
The Remote Freelancer: A list of remote work alternatives to Upwork - RonanTheGrey
https://github.com/engineerapart/TheRemoteFreelancer
======
rossriley
Thanks for the list, there's a couple I hadn't come across before.

Domino and TopTal look like they may be more suitable for more experienced
developers.

What is everyone else's experience for finding work at the higher end of the
market ($600 - $900 / day)? From my experience I know the demand is out there
but currently all of my work comes via traditional recruitment agencies which
seems a shame for the companies doing the hiring, since agencies charge fairly
big fees.

I have in the past tried eLance, Upwork, People Per Hour, and they all seem to
end up overrun with low-end work and low-end clients and whilst there may be
some gems in there it ends up not being worth your time to sift through / send
propsals because 95% of clients will choke if you mention your hourly rate.

~~~
StavrosK
I had a pretty negative experience with TopTal, where the first
interview/screening thing involved me solving programming puzzles on some sort
of code editor. After spending an hour on a puzzle whose solution turned out
to pretty much be "return len(A) - A.count(X)", I gave up in frustration.

One of the site's founders emailed me later to tell me that he knew that those
questions didn't actually really test programming skills, and that they were
trying to improve, but the damage was already done.

~~~
WhitneyLand
What went wrong, was the question impossible answer with given info?

~~~
StavrosK
It wasn't impossible to answer, it was just a puzzle. It required you to
realize some specific property of the problem, or be stuck implementing a
suboptimal solution in a fiddly editor with no debugging features.

It also had pretty much zero overlap with actual software development (e.g. it
completely ignored actual business needs, which is a big part of what devs
should care about).

------
RonanTheGrey
After Shadi Paterson's post about his experience with Upwork (and my own
floundering trying to find freelance and contract work) I decided to make this
list. Please feel free to contribute and make a great community-curated list
of remote working resources!

~~~
sebisebi
Thank you for the list. Someone also mentioned codementor.io in the other
thread. If you don't include a license, it is protected by copyright fyi.

~~~
RonanTheGrey
I'll add it! Funny I forgot, I have an account there ^_^

~~~
pluma
This is bikeshedding, but I think CC0 is more appropriate than the Unlicense.
CC0 covers all copyrighted works, Unlicense was specifically written for
software. As this is a text file, the Unlicense doesn't really apply.

[https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)

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throwaway047
Been using Upwork a bit more intensely over the last 2 years to supplement my
earnings while growing a startup. I can confidently say that 85% of my
activity on Upwork is lead generation, meaning the project specifics and
payment is done off the platform. I know that's violating their terms (hence
the throwaway) but as others have pointed out, Upwork isn't exactly a great
friend to the freelancer. I've had great success with this approach, so it
certainly can be done.

~~~
larrymcp
Would love to get some tips on this! My top questions are: (1) how to evade
detection of this by Upwork? (2) how to ensure payment from the client without
the escrow service?

~~~
throwaway047
I've been admittedly cavalier about the whole thing and have not had any
issues yet. The process typically looks like this:

1\. I bid on the project and in my opening message I write that I'd love to
learn more about the project/client and am available for phone/Skype call. I'm
finding more and more jobs that already request a quick Skype "interview" so
that's fine by me. I've never been flagged (to my knowledge) by Upwork for
providing my email or Skype name in Upwork messages.

2\. 9 times out of 10 I end up redefining the project scope based on my
conversation w/ the client. As an action item coming out of the call, I always
tell the client I'll send them a 1-pager task summary with anticipated fees
and timeline via email (which takes our communication off Upwork).

3\. In that 1-pager, I have a standard payment section which includes non-
Upwork services like paypal, venmo, etc. At this point it's about feeling the
client out. I'm not actively trying to screw Upwork, but their new pricing is
just ridiculous, so I'm also not too concerned about ethics here either. I've
yet to have a client get offended at the thought of completing our transaction
off Upwork's platform, but I also don't push the issue if I feel hesitation.

4\. Also as part of my standard payment policy is 50% payment upfront with 50%
upon completion. To this day I've only been left out to dry by a client once
and it was only about $650. For projects with very large fees, I'll sometimes
split the final 50% up into 25% at a certain mile marker and then 25% upon
completion.

I should mention that I only work with growth/marketing/content jobs,
typically strategy > execution. I also put a lot of stock into my ability to
suss out job owners, though I'm fully aware that instincts can bite you in
your ass.

~~~
mrgoldenbrown
>I'm not actively trying to screw Upwork

Based on what you've posted, you are deliberately seeking out work on their
service, and deliberately trying to close the deal off their service, to avoid
giving them any cut, in knowing violation of their TOS.

It's one thing to say you _don 't mind_ screwing them over, because you don't
like them. But it's disingenuous at best to pretend you're not actively
screwing them over.

~~~
throwaway047
I won't argue that, it's more than fair.

------
mosburger
Here's a similar list on GitHub for Remote Work (with less of a Freelancer
bent than the OP)... it's not maintained by me, I just stumbled upon it once a
while back: [https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-
job/blob/mast...](https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-
job/blob/master/README.md#job-boards)

------
ivm
More alternatives, I haven't tried any of them:

\- [https://coworks.com/](https://coworks.com/)

\- [https://crew.co/](https://crew.co/)

\- [http://dreamlance.io/](http://dreamlance.io/)

\- [https://www.freelancer.com/](https://www.freelancer.com/)

\- [https://gigster.com/](https://gigster.com/)

\- [https://gun.io/](https://gun.io/)

\- [http://www.guru.com/](http://www.guru.com/)

\- [https://www.workana.com/](https://www.workana.com/)

~~~
drusepth
I use Freelancer.com a lot (both as a freelancer and employer) and it's very
comparable to Upwork in terms of quality. You can land slightly cheaper
projects (as an employer), and the Powers That Be behind the site tend to
favor freelancers more than employers in mediation (contrary to Upwork's
employers-first paradigm).

------
k__
The first big thing I learned as software consultant was, don't charge per
hour and now there are even portals that are called "People Per Hour" and "We
Work Hourly". Funny.

