

Show HN: Freelance Hacker Network - mekarpeles
http://hackerlist.net

======
stevenj
As someone who's hired several freelancers before (and is continually hiring),
the process has often been very time consuming and frustrating.

I welcome new solutions.

For me, the main problems are centered around communication and trust.

In my experience, freelancers are difficult to work with because they're hard
to communicate with as they may have several projects going on at once, enjoy
living a rather unstructured lifestyle, don't like to email, amongst other
things.

If I have a good spec sheet that details exactly what I need done, when I need
it, at a fair price, will you deliver?

I find that question to be very hard to answer when reviewing people. Though,
I believe a major reason for that is because I'm not technical (my background
is in interface design and not backend stuff).

I'm aware that part of the problem stems from me. As freelancers are worried
about new features being added on later, changes being made, new problems
arising, lack of payment, etc.

With that said, I've have some good experiences. The best being when the spec
I've written is in fact good and not making any changes to it until it is
delivered as written, on time. Payment being promptly made. And then
discussing changes.

~~~
delinka
On the other side of this, I've had clients that can't provide needed
information, want me to wait for some other contracted individual to finish
part of the job or provide information, then can't understand (after the two
week project has run to six weeks because of their _own_ delays) why I can't
now give them 100% of my attention _and_ blame me for the delays.

Now that they've pushed this whole thing so late that it's interfering with
other projects, or plans that existed prior to taking Delay Client's project.
They had me three weeks ago and chose not to utilize me. Why's that my fault?
(not directed at parent - directed at Delay Client)

~~~
jordanb
I've been contracting for several years and I think perhaps enough time to
emphasize with my clients even when they can't tell me what they want, so
permit me to offer the other _other_ side.

People can't provide a spec because they don't really understand what they
want. Sure. And certainly, part of that in many projects is poor communication
between stakeholders and a refusal to make decisions.

But especially for public facing sites it's often difficult to impossible to
figure out what behaviors or workflows are effective and which are not.
Prototypes have to be built, put before the public, A/B tested, etc. This
process is time consuming and often results in fundamental changes to the spec
that can affect large amounts of code. A spec can't really be written, handed
over, implemented, signed off on. So communication and flexibility really has
to be built in to the relationship between the stakeholders and the
developers.

The thing that I found is really essential to a good relationship with clients
is instant messaging. All developers and stakeholders need to work regular
hours and be available on IM. Projects where everyone is on IM, in my
experience, go much more smoothly than projects where IM isn't used or is only
used by part of the team.

The real magic behind IM is that it's a communication method that doesn't
necessarily demand immediate attention when a message is sent, so it doesn't
interfere with a developer's day the way the phone does. It just changes the
status icon color and allows you to respond when you get to a stopping point.
But then when you do respond it seamlessly turns into a two way conversation.

I've gotten to the point where "is everyone on IM?" is my principal litmus
test for deciding if a project is going to be a pleasant one to work on or
not. This is far more important than pretty much anything else, including the
quality of the initial spec.

------
Udo
I applaud the idea, however vague it may be, but there really isn't anything
to see yet. The "application" process seems to be limited to gathering Github
usernames with no feedback about what happens afterwards (I assume: nothing).
There is no UI, not even a demo or some screenshots, no concept of how this is
going to work at all except that it's going to be a marketplace somehow based
on reputation. A little more detail and some form of presentation would have
been nice.

As a rule I try to be nice and constructive when people show their projects,
so don't get me wrong: there is a need for a better freelancing portal and
it's great you guys are on it. I'm just not sure how I can give any meaningful
feedback based on what you're showing us today.

------
zackzackzack
Interesting thought. Try invoking the Blub paradox here[0]. Who knows who the
best hackers are? In some sense, only the best hackers do. On the scale of
hacking ability, you can only look down and truly understand what is beneath
you. When you look up at people beyond your ability, you have no idea whether
or not they are crackpots or 1337 haxors. So, for this website to be effective
at all, the people judging and deciding the hackers need to be at the top of
the hacking scale to offer any sort of guarantee as to the quality of the
hackers listed.

