Ask HN: How do you find freelance/contract gigs?

Gun.io is pretty good, IMO. I'd stay away from odesk and elance.

Not the parent, but I'd recommend subject/language meetups, conferences, etc. mailing lists, and other things in that vein. Basically, wherever people that are highly accomplished and talented in the area that you [want to] work in hang out together and discuss new ideas. Then try to be a regular and constructive participant to the extent that you can.

I've been contracting for about 3 years now, one I found via StackOverflow Careers, and the other was via a co-working space.

I think the general consensus here is right. Avoid finding jobs on contractor bidding sites like Elance/Odesk (they're devaluing your work/skills). Put yourself in positions where you can tell people about your skills/services, and where people might be looking for said skills. I'd start with tech meetups, co-working spaces, other places where people you might want to work with are. Good luck!

A great place to start is posting something on the find a freelancer thread here on HN every first of the month. I get a fair number of inquiries from that.

As others have mentioned, meeting people and letting them know what you do. Most of these will not be direct clients. Rather they will either know of someone who is seeking help, or will remember your name.

It can take some time to get your name out and get the ball rolling. When I started up again, it took about two months. When you talk to someone, you never know how long it will take to turn into something. I have had conversations with clients that took 6 months to come to fruition. Others in just a week. The moral of that story is to always be looking, not just when you need work. Get in the habit of always saying yes, and then just manage your availability.

There is a spectrum of the kind of work you can do. I don't mean which language/platform. I mean straight staff augmentation to managing projects. It is easier to find the staff augmentation gigs. These are easier since someone will just be telling you what to work on, and you do it. You will make less for these and this sort of work doesn't scale as well. I would only ever do this for straight a straight hourly rate.

Managing projects doesn't mean you will (necessarily) be managing people, just managing the project. With this, someone needs something built, but may not know how. It requires an additional skill set of knowing a bit of sales, knowing how to set/re-set expectations and how to negotiate. You can get a much higher rate for this, and it is possible to scale this a bit better because you can sub out some of the work.

Another thing you will run into very quickly is how to structure the relationship. There are people out there who are incompetent and others who are nefarious. It is important to know how to protect yourself legally and practically for both. For the legal aspect, find a local attorney who can look over contracts and help you craft a reusable template. Always have an attorney look over contracts before you sign. Most of the time someone gives you a contract to sign, it will be written to be in their best interests. Other times, they will just be poorly written.

For the practical aspect, understand there is a difference between working with someone in-state, out-of-state and out of country. You have the most legal recourse with someone in-state. If they are out-of-state, you may have to go there to pursue any legal action. (which is a massive pain) If they are out of country you may not have any legal recourse. So you will want to structure the business relationship to protect yourself, which might be as simple as half of the estimate up-front. The remainder on completion, and they get no code until it is complete.

A lot of times I structure it by milestone or iteration, with time limits, requiring permission to continue, but all billed hourly. Each iteration or milestone delivers something tangible. They get code on payment. This way I get paid for the work I do, and they won't get unexpected costs and they always have a pretty good idea where things are. Risk is mitigated in both directions. At any point, they can decide to pull the plug and they still have something for what they've paid so far.

It is not uncommon for potential clients to ask for fixed-bids. My advice is to steer away from them. They require you to be able to make good estimates then inflate them to cover your risk. That risk is all on you. They also require you to have tight definitions and manage scope changes mercilessly. If you don't, then you eat it. That said, some people like them because they're really easy.

Some other pieces of advice:

* You're not dedicated to a particular project until either they've given you a deposit, or something is set up legally so that if you start working, you'll get paid.

* Generally ask for a deposit from new clients.

* It is ok to drop bad clients. Sometimes they're not worth the trouble.

* Think about it in terms of collecting/building long term relationships rather than "work". Once you get an established base of good clients, the work will tend to come to you.

* Remember, you're not their friend and not their employee. You are in it because it is a business relationship that has mutual benefit.

* Keep good records of time, expenses and income.

Email me at curtis [at] saltydogtechnology [dot] com if you have more questions. What sort of work are you looking for?

A lot of businesses that do programming don't have expertise in certain areas and sometimes projects need to be rescued. It really depends on what kind of work you want, but I find dealing with businesses that employ programmers nice because you can get to work more quickly and the work tends to be more interesting & challenging.