

Ask HN: How to get freelance work in academic projects? - AndriusSutas


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themoonbus
I worked at an academic research lab for several years as a web developer / ux
designer, and we definitely had need for talented people who were willing to
work for far-less-than-market pay.

Just do a Google search for "name of university in your area" \+ "research
labs" or "research groups". Look for a lab that you're interested in, and find
out who the head of the lab is (Principle Investigator, Director), or find a
senior researcher. Get their email address, and go ahead and send your resume
with a cover letter.

I can't speak for all research labs, but we did interview people who "cold-
called" us.

Alternatively, you can search university job boards, but we didn't always
create official job postings every time we needed some one.

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AlbertoGP
I've done freelance work in academic projects after working several years as
an employee in a university department and a research institute.

As mentioned in another response, universities will prefer to have the work
done by students, simply because either they can get them for free, or the
process for hiring them is much simpler than hiring an outsider. Research
grants often allow for student research assistants but have no budget for
external contractors, and if the grant proposal includes that it'll be
naturally scrutinized for accountability as the granting institution tries to
avoid having funds funnelled to someone's buddy/relative/etc.

What happens in my case is that a project gets seriously delayed because some
crucial part needed to complete it was either not planned in the proposal, or
the project partner responsible for it failed to deliver. Then someone in the
project knows me because we had worked together previously, and recommends me.
In some cases where they did have enough budget left I finished that part, the
project was reviewed successfully, and everyone was happy. However that's
quite intense work, not just the technical part on a tight deadline, but some
project partners might be less than optimally collaborative for a variety of
reasons.

Academic projects involve quite an amount of politics even if you only care
about getting your part to work correctly: you'll need to get some information
about the other components and that often conflicts with other partner's
interests which are only tenuously connected to the project's
technical/scientific success beyond the final review. I wouldn't have known
how to deal with it if I hadn't worked for years in different projects as an
employee and saw how things play out.

Therefore, from my experience I think your options would be to work in
research for a while to make contacts, or contribute to open source research
software. In any case your chances of getting market rates for your work are
slim.

In spite of all the above, I've had nice experiences doing that kind of work;
don't let my comments above discourage you, just keep those issues in mind.

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chudi
Go to the labs that you are interested in, try to fill in the gaps that they
cant handle, charge cheap.

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AndriusSutas
Any experience on the side of cost? What is considered as cheap in academia?

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jerad
I've worked as a research assistant in several labs in NYC. About $30-35k/year
was typical. A new post-doc would make about $40k/year.

~~~
AndriusSutas
That's awesome! What kind of work did you have to do? What did you enjoy what
not?

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hhanon
My institute might be looking for help with a Computer Vision project if you
(or anyone wants to drop me an email) (Preferably someone able to do a few
onsite visits near DC)

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cuchoi
Hi AndriusSutas,

I actually can't help you but I am curious. What kind of academic projects are
you looking for? Do you have an specific topic you want to tackle?

~~~
AndriusSutas
Nothing specific. Anything that has mechanical design, electronics or software
development. I think research topics should be left to the academics
themselves. I am interested in supporting infrastructure / software /
hardware.

~~~
shepardrtc
Most universities should have some kind of job openings website. I used to
work at one and that's where everything was posted. But keep in mind that a
lot of universities that aren't well funded will want to pay their own
students to do the work, even if they're not as skilled.