Dipping into personal experience and anecdotes, I don't recognize the names of
any of the people organizing the site. To me, this means that the site
probably doesn't have the very best hackers running it and so cannot guarantee
that they have some of the very best hackers on there. But, I suffer from the
paradox/curse of Blub as well, so I have no idea if the people running this
are skilled in their hacking abilities or whether it is just a few grad
students who put something together last weekend.

[0] <http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html>

N.B. This comment falls into the same pitfall that the original essay does in
that it only considers the field in question to have one dimension. Hackers
come in all shapes and colors just as programming languages do.

~~~
mekarpeles
Hi Zack, this is a really great point. I wouldn't claim to be the best hacker
in the world and your insight is spot on as to the problems this introduces. I
can say that, like most marketplaces, hackerlist will be ever evolving and
dynamic. Our objective and our promise is to increase quality over time.

This means offering the right tools to help companies and freelancers make
educated decisions (rating systems, reviews, programming tests, etc). It
having dedicated staff to vett programmers and companies.

Specifically in terms of the Blub paradox, I can say that sabalaba and I have
used a myriad of different freelance services and have a pretty good idea of
the services they are missing. If we are able to curate and nurture a
ecosystem with better hackers than any of our competitors, I'll feel proud
that we've been able to at least offer our clients a superior service.

I really appreciate your points and I admit this is something we're going to
simply have to prove. That's why we're not earning any commissions for our
first batch and are keeping our network small enough that we can resolve
problems one at a time.

cheers, Zack!

~~~
mansoor-s
Hi Mek,

As a hacker and freelancer I can tell you that I would not appreciate
programming tests.

There are two reasons why I put up with computers and code: 1)I feel like it.
I want to make something interesting 2)There is an incentive. Someone is
paying me money for my skills and services.

Taking a test falls under neither of these categories. I see it as a waste of
my time and there is nothing to show for it

Also, _every_ single programming test that I have seen is just plain terrible.
Not to mention there is no way to enforce against cheating. Therefore making
the entire process pointless and a hassle for everyone.

Just my two cents..

Cheers!

------
skrebbel
Small nitpicky feedback: I dread the tagline. I don't really know what oDesk
is, and I doubt I want to know. Can't you just say what Hackerlist is, instead
of saying what it's _almost_?

EDIT: And I wonder, are the people listed freelance hackers? They all say
they're CEO and CTO somewhere. That sounds like a fulltime job.

------
Maascamp
What is this? I ask because neither the title nor page give me any indication.

[edit] At the time I asked this the HN title was "Freelancing, solved."

~~~
mekarpeles
Howdy Maascamp, I hope you're having a nice week. Here's a post from earlier
which explains the concept (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4710470>)

My co-founder (sabalaba) and I have been working on Hackerlist
(<http://hackerlist.net>) - a selective network of great freelance engineers.
This seems like something many of you have been looking for as there are a
shocking number of "freelance" posts (from both clients and programmers) on HN
each month -- HN ids: 4596379, 4463692, 4323612, 4214767, 4184757, 4053078,
3914001 3783658, 2539892, etc. We admit, at this stage Hackerlist is an
experiment. We're only asking for your time and patience -- we'll help you
land contracts with top companies, handle the logistics, and you'll keep 100%
of your earnings. No catch. We'll handle the vetting process, source
contracts, and continuously work one-on-one with you to improve our tech until
it serves your needs. Unfortunately, to preserve high quality, we're unable to
accept more than 32 candidates and 6 of these spots are already filled. If
you'd like to be considered for Hackerlist, email me at
michael.karpeles@gmail.com or submit your github username on
<http://hackerlist.net> Our long-term vision is to create a realtime system
(think the intersection of mechanical turk, stackoverflow, oDesk) where
trusted freelance engineers can immediately clone a git repo, start hacking on
a technical problem, and upon completion, get paid what they're worth. P.S.
Suggestions and feedback are appreciated -- we don't want to build something
you don't need.

~~~
mekarpeles
TL;DR - Hackerlist is an oDesk alternative specifically for talented
engineers.

~~~
callmevlad
You should lead with that and put something similar at the top of your
website.

Edit: Nice, just noticed changes on your site. You guys are fast.

------
Hansi
Put a description on your site... it's basic user experience stuff.

Also limiting the slots has no point at all.

The whole thing seems like a totally incomplete concept that was created in
half an hour.

And "a selective network of great freelance engineers"; seriously? It's a
single static page with images and a couple of links per person...

