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Ask HN: Where do seasoned devs look for short-term work?
31–40 of 179 posts
Re: Ask HN: Where do seasoned devs look for short-term work?
#32Short term work is more plentiful when money is easy and there’s a lot of entrepreneurial activity going on due to some recent catalyst such as mobile app platforms or the dotcom boom etc. Right now we’re in the AI boom and some people may be making money peddling agentic solutions but money is tight and businesses are hurting. It’s also hard to trust a short term dev who doesn’t really need the money. You have no le…
Hard to trust someone who takes that perspective on the relationship, too. I'll work for a control freak if I need the money bad enough, but you're not going to get the best I can offer if you don't have the sense to keep a loose rein.
Re: Ask HN: Where do seasoned devs look for short-term work?
#33A. Within your circles. Make sure everyone knows you are available.
B. Think of best creative solutions you came up with throughout your career.
Use LLM to write a post every other day (!). Within a month, you have 15 posts, which people will find useful as they search.
At the bottom f each put your contact details and a closing paragraph that you are available for consultancy.
Re: Ask HN: Where do seasoned devs look for short-term work?
#34I did this a few years ago and the winning recipe was a shameless (i.e. deeply shameful) linkedin post where I pretty much just summarized my skillset and explained that I was looking for a senior engineer equivalent of a summer internship, with no chance of extension. Got me 3-4 offers. None of the offering companies had ads out for roles like this, so this was pretty much the only way.
> deeply shameful
Your feelings are what they are, but this is the least shameful post I would ever see on LinkedIn. It's someone actually looking for work! and not just posting some super cringe low-IQ engagement-farm copypasta.
Finding work is exactly what LinkedIn ought to be for
Re: Ask HN: Where do seasoned devs look for short-term work?
#35I found my current gig using moonlightwork.com but that was over 5 years ago now.
Re: Ask HN: Where do seasoned devs look for short-term work?
#36Having the right technical skills is only 50% of the requirement (and realistically even less than that). The harder battle is being a good salesman. Push yourself and your services at every opportunity. Send mass emails to friends and old collegues. Write daily puke-inducing posts on LinkedIn. Write blog posts and make toy Github projects with "looking for work" blurbs at the top of each one. Set a goal to post N times a day on X/Threads/LinkedIn/Reddit/wherever else you can think of, and hit those targets. Keep doing all of this for an extended period of time and the leads will start flowing in. Then you need to start putting even more effort into closing those leads and signing contracts.
Re: Ask HN: Where do seasoned devs look for short-term work?
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why’s this shameful, exactly? There’s no shame in saying you’re available to work.
IMHO selling yourself (selling anything, really) is a bit demeaning. But this is probably a class affectation on my part, not real moral intuition.
Don't almost everyone sell themselves? Many people, as employees, sell themselves for 5 days per week, every week, except days off.
And everybody buys stuff, and therefore relies on people selling stuff.
The only way I see we could avoid being exposed to selling would be do have a different way to organize the economy / the society.
Re: Ask HN: Where do seasoned devs look for short-term work?
#38Networking with people you know in your career
Re: Ask HN: Where do seasoned devs look for short-term work?
#39Having the right technical skills is only 50% of the requirement (and realistically even less than that). The harder battle is being a good salesman. Push yourself and your services at every opportunity. Send mass emails to friends and old collegues. Write daily puke-inducing posts on LinkedIn. Write blog posts and make toy Github projects with "looking for work" blurbs at the top of each one. Set a goal to post N ti…
Ugh. This is probably one of those "Thanks, I hate it!" moments. You're probably 100% right, and this is why I could never be an independent contractor. This kind of self-promotion and lead generation seems so demeaning, slimy, and shameful, and I'd probably die of embarrassment if I ever had to do it. Yet it comes so naturally to some people. It sucks that this kind of skill is required to make it on your own.
Re: Ask HN: Where do seasoned devs look for short-term work?
#40I did this a few years ago and the winning recipe was a shameless (i.e. deeply shameful) linkedin post where I pretty much just summarized my skillset and explained that I was looking for a senior engineer equivalent of a summer internship, with no chance of extension. Got me 3-4 offers. None of the offering companies had ads out for roles like this, so this was pretty much the only way.
> deeply shameful Your feelings are what they are, but this is the least shameful post I would ever see on LinkedIn. It's someone actually looking for work! and not just posting some super cringe low-IQ engagement-farm copypasta. Finding work is exactly what LinkedIn ought to be for
I certainly don't think it's shameful. But, while that's more or less what LinkedIn was intended for, it's also become sort of a last man standing medium for professional professional posts--or at least pointers to such--unless you can organically drive enough traffic to a subscription or a website.