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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?

#111

Post by innertracks »

thibaut_barrere wrote: post #4

I've been contracting, consulting & freelancing for the last 10 years (5 years completely remote). My advice is to avoid "searching contract work", but reverse the situation completely: make your new clients find you instead. I wrote about this in depth here: https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/how-to-have-clients-find-you... . Sites /can/ work (I know people who make a good living off certain sites), but nothing will be…

Your blog and twitter feed are very helpful. I was doing part time consulting, mostly web-related, for a number of years. Getting myself focused in this new phase of life has been challenging. You are clearly focused in your online presence. Clear "Hire Me" call to actions among other things, too. Time for me to do them. Thanks!

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

#112

Post by qp9384btv_2e »

err4nt wrote: post #96
qp9384btv_2e wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 about others, but I sure do! I have CSS stylesheets in 7 colour themes, a dozen bootstrap-like JS plugins that add common interactive elements I can drop into any site, and tons of parts and pieces of layouts (like an order form, signup form, pricing chart, or media player) isolated and ready to re-use. I also maintain a big snippets file, filled with HTML, CSS, JS, and command-line snippets and tricks so I c…

How do you incorporate this re-use into your contracts?

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

#113

Post by mattmccarthy »

err4nt wrote: post #96
qp9384btv_2e wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 about others, but I sure do! I have CSS stylesheets in 7 colour themes, a dozen bootstrap-like JS plugins that add common interactive elements I can drop into any site, and tons of parts and pieces of layouts (like an order form, signup form, pricing chart, or media player) isolated and ready to re-use. I also maintain a big snippets file, filled with HTML, CSS, JS, and command-line snippets and tricks so I c…

This sounds really helpful. I'm just beginning my contracting. Would you be willing to share these libraries and snippets?

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

#115

Post by jacquesm »

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…

Re. 1: never ever put all your eggs in a single basket like that, it may work for some but it is a huge risk and there is no real reason to take that risk. Two is a bare minimum, three clients is stability.

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

#116

Post by victorantos »

kaizensoze wrote: post #80

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://happy…

Thanks for the list! I will use it to extract angularjs jobs only, for my own job board, https://github.com/victorantos/AngJobs/issues/34

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

#117

Post by peterbsmith »

edc117 wrote: post #102
vvpan wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So without any experience you are able to charge $150/hour?

Seconding this question, this is baffling to me. I could see maybe getting through the door with some less-saavy clients and collecting a pay check for a few weeks, but I can't imagine that working for long. How long are you typically employed? What happens if you encounter projects you are unable to solve, is it a fake it until you make it sort of thing?

I was offered $150/hr to manage a project once and so I accepted. I figured it out along the way and delivered the results.

Since then, I start with an estimate of $150/hr when I'm calculating price. I've had one person balk and say thats crazy. one.

Everyone else has either came back and said that they can't afford that, that they'd like to pay $XXX instead. Or they've said yes to $150/hr.

What happens if you encounter projects you are unable to solve, is it a fake it until you make it sort of thing?

With just about every project I do I don't know exactly how I'll solve it to begin with. Before I start billing I always have a research phase, either a day or a week, but never more than that, to figure out how I'll do it. I don't bill for hours that I study, just hours that I work on their project.

I hope this is helpful, but essentially, I deal fairly with all clients. As long as terms are understood upfront I find everyone is happy.

Typical projects are 4-6 months I'd say.

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

#118

Post by pekk »

jeddawson wrote: post #101
pmorici wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be willing to share with us the average $/hr rate you pay your Upwork employees? I'd be willing to bet it is quite low. As an employer I can totally see why you would love it, it's an effective way to pay bottom dollar for simplistic computer tasks. From the stand point of someone looking to get into software engineer contract work it's lame. The guaranteed payment thing you are talking about is only for pr…

I use upwork to sub-out work that I don't have time to tackle or for tasks that I lack expertise in. Once I've found someone on the platform that is really talented at what they do, I return to them for subsequent projects that need their skillset. The challenge on that platform is finding the people that stand out since there are so many low-bar contributors. Examples of work that I use it for are simple html/css st…

> since there are so many low-bar contributors.

That's because there are so many low-bar employers.

Many of whom are also hanging out places like HN, complaining that there are no good developers while praising anything which drives down wages.

To know why there are few good developers, look no further than the market price. It doesn't justify top effort. I could sweat blood competing on price and throughput with people who have a cost of living that is a small fraction of mine, hoping against reason that someone will spontaneously give me a raise out of the goodness of their hearts. Or... not.

Most of the people who would eat your projects for breakfast don't want to be worked like pizza delivery drivers, delivering as cheap and fast as possible and hoping for tips. So they aren't on these sites. These sites are where careers go to die.

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

#119

Post by WoodenChair »

One thing that I think is valuable when looking for contracting work (what I call consulting) is to learn how people that have been highly successful in consulting built their business. Checkout episodes 4 (Marcus Zarra) and 5 (Michael Fellows) of Consult: http://consultpodcast.com

or

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/consult/id1018251429?mt=...

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

#120

Post by pekk »

bcks wrote: post #20

I've had good success hiring developers for short-term project work through https://gun.io .

Good luck getting paid on gun.io, if the buyer just decides they want the work for free then they can take it and wander off. Gun.io doesn't care because who is bringing them money?
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