

Web developer will work for you for free - v-t
http://hirefreecoder.heroku.com/

======
bradleyland
Don't sell yourself short, Vladimir. If you're going to work for free, try
contributing to an open source project you find interesting. If you're going
to work for a for-profit company, you should be paid :)

~~~
mattdeboard
This does seem to be a mantra on HN. I can't speak for anyone else, but where
I live "junior developer" positions are looking for 3+ years experience,
"Preferably" a masters degree in computer science, expert Linux, HTML and
JavaScript, and so forth. While globally it is a hacker's job market, those of
us who are not currently free to move to where the jobs are (I'm a single
parent and don't want to uproot my kid again) sometimes have to try to get our
foot in the door in this employer's market by begging for the chance to work
even for free.

Not trying to be a Debbie Downer at all, by the way. I moved from the valley
to the Midwest (I know, I know...) so I know that there are tons of jobs for
people like me (and Vlad, probably). However in my opinion "Don't work for
free for a for-profit company!" isn't advice everyone is in a position to
follow. I wish I could.

(Disclaimer: I am a junior dev with Django/js experience in both personal and
open-source projects, without a degree. So take my whining for what it's
worth.)

~~~
Homunculiheaded
This advice is contrary to my personal experience. I live in a part of the US
with a similarly craptastic market for programmers. In a recent job search,
with very little formal experience as a software developer, I was turning down
offers and taking my pick of interesting positions. From what I could gather
this was almost entirely due to a github page with lots of code and a
portfolio of interesting projects.

However I originally did think the market looked like you describe until I
realized this amazingly valuable insight: My resume was almost instantly
rejected by any company where an HR person/recruiter got my application; Any
company where an engineer was the first to read my resume I was eagerly
contacted in less than a week. A related insight: I don't want to work for
companies where engineers aren't doing the hiring.

I also had no interest in moving and found, much to my surprise, that there
are a lot great telecommuting options out there these days.

edit: I just want to clarify the tone/message here a bit, I'm not saying "your
doing it wrong" but that it's easy to be discourage by being rejected by
companies that aren't worth your talent. There was definitely a point in my
search where I felt completely doomed, but then I realized that I actually
wasn't aiming high enough and was underselling myself.

~~~
jshen
"From what I could gather this was almost entirely due to a github page with
lots of code and a portfolio of interesting projects."

I've been a hiring programmers for almost 10 years. It's so rare to get a
resume with something like a link to a github page. You're pretty much
guaranteed a phone screen with me if I see this. I know it's hard for people
just starting out to understand this, but demand far exceeds the talent pool.
You will always run into the managers that want to see "oracle blah blah blah"
experience. When you get rejected by them because you couldn't answer how to
solve some oracle specific problem in an interview you just ignore it, and
keep applying.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
_It's so rare to get a resume with something like a link to a github page.
You're pretty much guaranteed a phone screen with me if I see this_

Yes, yes, a billion times yes!!!!!

Even if it's some tiny little project that went nowhere, the fact that you
actually have some code that is yours and that you can discuss intelligently
puts you well ahead of 99% of the people I see.

~~~
kgo
_you actually have some code that is yours_

That's the important thing. Sometimes the initial excitement of seeing that
github account wanes when you realize 8 projects are forks of existing
projects with one change, and the other two are a stock rails project with
only three or four minor commits on top of that.

~~~
dublinclontarf
What about an application server that was abandoned after padrino became
available. I built it on top of sinatra, it was to include authentication and
authorisation as well as a few handlers.

I'd generalised it from another webapp I was buildingfor someone else (that
didn't pay) summer last year.

<https://github.com/dublinclontarf/SchoolOut>

This is pretty much some of the only code I've made available in public.
Should I put up the entire webapp that I built during the summer? It's not
doing anything.

------
trustfundbaby
Makes sense on paper but its a bad move, trust me, I've been there ... people
simply don't appreciate free labor the way they would if they paid something
for it.

Smarter move is to say "Hey, I bill out at $80/hr but to work at your startup
I'll only bill $20/hr for 2 months", then make sure to send an invoice every 2
weeks with the bill at $80/hr with a line item showing the discount ... that
way they are reminded of how lucky they are to have you.

PS: All this is moot if you aren't actually awesome at coding.

~~~
Kilimanjaro
This is exactly the advice I was going to give Vlad. Start at a low $10 and
work your way up the ladder. If your first contractor is happy with your work
(ie. he'll be extremely happy for how cheap you developed a 100 man-hour
project for 1k instead of 10k) then he will gladly pay you more for the next
gig, or at least refer you to some colleagues. Then charge $20, then $30, and
in no time you will have built a rock solid reputation and in a year you will
be able to charge whatever you want based on your skills.

