Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

After working +1200 hours in oDesk

malditointer.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 96 posts

Re: After working +1200 hours in oDesk

#31

Post by europa »

As a developer living in the US my experience with Odesk is that you cannot make a living doing just Odesk. But you can still achieve good pay rate on certain projects if you choose carefully. I used to charge , for example $600+ for a 3 hour job in the weekend. and if you are lucky you may end up building relationship with your client and get other projects outside of Odsek.

If anybody looking to get into Odesk, this is my advice on how to get over the chicken and egg problem(You are trying to build your work history while clients looking for your work history).

Find projects that can be partially or even fully prototyped and send the live link in the bidding. If the project is genuine most clients will bite. If they don't , write off your effort as marketing expense!

Also never bid for a project if you think you cannot get a 5 star rating after the delivery.

You can see my odesk profile below , all my ratings are 5 star. No surprise!

https://www.odesk.com/users/~014c438dbb17ea9c46

Re: After working +1200 hours in oDesk

#32

Post by coralreef »

codeddesign wrote: post #25
coldtea wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 8 months worth of work for only $20k? This doesn't sound like a successful experience On the internet, which is kinda global, not everybody is paid US/Western EU salary rates, you know right?

Yes, but that drives me crazy! With the internet you aren't held down by your local economic wage and yet there are people like this guy who works like a dog and undercuts everyone with crazy cheap prices which brings down the global value of developers on sites like odesk. While I am sure he is a great developer, my point was that he could have worked less, raised his prices, gained better clients, and overall built…

I'm not sure the economics of the situation are obvious as that.

If he raises prices: is he actually going to get "better" clients? He'll have to compete with other high end'ers. What if there competition is too fierce at that price point? What if his skill/quality doesn't match up to that price point?

Re: After working +1200 hours in oDesk

#33

Post by cheapsteak »

europa wrote: post #31

As a developer living in the US my experience with Odesk is that you cannot make a living doing just Odesk. But you can still achieve good pay rate on certain projects if you choose carefully. I used to charge , for example $600+ for a 3 hour job in the weekend. and if you are lucky you may end up building relationship with your client and get other projects outside of Odsek. If anybody looking to get into Odesk, thi…

> $123.00 HOURLY RATE

Wow. What is your usual rate outside of oDesk?

Re: After working +1200 hours in oDesk

#34

Post by mkartic »

codeddesign wrote: post #11

8 months worth of work for only $20k? This doesn't sound like a successful experience - more like you were highly over worked and under paid. It probably would have been more beneficial to have marketed your services for 80 hours and be able to land a $20k project as well as a lasting client.

USD20k is a very large sum. It works out to just over 1.2million in INR. Now that's a lot. If all it took to make USD20k a year was 40-50hour work week, I wouldn't feel underpaid at all. And I would be living a life of luxury.

Re: After working +1200 hours in oDesk

#35

Post by csomar »

ashamedtoadmit wrote: post #27

I'm ashamed to admit this. I worked for someone on RentACoder back in the day. I got paid to develop software that is now used by over 20 million people. My cut for a week of work? $200. Never again... (and years later I'm still periodically asked by the owner of the company if I'm interested in new projects for the same pay rate)

I don't see why this is shameful. If anything, you can use your new credentials to charge higher.

Would you reveal the site/project name?

Re: After working +1200 hours in oDesk

#36

Post by csomar »

The hours logged in his graph (per my understanding) do not show the work spent on searching and applying for jobs. And also tweaking your CV. There is a lot of overhead in doing this.

And then you have to log hours for: accounting, banking, and government papers. And then deduct banking and accountants fees. And then deduct your hardware fees (since you are paying for them yourself). No need for an office since you are can do it from home.

So is this really profitable or sustainable on the long term?

I live in a poor third-world country and I consider my break-up rate to be around $60/hour. There can be only one of these scenarios if you work for a lesser rate:

1. You cut on some expenses like an accountant/medication that might result in a disaster later.

2. You over-work yourself and you work on week-ends/no vacation.

3. You live with your parents, so you don't pay (or share) the bills.

Re: After working +1200 hours in oDesk

#37

Post by coolsunglasses »

cheapsteak wrote: post #33
europa wrote: post #31

As a developer living in the US my experience with Odesk is that you cannot make a living doing just Odesk. But you can still achieve good pay rate on certain projects if you choose carefully. I used to charge , for example $600+ for a 3 hour job in the weekend. and if you are lucky you may end up building relationship with your client and get other projects outside of Odsek. If anybody looking to get into Odesk, thi…

> $123.00 HOURLY RATE Wow. What is your usual rate outside of oDesk?

That's a pretty common software contracting rate ($90-120).

Re: After working +1200 hours in oDesk

#38

Post by pedrosorio »

Something like this for the graph? http://jsfiddle.net/6sdH6/3/

Highcharts documentation is incomplete. In order to override the tooltip configurations for a given series you need to define the tooltip object inside it.

I also added a different axis for the hours, but this results in a Highcharts bug where a time series point does not show a tooltip when there is a series defined after that one with a higher y value.

Re: After working +1200 hours in oDesk

#39

Post by cpg »

odesk is awful and should be put to rest peacefully.

at least for people hiring (i know first hand), and i read in this thread that also people being hired get ripped off.

the team at odesk are basically sitting behind their desks but more so behind their legal agreements, collecting their clean share without doing any work, without applying common sense or due process.

do not use odesk. leave it for good! odesk deserves to die peacefully.

Re: After working +1200 hours in oDesk

#40

Post by paulhauggis »

I tried oDesk last year. There are so many people that are only willing to pay After getting through all of this, the clients left over that are even willing to pay a decent wage expect way too much. Developer, designer, and product manager for one fee.

I can't tell you how many potential clients I turned down because of this.

I gave this up and found a decent part-time contracting gig on craigslist.

Odesk should be renamed to: "unrealistic expectations"

Post reply on HN