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Ask HN: Consultants and independent contractors, where do you find clients?

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Ask HN: Consultants and independent contractors, where do you find clients?

#1

Post by nomeq »

Pre-pandemic, I was able to network easily at conferences and meetups, but in the time since, I haven't found a good replacement.

I'm a software engineer and former CTO, interested in both custom development and higher level questions of technical strategy and system design. Places like Upwork don't seem geared to this type of work (unless I'm mistaken).

Is this kind of work now mostly handled by large consultancies that provide contractors, unless you have significant connections? How are you all networking and marketing yourselves in these unprecedented times?

Re: Ask HN: Consultants and independent contractors, where do you find clients?

#4

Post by fxtentacle »

Prospective clients find me on LinkedIn and then contact me. Also, there are some staffing agencies that keep lists of freelance consultants so that they can keep their client happy even if they don't find any suitable hire. Sometimes when I'm bored, I actually chat with their recruiters.

Also, pull requests. I once fixed a crash bug in the Unreal Engine 4 and submitted a patch. Afterwards, a game studio called me. Similarly, I got contacted by an AI consultancy after I submitted a patch to TensorFlow.

Plus me and my friends do a lot of online competitions. Last year we briefly "won" Sintel, this year its Bomberland. Nothing says "this guy can do AI" better than ranking in-between FAANG teams in an AI competition.

Re: Ask HN: Consultants and independent contractors, where do you find clients?

#5

Post by rossdavidh »

I am usually operating at a senior programmer level, not making CTO type decisions but often making architectural ones (for clients that don't have a full-time IT staff). So my experience may or may not be comparable to yours. But, for what it's worth, here's my count of where I found clients:

job posting forum: 10 (2 of them HN "Who's Hiring" posts, 1 meetup.com, 1 Google jobs, the others I don't recall but some were monster.com or indeed.com)

previous coworker: 3

previous client: 2

friend of a friend of a friend: 1

I haven't actually taken a gig found via LinkedIn, but I get inquiries from there.

Re: Ask HN: Consultants and independent contractors, where do you find clients?

#8

Post by au246 »

Don't laugh, but I've landed some consulting/side gigs (most recently an I.T. project review with a recommendations report deliverable), based on people that I've met while out socially, and also intro's from people that I know that I run into socially. However, when out socially, I never start off by selling my services, but by having regular conversations, asking them what they do, et cetera.

I also blog about interesting topics in the Caribbean (which MSM rarely touches, at least in my neck of the Caribbean woods), and I use that as a convo starter when people ask me what I do (citizen journalism personally, CTO professionally), and what background I'm from (I.T. and business/commercial roles).

Hope that helps.

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