~~~
mekarpeles
Hi Hansi, I'm really thankful for the feedback. We'll work on creating a page
with additional information (FAQs).

You're right about one thing -- the service is very much incomplete. Our
philosophy is to continue to talk to customers (hackers and companies) and
minimize the amount of building we do without their blessing.

In terms of the limiting the network size, we know we're going to encounter
problems (we're counting on it!). As a result, we want to make sure we'll have
the resources to spend time with each of our customers during early alpha
stages.

I'd love to hear your feedback on how we can improve the site. Do you hire
contractors or are you looking for opportunities? Let me know how I can help.

------
ZephyrP
So you are providing a service like Odesk. There certainly is a huge need for
this right now. Just come out and say it. Put a blurb on the site, something
like:

"Hackerlist allows you to hire a skilled worker without the need to interview
them one by one. Join, define a task, price it, and get results from great
engineers. Hackerlist works with a pool of some of the best technical talent
to deliver what you need. No resources wasted on poor results. Streamline your
work process by taking care of finding the niche talent you need to get things
done"

~~~
sabalaba
Exactly, I would say the biggest problem with oDesk is that it takes so long
just to start hacking. The process should ideally be:

1) Claim a project you like 2) Clone the repo, start hacking 3) Get paid

instead of

1) Apply to a project 2) Wait for a response 3) Schedule a skype interview 4)
Skype 5) Start hacking, email a zip file (I've honestly been asked to do this)
6) Get paid

------
lxpk
I need to find skilled Unity game engine coders. It would be awesome to have
Unity icons at the bottom like the ones for their other credentials.

~~~
EwanG
Ummm... that's kind of a broad statement. Are you looking for folks who can
use Unity to create desktop games? Mobile? Looking for stuff compatible with
the web player? Unless you were just using that as an example and don't have a
current pressing need.

~~~
lxpk
We make Code Hero, a game that teaches how to make games and that teach
everything else.

<http://www.primerlabs.com>

The open alpha is desktop Mac/Win/Linux only for now as we use dynamic
compilation tricks not available in the mobile build targets till we do
workarounds or modify Unity's source code. We're going to release the beta on
Steam.

We need coders with C# and Unityscript skills sufficient for turning the Unity
runtime into an MMO IDE. We're at 4 coders right now plus 3 volunteers.

I'm as much interested in having the community highlight Unity game
programmers for other Unity game developers with similar hiring needs as I am
for our own.

------
BerislavLopac
I don't understand this obsession with GitHub. I have a GitHub account, but
it's not much used -- mostly for my clients who use it, and for forking some
projects I want to play with. But I have much more work on BitBucket, since I
use Mercurial heavily for my own projects.

------
timjahn
We use github as one filter for developers applying to matchist
(<http://matchist.com/talent>) but I'm weary of using it as the ONLY filter.

Many developers use github as a private repository of code (by choice or by
necessity from their clients) or don't use github at all. Does either of these
make them a bad developer? Not in my opinion.

I understand you have to draw the line somewhere (we do at matchist too) in
terms of setting a base qualification but I personally don't feel github is
that base qualification.

------
brandall10
I immediately thought of: <http://geekli.st/>

Just curious how this is differentiated? That it's restricted to users on HN?

~~~
mekarpeles
Howdy brandall, great question.

Geeklist is a great idea for building community and sharing. This just isn't a
problem we're trying to solve.

Hackerlist provide a premium network to match skilled engineering freelancers
with companies. It seems like a lot of people currently rely on hackernews
freelance posts to accomplish such. Current competitors like oDesk tend to
underpay, lack the same quality standards, and don't specialize exclusively in
skilled engineering jobs.

I think toptal.com does something similar but it is focused on recruiting
freelancers rather than providing a useful odesk-like interface.

------
wallawe
Cool idea, but the UI needs to come up a bit to match the 'world class'
connotation being delineated.

------
woah
hahaha this is noisebridge up in here. hi guys!

