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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?

#151

Post by pmorici »

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…

I don't doubt that if you look hard enough you can find both good contractors and good clients. I think it's the rare exception and not the rule though. The last time I looked at Upwork was when it was called Odesk so I was curious if anything had changed so I went back and looked this afternoon. Here is a sampling of job postings that came up searching for Python jobs...

1) "Image Viewer - Python: In search of a python developer to build an application which cleanly display and organizes many images (200+) as thumbnails on one interface. The interface will display approx 6 data fields contained in two tables."

Budget: $50 (This client has previously hired 7 other people and spent $477 in total on Upwork)

2) "Python Help: I am looking for help in my python code, searching feature and fixing. Its a assignment if you can do this quickly let me know. Coding is almost completed, you need to correct logic and searching features. Hardly 35-50 line code, small assignment."

Budget: $10 (This client has previously hired 9 people and spent $284 in total on Upwork)

3) "Parse Fields from HTML file: Parse fields from HTML document Required language: Python (Python package BeautifulSoup is allowed/preferred.) Input: Python function that accepts file name (2 HTML files) Output: Python dictionary. All listed fields should be a separate key. Addresses should also be a dictionary so that city, state, and zip are separate Fields to pull out: First Name, Last Name, City, State, ETC ETC roughly 20 fields between two different HTML document types/formats."

Budget: $60 (This client has previously hired 23 people and spent $3,791 on Upwork, they pay an average of $10.10 per hour)

So based on those I don't think it has improved at all.

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

#152

Post by odonnellryan »

pacomerh wrote: post #110
odonnellryan wrote: post #107

A lot of people are saying job websites don't work. I don't agree with them. I've been consulting over a year (US-based, near NYC) and I've found plenty of very good clients (small and large) through freelancing websites. Few loose guidelines I've used to help me with applying to gigs: 1) Evaluate if you think the person understands the value of the work, and only reply if you can somewhat-confidently answer "yes." 2…

Can you elaborate on #2 ?, are you saying that starting a good relation is more important?

Of course! There are two aspects to this.

First, you obviously cannot work for $5 unless you're located in a low-income country. They are putting it up for $5, because they don't know how much it costs. However, you have to be careful to make sure they are competent so you're not ending up with a client who does not value your time.

Second, getting a job for $1,000 (when maybe it's really a $1,500 job) with the possibility of future work is better than not getting that job at all, in most circumstances.

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

#153

Post by bartvk »

qp9384btv_2e wrote: post #112
err4nt wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You could explicitly retain the copyrights on your code. Actually that is the default so in general it's not actually necessary.

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

#154

Post by chris11 »

peterbsmith wrote: post #117
edc117 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 encou…

Out of curiosity, how much software development experience did you have? $150/hr seems kind of high to me just starting out freelancing.

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

#155

Post by mdpopescu »

graham1776 wrote: post #142

The one thing I always tell anyone on the job hunt (which in your case is finding contract work), which few ever seem to take me up on: Informational Interviews. These are informal "Can I take you out to coffee?" talks with people in your industry to see what they are working on, what is happening with them, what is going on in the industry. Every job I have ever gotten is through informal meetings with people I have…

I just don't see how I could call someone I've never met and ask them out for a coffee. It sounds so strange it just "doesn't compute".

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

#156

Post by simonlebo »

pmorici wrote: post #146
simonlebo wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been working exclusively through upwork for 2 years and make a good living off it (I also live in Australia, it's not like I can charge 10$/h). I would highly recommend people give it a try, you will be surprised that there are lots of client out there looking for talent who are ready to pay correctly or premium.

Maybe you can share your strategy then because I dabbled in it a few years back and found it to be full of people willing to work for less than $10 per hour. The majority of projects advertised seemed to be things like web scraping, homework cheating, people who wanted computer software to pick a magic lottery number, etc...

Yes I agree that 90% of all the projects advertised are what you describe and not worth anything. No-one should waste their time on it. But there is also this 10% of really quality work. There seems to be a shortage of talent in some areas of the world and the technology is here for teams to be distributed so some CEO/CTO give these freelancing sites a go.

When I first had a look I got quite pessimistic about my chances of finding work and money through it but decided nonetheless to give it a fair go.

I passed a few tests that gave me an initial edge as a newcomer, and decided to follow most freelancing advice I found on the internet: don't down-value yourself with a bad hourly rate, and apply to jobs professionally. It took me a few weeks to get a first contract, and after a month or so I was working 60h per week. I also read "The Freelance Pricing Guidebook" by Glenn Stovall which is a simple pdf of a dozen of pages which really gave me a good think of how to approach being independent and potential pricing strategies.

I also try to get out of the platform once I built the relationship with the client but it is not without risk if they run out of money, you don't have that nice guarantee that the platform offers. It happened to me that a client owed me 5 digits amounts and I regretted for a while having gone directly to him (he ended up paying, he had just ran out of cash).

If you find an USA client and you are not in the USA, with the strong USD it can be really advantageous for both parties. If you are in the USA I'd still say you can do well (I think Australia is more expensive than USA).

Maybe I really got lucky, or necessity forced me to succeed since my girlfriend got sent to a rural area with no work for me. Now days my work is so much more interesting, better paid and I met some amazing people thanks to that platform.

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

#157

Post by udswagz »

coderKen wrote: post #135

Anyone, currently looking for a remote front-end developer? I am full-stack developer (tending towards front-end nowadays), I live in Lagos, Nigeria and looking for remote work. I have a strong Javascript(NodeJS, AngularJs) background with over 3yrs experience. Portfolio: http://goo.gl/OmEpz8 Git: https://goo.gl/oYbi8F some side projects I have done: http://goo.gl/TGRSWg http://goo.gl/kHcn5M http://goo.gl/eUPozF http…

looked at your projects, cool stuff.

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

#158

Post by eric-hu »

mdpopescu wrote: post #155
graham1776 wrote: post #142

The one thing I always tell anyone on the job hunt (which in your case is finding contract work), which few ever seem to take me up on: Informational Interviews. These are informal "Can I take you out to coffee?" talks with people in your industry to see what they are working on, what is happening with them, what is going on in the industry. Every job I have ever gotten is through informal meetings with people I have…

I just don't see how I could call someone I've never met and ask them out for a coffee. It sounds so strange it just "doesn't compute".

I've been on the receiving end of these. I'm usually happy to oblige unless the other person sets of some major red flag. I don't find them strange, though I'm usually doing it for friends of friends or acquaintances.

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

#159

Post by payamb »

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…

Hey, I'm a Web developer living in UK, and English is not my first language, I can speak okay and also i'm studying to speak fluently. Iv'e been working in the industry for past 6 years, Considering i'm not a native speaker, Do you have any suggestion that i can improve my chance of securing contracts ? Is it possible to keep all communication in email ?

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

#160

Post by osullivj »

dmitri1981 wrote: post #24

For those who are London based, I recently launched a mailing list for members of the London Hacker News Meetup, which sends out contracts based on your language preference. It's averaging about 10 jobs a month at the moment however I am working on getting it to about 100 pm by the end of the year. The current sign up page is at http://eepurl.com/byq7Af

No C# or C++ on signup page language list?
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