I am in the exact opposite situation right now : how do I find a C system freelancer ?
Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?
11–20 of 206 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?
#12I am in the exact opposite situation right now : how do I find a C system freelancer ?
Post an open-ended comment on a popular Hacker News thread and watch the messages roll in? ;)
Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?
#13Are consultant brokers/agent only a thing in the Nordic countries? I started my own consultancy firm last year and just sent my profile to a bunch of brokers. They all got in touch and presented assignments they had. I selected one, went on 1 interview (!!) and bam - six month assignment. The broker gets 10% of what I make. It’s super convenient and saves me a bunch of stress and time hunting assignments so the 10% is really worth it.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?
#14Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?
#15Are consultant brokers/agent only a thing in the Nordic countries? I started my own consultancy firm last year and just sent my profile to a bunch of brokers. They all got in touch and presented assignments they had. I selected one, went on 1 interview (!!) and bam - six month assignment. The broker gets 10% of what I make. It’s super convenient and saves me a bunch of stress and time hunting assignments so the 10% i…
Can you list a few of these brokers?
Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?
#16Are consultant brokers/agent only a thing in the Nordic countries? I started my own consultancy firm last year and just sent my profile to a bunch of brokers. They all got in touch and presented assignments they had. I selected one, went on 1 interview (!!) and bam - six month assignment. The broker gets 10% of what I make. It’s super convenient and saves me a bunch of stress and time hunting assignments so the 10% i…
10% seems quite a lot, I'm wondering if your hour rate is so high that the 10% doesn't matter.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?
#17I do AI/ML/data science freelancing, (usually around cyber security), but also do a lot of Devops / systems work.
The AI/ML stuff is harder to find, save through networking, but for the DevOps/cloud/sysadmin - I favor weworkremotely.com and workingnomads.com. Their email notifications are pretty handy as well.
As someone else mentioned - upwork works, but it’s very very competitive, and I much preferred their Elance platform in the day.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?
#18Be helpful, polite, and talk to people. This can be on an online forum, group chat, or in person. If you are genuinely helpful and polite, you will form relationships, which can eventually lead to jobs.
It's precisely when you're not trying to find work that the wildest opportunities will come to you.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?
#19Once a month on the first, HN does a piece called "Freelancer / Seeking Freelancer." You could post to that and/or check it for "Seeking Freelancer" comments.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?
#20Toptal[1]
If you're a really good engineer (like I strongly believed I was) and don't have the network to find gigs (I live in Pakistan) freelance market places are great ideas on paper but never work out... Until I joined Toptal. They screened me to ensure I was a good developer (high quality supply of developers) and then worked with me to find a client that would be a good fit.
Since not everyone can get into the marketplace, it isn't a race to the lowest rate and they have the best clients I've ever worked with. At one point an old client emailed asking me to temporarily move to Australia for a project (although I declined)
You can work full-time, part-time, or even hourly. It's exactly what you're looking for!
Full disclosure: I later joined Toptal as an editor for their engineering publication [2] so I technically work there but this was all based on my experience as a freelancer there
[1]: referral link - topt.al/cppg [2]: https://www.toptal.com/developers/blog#contract-just-respect...