Never do work for free, ever. That diminishes your value and moral, and as
collateral damage the coding market suffers as more and more people start
working for peanuts.

~~~
phatbyte
I couldn't have said it better

------
Kilimanjaro
Whomever hires Vlad, please pay the guy at least $10 an hour and gain some
respect from the community not to be seen as a greedy bastard abuser. That,
and all the life-karma you'll get.

Idea HN: Create a page for 'Hackers in need' where people can offer their
services for $10/hr until they get out of the trouble zone. Lots of people can
benefit from some quick and inexpensive coding while helping a fellow coder.

~~~
dhruvbird
I like this "hackers in need idea". Though there needs to be a way to keep out
the leechers/time wasters. A turing test of sorts or captcha for programmers??
Dunno...

~~~
natnat
You can require anyone trying to sign up to complete a reasonably difficult
programming problem. It could either be sandboxed on the server, like
Facebook's engineering puzzles, or require a short output like Project Euler.
This would drive away people who can't do FizzBuzz and nontechnical people who
want to hire someone to make Facebook for dogs or whatever.

------
mrchess
I'm always wary of free labor, mostly because I did some before so I know what
it can feel like.

When you work for free, you never feel obligated to deliever or perform at
your best because nobody is paying you, so if you get fed up you can just
leave -- why put up with the bad environment? Sure it might be fun for a week
or two, but people get bored, and it is usually monetary of personal
incentives that keep us going. Working for free provides neither of these. It
isn't my project, nor am I getting anything in exchange.

Now I'm not saying that he will be like this, but this flipside of mentality
is definitely something to consider when you hire "free" labor.

------
tokenadult
Are for-profit enterprises in the United States allowed to accept free labor?
I know that nonprofit organizations can accept volunteer labor (and do so all
the time), but I thought that business corporations and business partnerships
that check the law (in the United States, at least) find out that they cannot
accept free labor. What are the applicable laws involved here?

~~~
zecho
Unpaid internships are legal in the United States. I know of a few businesses
that build these internships into their model as a way of keeping costs down.

The Department of Labor has a smell test for them:
<http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm>

~~~
swecker
"I know of a few businesses that build these internships into their model as a
way of keeping costs down."

According to those regulations posted we see that a business can't legally
have an unpaid intern to keep costs down. The pros for an unpaid intern would
be; 'Intern gets experience,' and 'business has potential future employee.'
Whereas the pros for a paid intern would be; 'Intern gets experience plus
compensation,' and 'business gets profitable labor, and has potential future
employee.'

~~~
zecho
You're absolutely right, but it's hard to enforce. I'm not saying it's right,
but this kind of thing happens all the time in old media jobs and elsewhere.
For example, if I brought you in as an intern and showed you how to write a
story that's technically training, but your story may very well displace
another reporter's story, too. Young workers live with it because they want to
build portfolios and work experience.

------
brockf
There is really something wrong in the job market when I work two years to get
a good hire for my small development company (at a good hourly rate,
telecommuting, etc.) and people like Vladimir have to give away their
services...

------
abcd_f
Cut down 2 months to 2-3 weeks and your offer will pass for a reasonable
probation period, albeit free to the hiring company. Alternatively, and this
is more in line with what others are saying, - say "free 2-3 weeks of
probation period and _then_ pay me for this time _if_ we continue working
together."

I am just looking at this whole situation from employer's perspective, and the
ability to test a developer for few weeks (and not needing to pay if he does
not work out) is a really attractive proposition. On the other hand I would
not consider dealing with a dev who's ready to work completely for free. Based
on my past experience such devs are either seriously underqualified (and
through that unreliable and require lots of mentoring and hand-holding) or
they would gear down and slack if the project is not truly interesting for
them. The money factor serves as a retainer and the conditional payment works
as an incentive.

Think about it ;)

------
micheljansen
I just hope that whoever hires him gives him something truly challenging and
engaging to do. The biggest risk of working for free is that people think that
since it doesn't cost anything anyway, it doesn't matter what he does (e.g.
the internship curse).

------
eyalfx
Vladimir, I'm not sure if what is your visa situation, but getting a work visa
in the US is very hard and takes a lot of time and effort. I would start
researching it right away and collecting your documents (degrees, awards,
letters of reference, etc...). If you just want to come visit, you won't be
able to work here with a tourist visa so start looking into it. Good luck.

~~~
Luyt
Suppose Vladimir has an incorporated business in Russia, comes to the USA with
his laptop and does some work for a USA startup from his laptop VPNned to his
home base in Russia. The bills are sent from his Russian business address.
After a while when his tourist visum expires, he flies back. Would this be
viable?

~~~
eyalfx
First, I'm not an immigration lawyer so don't take my advice. However, I've
been through a lot before I got my green-card and very familiar with the
process. Coming here as a tourist and working (even for a Russian company) is
illegal. even if you come here just for a tech conference without working,
it's considered a business trip. bottom line, you have to declare you are here
on a business trip cause they will check your laptop, go though your emails,
find out you are performing some work for a US entity and deny your entrance
and take away your visa. Definitely, not something I would recommend.