~~~
znebby
Why? I do some work on upwork and I find working hourly much more convenient
as I don't risk a bad estimate or changing requirements.

~~~
PaulRobinson
Been a while since I freelanced, but I found it better to charge per day or
preferably, per week or per month.

That way you avoid the problems of charging per project (even if that project
is a feature), but avoid the commoditisation of people thinking they can just
"grab you" for 3 hours of work.

If you are being paid per week and on day 3 the requirements change, well,
it's not on you.

~~~
zerr
Well, when you charge per day it is assumed you charge for 8 hours, isn't it?
For small tasks (2-3 hours) it can be better (rounding by day), but for long-
term, undetermined timespan tasks (several months/years+) charging hourly also
gives you a freedom to _not_ to work 8 hours per day.

~~~
ElCapitanMarkla
Depends on the client. Typically a day rate is a good chunk of change so it's
a good way to get clients to think about things a bit more seriously / show a
lot more respect for your opinion/decisions.

------
tmikaeld
Thank you very much for this. My company hire from UpWork but after reading
that appalling behaviour, we are considering any alternative.

~~~
kagaw
[http://www.outsourcely.com/](http://www.outsourcely.com/)

------
mrcactu5
what happens if you're not in the top 3% of freelance talent. what happens if
you're actually not that good?

I am not kidding. By design that site eliminates 97% of applicants -- be it
front-end or mobile development or Python or Java or Go language.

Can people who are learning still do remote freelancing?

~~~
RickS
Not sure what you mean. Surely more than 3% of the freelance talent pool is
being used by companies at any one time.

In fact, I'd say my issues with sites like these is that most of them are
_exclusively for_ people who aren't that good.

I don't know about top 3%, but I'd say I'm in the top 25% for what I do and I
have a hard as hell time finding top 25% clients.

I did the most remote freelancing at the earliest point in my career, while
still learning, and given the cost sensitivity of most companies that hire
freelancers, I'd say it works real well for that.

Just send the emails. You'd be surprised how crappy your competition is.

------
orangewin
A few more resources here for remote work options can be found here:
[http://nodesk.co/remote-work/](http://nodesk.co/remote-work/)

------
kaizensoze
Also: [https://github.com/kaizensoze/remote-freelance-
jobs](https://github.com/kaizensoze/remote-freelance-jobs)

------
inputcoffee
I applaud this but I think if its just a large list of alternatives, it
actually encourages people to try UpWork because the sites are
indistinguishable in a list.

Best to add:

1\. How many people are on this site?

2\. Does it specialize in something?

It would be even better to have some proxy of quality (eg. 3. average hourly
rate or something), but that is a lot more work.

------
RonanTheGrey
Wow this actually got some activity, thank you guys :)

There have been a bunch more resources mentioned here - I'm working on
including them all!

If someone wants to help me go through and actually qualify each of the items
- that would be amazing.

Probably needs an actual site now, a standard MD file is a little hard to read
when it gets complex.

------
wkubiak
Thanks for this list. Am in the process of looking for contract work.

One interesting thing is that most sites target freelancers as single people.
What if I have a team of coders/designers (ie. a small software house) looking
for clients? That's my current problem. Maybe will start a new thread about
this.

~~~
dagw
A non-trivial number of the "freelancers" on Upworks are in fact project
managers for larger teams. They'll act as the face of the project and handle
communications, but the work will be done by others.

But I agree it would be nice if this was made more explicit, and even touted
as a feature. In many cases I might feel more comfortable hiring a team
consisting of two developers a graphic designer and a UI/UX expert as opposed
to one person claiming to be an expert in all those fields.

------
mamarjan
Anybody knows how/where to find clients from Europe? As a software developer?

~~~
RonanTheGrey
Hi mamarjan, if you check the list a contribution was made that included a
couple of French lists - I'm sure there are more!

------
wodow
A relevant but brief plug for the now much neglected
[http://www.lancelist.com](http://www.lancelist.com)

------
hollaur
I created an invite-only marketplace that offers 31 pre-packaged marketing-
related gigs.

[https://freelanship.com](https://freelanship.com)

You can read why I created it here:

[https://medium.com/@laurenholliday_/10-reasons-i-created-
my-...](https://medium.com/@laurenholliday_/10-reasons-i-created-my-own-
marketplace-2c5ef9a2ca3f)

------
neurotixz
Anyone in the security field has used any of these sites and can give
feedback? I am looking for short/remote gigs to supplement my work now, could
be interesting.

I was a full-time consultant for a while but decided to go back being a full
time employee due to a new baby in the house.

------
harrisonmalone
Heard good things about Speedlancer
[http://speedlancer.com/](http://speedlancer.com/) especially for Australian
freelancers

------
sdiq
I am not seeing anyone mention
[https://www.crossover.com](https://www.crossover.com). Anyone here with any
experience about them?

~~~
GFischer
The only thing I personally can testify is that they spam LinkedIn and other
channels with job ads.

I've read some spanish-language forums and read about very different
experiences - some good, some pretty bad.

