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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?

#71

Post by peterbsmith »

JshWright wrote: post #68
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…

Interesting... I'll stop by the next one (I'm from the FM area).

Cool! They're the second Tuesday of every month, as it says on the site. And they're at 6PM at CoWorks.

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

#72

Post by genericresponse »

brudgers wrote: post #34
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…

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.

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

#73

Post by peterbsmith »

JshWright wrote: post #68
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…

Interesting... I'll stop by the next one (I'm from the FM area).

OP if you're reading this.... this is how it works

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

#74

Post by aquark »

quackware wrote: post #32

I get my clients primarily through gigster ( http://www.gigster.com ), referrals, and my website.

From the front page testimonial:

> in less than 5 minutes the project was fully spec'd and underway.

Honest question: why would I need a top '1% developer' for a project that can be fully spec'd in less than 5 minutes?

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

#75

Post by godzillabrennus »

vitd wrote: post #39
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…

It's been over 10 years since I had my own business, but when I did, I tried to use "we" instead of "I" and paint the business as a business offering services rather than one person trying to get work. It became very frustrating dealing with recruiters (the people who typically contact you for work). A typical conversation would go something like this: Me: I see you're looking to fill a position involving a lot of gr…

Recruiters don't exist to act as external sales people for your agency. They are there to find individuals for companies to hire.

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

#76

Post by genericresponse »

nightski wrote: post #56
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good example of "charging by value" is productized consulting - where it's a particular task, etc. that needs done for multiple customers. Say you're really good with Postgres, instead of just hanging out a shingle for "any Postgres stuff?" you offer something like a one time $2500 "Postgres Performance Audit". You get really good at this one thing, have a set bunch of scripts, very deep knowledge, predone report t…

Except that you are making your services a commodity. A large part of what makes my services valuable is that I can't approach every situation with a pre-fab script and report.

No it's a commodity if it's non-differentiated from others. You can still have non-commoditized work that operates at scaled efficiency. You just have to have something that makes you better or different.

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

#77

Post by BorisMelnik »

I like to go to places like upwork or elance and seek out people in the US with low rep that haven't done a lot of jobs. A lot of times those people are ones for big companies that are stuck in a situation that need a quick hack put together. Do a good job and you get put on their 'list' for future use.

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

#78

Post by ThePhysicist »

zerr wrote: post #13
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 (…

Do you think having accounts at Gulp (and XING?) would help for a person outside Germany (and non-German speaker)? Are [prospective] clients on those sites interested in remote consultants?

it depends, most gigs are on-site but there are exceptions.

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

#79

Post by jameslk »

I've been contracting/consulting for a couple of years now. Most my contracts have come through referrals (of friends) and sometimes recruiters. However, I was able to start my contracting career thanks to a contract that came through Toptal. This allowed me to quit my job and do this full-time.

Here's my list of resources that I would be looking at if I needed to start looking for a contract immediately:

Boards:

- Authentic Jobs: http://www.authenticjobs.com/

- StackOverflow Careers: http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs?type=contract&allowsre...

- We Work Remotely: https://weworkremotely.com/jobs/search?term=contract

- Angelist: https://angel.co/jobs

- Github Jobs: https://jobs.github.com/

- Hired: https://hired.com/contract-jobs

Networks:

- Toptal: https://www.toptal.com/ (I'm a member of Toptal's network)

- Gigster: https://www.trygigster.com/ (haven't used it yet)

- Crew: https://crew.co/ (haven't used it yet)

Offline ideas:

- Approach companies at Meetups

- Meetups, meetups, meetups

- Pitch on forums

- Work with contract agencies

- Become a subcontractor

It also helps to work on branding yourself, blogging, and integrating into communities (like HN!). Generally, just becoming an authority on a topic and allowing people get to know you before they work with you helps a lot. Kind of like patio11 has done for himself around here. Then people start coming to you instead of the other way around.

I would also highly recommend looking at DevChat TV's Freelance podcasts for ideas, they're really great: https://devchat.tv/freelancers

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

#80

Post by kaizensoze »

HN - http://hnhiring.me/

Remote OK - https://remoteok.io/

Stack Overflow - https://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs?allowsremote=True

LiquidTalent - http://www.liquidtalent.com/

Working Not Working - http://workingnotworking.com

Hired - https://hired.com/contract-jobs

Gigster - https://gigster.com/

Mirror - http://mirrorplacement.com/

Metova - http://metova.com/

Mokriya - http://mokriya.com/

HappyFunCorp - http://happyfuncorp.com

Savvy Apps - http://savvyapps.com/

Clevertech - http://www.clevertech.biz/

Workstate - http://www.workstate.com/

AngelList - https://angel.co/jobs

I know you're just asking for sites and not approaches to finding contract work, but getting in with a very promising early stage company through contract-to-hire [that allows remote] is probably the most sustainable way to go.

Doing one contract project after another at an hourly rate just doesn't scale well financially and finding a next decent client can be like pulling teeth.

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