------
apike
I got a good job once by offering to trade 5 hours a week of work for desk
space to (ostensibly) work on contracting. Within a couple weeks they were
paying me full time. This is probably a better approach than offering half
time for free.

------
adlep
I could never accept such an offer. I hope that Vladimir will gets at least a
minimum U.S. hourly rate for his efforts. Edit: A minimum US hourly wage is a
very decent pay in Russia.

~~~
karolist
Quick google tells me its $7.25/hour, is that really the case? Sure is decent
in most of Russia, depends on the city though.

~~~
adlep
It is indeed the case. You really can't live off it in the US though...

------
SkyMarshal
_"I can perform task like making your html pass validation tests, writing js
widgets, adding ascii art to your nginx conf, writing specs for your code or
hopefully implementing new features at your beloved startup."_

I see what you did there. Testing to see if people are reading it all, are we?
:D

------
megamark16
Hey Vladimir, what kind of salary range are you looking for when you get hired
on full time? Or what hourly rate are you looking for if someone was to work
with you for a little while and decide "hey, this guy is awesome, I need to
start paying him enough that he'll stick around and keep helping us out"?

------
acconrad
Vladimir, you should find the open source projects that interest you and work
on those, or build plugins for them. Why not volunteer for Rails or Sinatra?
Or write Emacs plugins/extensions? Write about your experiences with these
systems...blogging and contributing to open source will absolutely get you the
contacts you are looking for, without having to resort to working in
enterprise for free. While I would personally love the free help, I don't
think any ethical entrepreneur here on HN would take free work, and we'd all
encourage you to at least charge for what you're doing if it's going to be
with a for-profit company.

------
fara
Work for full-price or free, never for cheap. Good luck!

------
colinplamondon
Just emailed you. Bootstrapped startup with 2.5m iOS installs, just now
expanding to web, and in need of Ruby/Rails/Web Frontend devs :)

------
lachyg
Email coming. I've got a small project I need done, it's basically tweaks to
an existing one. More than happy to pay, though.

------
dhruvbird
While I agree that you shouldn't sell yourself short, I think it is also
interesting that somone is taking the first step in letting their potential
employer validate a potential employee's potential (too much potential there).

Also, it lets the employee validate the quality of the work.

I think it;s okay if done for a couple weeks (short project/assignment). If
the employer likes him, he/she can pay him for the work done - out of
goodwill.

Everyone wins (only in a perfect world).

------
ateacc
Vladimir, I won't hire a developer to work for free. But if you can pay me 5$
(I donno what's the unit they talk here per hour, per day or even per week)
I'll assign you work. And... you can have all the experience.

Your 1st assignment: As my office work is worse than yours like ftping files
sending reports etc. you can create some apps for teaching me Ruby, Javascript
etc. and then add my details too in you website.

------
giardini
Ahhh, the old "Mark Zuckerberg" ruse!

No thanks, dude!

------
pnathan
Before I got hired on at my current job, I had planned to find a local charity
and build a pro bono site for them. It (1) would give me experience and (2)
would help out a charity I favored.

I didn't wind up having to do that, but I absolutely think it's not a bad
idea.

Although of course you do leave yourself open to abuse if you don't have a
good line in the sand visible to all.

------
malandrew
Do you have a portfolio or GitHub profile? You mention Backbone.js. Do you
hang out on #documentcloud on freenode?

------
nethsix
Hiring someone for free is a two-way risk. If you are working on some
prototype, will you reveal the general core idea to him? If you do, he might
run away with it. If you don't, he will get bored and run away. I'm not saying
that he may be bad but just trying to highlight the two-way issue.

------
imaginator
replying on hn since this may interest some other folks too.

If you are interested in building something of worth and like the idea of open
social networks and producing opensource software, there's always small
modules that need building to make buddycloud feature complete. Pick a part of
the architecture that looks interesting to you
([http://m.buddycloud.com/tmp/proofs/buddycloud%20architecture...](http://m.buddycloud.com/tmp/proofs/buddycloud%20architecture.png))
and chat to the rest of the team in our chatroom. More dev details on
<http://open.buddycloud.com>

We also have some cash coming in... not a huge amount but enough to provide
some support if you turn out to be good.

------
Cococabasa
It's great that there are people here offering up opportunities to do this.
There's a Rails one up there, and if you can put that on your resume, it's a
plus.

------
luiscosio
Vladimir, if you are interested in working on a startup in México as paid
intern. Ping me.

------
RRiccio
Just sent you an email Vladimir.

------
rorrr
Start your own project. Something you love. Come up with an idea. Execute it
well.

And unless you're rich and don't need money, do not work for free.

------
mncolinlee
If he really works for free and just got 200 pts on HN, then his time costs
too much of mine.

~~~
mncolinlee
Woah, hey. I wasn't trolling at all. I was suggesting the guy will be WAY too
busy for me to ask for anything.

