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Ask HN: Where are the good platforms for contract work?

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Re: Ask HN: Where are the good platforms for contract work?

#81

Post by distrill »

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #30
akuji1993 wrote: post #27

Toptal is trash if you're in the US or in EU. They have shit hourly rates and you compete against developers from anywhere in the world, so you can't ever match the rates they are throwing in. If you are in the EU, check out Freelancermap, Austin Fraser, Hays, Malt, Darwin Recruitment, Upper.co (for less pay, but startup work). I think one thing which is restricting your search is your tech stack. I'd honestly concen…

Not only that, but their interview process is pretty insane. They wanted me to grind leetcode and do a week-long project and didn't give a lot of specifics about how much I could expect to make on the platform. Felt like a major time-suck without a lot of upside.

They asked me a few times throughout the process what my rate was and it was never hinted that it was high, but when I actually got through I was pinged immediately and frequently about being "open to feedback about my rate". I think they want to have US people on offer even if they don't expect to pay any of them what they're expecting.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the good platforms for contract work?

#83

Post by Arubis »

shabbatt wrote: post #24
eatonphil wrote: post #7

What are the good platforms? Emailing the CEO of small, local software companies with your experience and your rate. Also, posting your info on the monthly HN Who's Hiring Freelancers post.

Neither of those really work well, unless you have rapport with that CEO. Same with that HN who wants to work thread, you are just racing to the bottom and making it easier for others to emulate your own posting in terms of skills. I don't really have a good answer, I really think its down to mostly luck or you have a skill market fit

I've repeatedly found small clients (think a few days a month) on the monthly HN Freelancer thread at my normal, US-centric, senior+ rates. Sometimes it's clients by proxy, where a thread reader will connect me with someone else they know that isn't the original HN respondent.

My response rate improved considerably when I shifted from highlighting my tech stack to my actual effectiveness. I haven't had sufficient availability to pursue HN-based leads in about a year, though.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the good platforms for contract work?

#84

Post by jokethrowaway »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #14

One thing that makes me sad, is the old "contract agent" seems to have gone the way of the dodo. I clearly remember these folks. They acted in almost exactly the same way as literary or artist agents; searching out opportunities for their clients, and setting up interviews, etc. As a hiring manager, I dealt with them frequently, and had friends that used them. They used to make a lot of money, because they would char…

Yes and no. Contract companies massively overcharge so your contract rate can still be market rate.

8 years ago in London I knew about some companies charging 1000+£ per day to customers and paying the contractors 400-600£.

You should still avoid those places, but many contractors didn't have the contacts to charge higher than 400-600£.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the good platforms for contract work?

#86

Post by ernestipark »

You have experience in languages that have relatively limited hiring pools. My advice would be to look for full-time roles that need help in these languages, email the hiring manager/company, and offer your services part-time or on a contract basis. I would bet a lot of them would be happy to get someone in the role quickly than have no one at all. Good luck.

I saw the same problems with part-time/contract work and I'm in the process of building a job board specifically catered towards this. I have many startups lined up based on some of my writing on https://parttimetech.substack.com/. Hope to get the job board up shortly. Check it out if interested.

A few related insights (some you've already mentioned):

* existing job boards are not built for this

* there is actually a pretty wide range of what contract/part-time work could look like. my hope is to help companies explore this a bit further to create better outcomes for employers and employees

* employers need help seeing when contract/part-time work is actually the right tool for the job. i hope to emphasize this more in future posts. most just don't think of it as an option.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the good platforms for contract work?

#87

Post by randomdata »

senko wrote: post #31
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #14

One thing that makes me sad, is the old "contract agent" seems to have gone the way of the dodo. I clearly remember these folks. They acted in almost exactly the same way as literary or artist agents; searching out opportunities for their clients, and setting up interviews, etc. As a hiring manager, I dealt with them frequently, and had friends that used them. They used to make a lot of money, because they would char…

Were contract agents really a thing for software developers? I was just thinking there could definitely be a niche like that, there must be a bunch of people that would love contracting but hate bizdev etc. Up until know I hadn't heard those ever existed.

Yes. I dabbled with one a couple of decades ago. I didn't find it to be all that fruitful of a relationship, though, which may be why they have fallen out of favour.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the good platforms for contract work?

#88

Post by jokethrowaway »

Platforms are all crap, consulting agencies will cut in half your potential profits, recruiters have jobs with terrible rates.

You need to network in person - which is hard, thanks to the BS lockdowns of the last few years.

Try to leverage previous contacts / other contractor friends. Eg. My current client (which I found via contacts from a previous jobs) pays pretty decent and I'm referring my friends there. Before that I was referred in some nice places by friends.

Networking is everything, don't feed recruiters or contractor resellers.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the good platforms for contract work?

#89

Post by wpietri »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #41
thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nowadays, it looks like they have been replaced by "race to the bottom" sites, like Upwork, or these contract companies, that hire you at a fairly low rate, and shop you out for very high rates. I can't help but feel like these platforms are like Uber for programmers: devoid of all meaningful professional contact and ultimately the commodification of programming as a job. The power dynamic has shifted to give most…

The real question isn't "are they?" it's "why were so many of us so confident it wouldn't come for us?"

For sure. Reminds me of this: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/leopards-eating-peoples-faces...

Partly because a lot of us have made good money building platforms that increase buyer power through commodification (most of e-commerce, plenty of other things). And partly because of persistently low standards in the profession that I see little enthusiasm for working together to raise.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the good platforms for contract work?

#90

Post by Aulig »

brtkdotse wrote: post #67
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #14

One thing that makes me sad, is the old "contract agent" seems to have gone the way of the dodo. I clearly remember these folks. They acted in almost exactly the same way as literary or artist agents; searching out opportunities for their clients, and setting up interviews, etc. As a hiring manager, I dealt with them frequently, and had friends that used them. They used to make a lot of money, because they would char…

They're alive and well in Northern Europe at least. I'd say a majority of contracting work is done through them since they somehow get exclusivity deals with big clients like H&M, Scania, SAAB and the like. They charge around 5-15% (almost always 10% though) of every invoice. Before you balk at the number, consider that during my almost 5 years as a solo contractor I've spent _zero_ hours doing sales. None. When I wa…

Where do you find these contract agents? Or which are some popular ones?
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