying for that.

Practically I've had success recently by charging weekly. I keep this rate deliberately lower (about half my old full time consulting rate). Then I send them a weekly report along with the invoice every week. They get to see exactly what they got for the money. It usually takes me 15-20 hours to deliver enough value for the weekly rate.

So there are lots of things to try. Small changes in billing can have a large impact on your relationship with your client.

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#84

Post by brokencog »

peterbsmith wrote: post #47
a_shane wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to add a bit to your comment - it's important to try and identify the kind of meetups you'd like to attend that will help you meet your desired customer base, and the kinds that will help you get known in your local community (ie: meetups for web devs to connect). I find that meetups can sometimes become circle-jerks for people in a similar field to just get together and talk/humblebrag. Which is fine, but if…

Good point. Some meetups I went to were the exact circle-jerk/humblebragfests you're talking about. The one I consistently go to (shameless plug [OpenHack Syracuse]( http://www.openhacksyr.com ) is a monthly meetup for developers to talk about what projects they're working on and to spend time together working on projects, ideas, and sharing info. It's really just an organized hangout/hack session. And it's these typ…

sounds like sex ... the best way to get a date is to be out not looking for a date.

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#85

Post by eropple »

qp9384btv_2e wrote: post #70
eropple wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on my arrangement with a client. Work-for-hire contracts make reuse impossible, and so I tend to price higher, whereas a perpetual, transferable, etc. license to the code I work on has a better chance of being useful down the line and so I may knock a couple bucks off.

My thought was to develop a library for code re-use among clients. It would cover common problems/features. In your experience, do many contract workers have such a thing?

I dunno, but I wouldn't want to have such a thing in a stack. I reuse code like "hey, I've got this super nice Vagrant setup that makes life easier" or "I've got this Chef cookbook that's a little too specialized to meaningfully open-source but I can turn it around to help," rather than application-level code. If I had a library for application code-reuse, I'd just find a platform-appropriate library like Guava or something and try to get it in there, or open-source the whole thing myself.

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#86

Post by andkon »

kelvin0 wrote: post #65
Ma8ee wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recruiters recruit people, so of course they want a resume. If you aren't a person a person that wants to be recruited or wants to recruit someone, a recruiter is the wrong person to talk to.

Unfortunately, many times the 'default' gatekeeper to anyone else worth your time in the org IS the recruiter. Using social engineering and/or linkedin you are sometimes able to figure who you need to speak to and access them directly.

Using social engineering and/or linkedin you are sometimes able to figure who you need to speak to and access them directly

I think you just described what 'sales' is.

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#87

Post by telecuda »

Tip: Have an Indeed.com resume verbose with your areas of expertise. Build a project using Parse.com or the Twitter API? Put that in there. As an employer, one of my more successful methods is to search for specific skill sets that a project may require, then reach out to a small handful of developers who hit on those searches with a pitch to why -new project- is exciting.

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#88

Post by goodoldboys »

andreasklinger wrote: post #7

I used to do a lot of contract work. I can't tell you what you should do - but here is what i did and it worked for me Two approaches: 1) Work for one large client and essentially become an employee (consider this. a lot of startups pay good money for remote employees) 2) Work for multiple clients Focusing on #2 here Core rule: You want to be paid premium for quality and service. Avoid marketplaces - it's very hard t…

#1 is where it's at, in my personal experience. I find it hard and less than optimal to work for multiple clients because of the time it takes switching from project to project. Having just one client is inherently riskier from a standpoint of financial stability, but I think the benefits outweigh that risk.

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#89

Post by brudgers »

genericresponse wrote: post #72
brudgers wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the work has no value, charging by value rather than time means that the client who doesn't pay because they are not going to use the work is justified in doing so. Which is another way of saying, the general problem isn't a good billing model. It's good clients. Unfortunately, most contractors/freelancers starting out and looking for advice won't have good clients (even when they have clients at all) and will…

You don't tell them: give me what you value it for. You do your best to estimate what success will be (in value) to them. Then you negotiate from that.

If your best professional opinion is that the business is going to go under irrespective of your great work, then the ethical choices under the value model are:

1. Don't take the work at any price.

2. Do it for free.

Again, if a person has experience and great clients, the choice of pricing model is a problem. If a person lacks experience to judge what the value is in the client's domain and/or the client isn't proven to be good, pricing model doesn't matter as much.

The value model price isn't based on what the work is worth, it's based on what the freelancer believes the client believes the work is worth. Under the value based pricing model, if the client is deluded it's reasonable to fleece them...and deluded clients who pay well are good clients.

Re: Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work?

#90

Post by kjax »

brokencog wrote: post #84
peterbsmith wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. Some meetups I went to were the exact circle-jerk/humblebragfests you're talking about. The one I consistently go to (shameless plug [OpenHack Syracuse]( http://www.openhacksyr.com ) is a monthly meetup for developers to talk about what projects they're working on and to spend time together working on projects, ideas, and sharing info. It's really just an organized hangout/hack session. And it's these typ…

sounds like sex ... the best way to get a date is to be out not looking for a date.

Whether it be business opportunities, employment prospects, or romance, there seems to be a consistent theme: improving your prospects often comes as a result of improving the relevant factors you can presently control. With that being said, all three seem to benefit from enhancing your network.
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