Ask HN: What sites do you use to find contract work? - the_wheel
======
andreasklinger
I used to do a lot of contract work. I can't tell you what you should do - but
here is what i did and it worked for me

Two approaches:

1) Work for one large client and essentially become an employee (consider
this. a lot of startups pay good money for remote employees)

2) Work for multiple clients

Focusing on #2 here

Core rule: You want to be paid premium for quality and service.

Avoid marketplaces - it's very hard to compete on quality here.

Niche - the more focused you are on a (profitable) niche the better you can
charge premium for domain competence

As thibaut_barrere mentioned - Build a brand - i would even go further -
create an agency like brand. At the point is stopped saying "I" but said "we"
i was able to charge more.

Dont charge by the hour but by the value - most developers charge their time -
you want to charge the value you provide to the client. Read up on
"willingness to pay"

Most important: Deliver as promised and always try to over-deliver in service,
quality, etc. Eg try to understand why the client asks for features and not
only what features she/he asks for - you might be able to come up with better
solutions or anticipate future requests. Any successful project should usually
lead to improved reputation and more projects and clients.

Good luck!

~~~
aggieben
_Don 't charge by the hour but by the value_

This sounds like a recipe for disaster to me without a lot more explanation.
Time is the main cost to a provider, so it's very natural that time would also
be the driver for billing. "Charging for value" sounds like you're trying to
say "fixed price" without actually saying it. I have many, many issues with
trying to do fixed price projects of any appreciable size (say, more than
20-40 hours).

What do you mean, precisely, by "charge by the value"?

~~~
michaelbuckbee
A good example of "charging by value" is productized consulting - where it's a
particular task, etc. that needs done for multiple customers.

Say you're really good with Postgres, instead of just hanging out a shingle
for "any Postgres stuff?" you offer something like a one time $2500 "Postgres
Performance Audit".

You get really good at this one thing, have a set bunch of scripts, very deep
knowledge, predone report template, etc. and providing a bunch of value. So at
the end of the day who cares that it only took you 5 hours (effectively making
$500/hr).

Bunch of examples: [http://www.christophengelhardt.com/ultimate-badass-list-
of-p...](http://www.christophengelhardt.com/ultimate-badass-list-of-
productized-consulting-services/)

~~~
nightski
Except that you are making your services a commodity. A large part of what
makes my services valuable is that I can't approach every situation with a
pre-fab script and report.

~~~
genericresponse
No it's a commodity if it's non-differentiated from others. You can still have
non-commoditized work that operates at scaled efficiency. You just have to
have something that makes you better or different.

------
peterbsmith
Personal networks.

I came into Syracuse knowing nobody and nothing.

I had never done any app making as of January 2015. I had done some wordpress
stuff, but just the basics.

And I had (and have) no CS degree.

I now make a living on contract work. I did it by going to local meetups and
introducing myself as a freelance web developer. Nevermind that I hadn't done
freelance web development ever. I kept going to meetups for month and still
attend a monthly hacker meetup. I participated in hackathons without really
knowing how to program.

But all along the way I met people more experienced than I am and picked up
two clients along the way. I think one thing that I do differently to most is
that I charge a high rate (I always quote $150/hr). I am willing to negotiate
lower than that but its a starting point. I have been paid that in the past
for less complicated work like hiring developers and being a project manager.

What am I saying? Your questions is what sites to use? Just one: meetup.com

~~~
a_shane
I want to add a bit to your comment - it's important to try and identify the
kind of meetups you'd like to attend that will help you meet your desired
customer base, and the kinds that will help you get known in your local
community (ie: meetups for web devs to connect).

I find that meetups can sometimes become circle-jerks for people in a similar
field to just get together and talk/humblebrag. Which is fine, but if that's
not your goal you need to look at different meetups which serve that goal.

~~~
peterbsmith
Good point.

Some meetups I went to were the exact circle-jerk/humblebragfests you're
talking about.

The one I consistently go to (shameless plug [OpenHack
Syracuse]([http://www.openhacksyr.com](http://www.openhacksyr.com)) is a
monthly meetup for developers to talk about what projects they're working on
and to spend time together working on projects, ideas, and sharing info. It's
really just an organized hangout/hack session. And it's these types of meetups
which are best for getting contract work (because contract work isn't the
goal)

~~~
JshWright
Interesting... I'll stop by the next one (I'm from the FM area).

~~~
peterbsmith
Cool! They're the second Tuesday of every month, as it says on the site. And
they're at 6PM at CoWorks.

------
kaizensoze
HN - [http://hnhiring.me/](http://hnhiring.me/)

Remote OK - [https://remoteok.io/](https://remoteok.io/)

Stack Overflow -
[https://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs?allowsremote=True](https://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs?allowsremote=True)

LiquidTalent - [http://www.liquidtalent.com/](http://www.liquidtalent.com/)

Working Not Working -
[http://workingnotworking.com](http://workingnotworking.com)

Hired - [https://hired.com/contract-jobs](https://hired.com/contract-jobs)

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

Mirror - [http://mirrorplacement.com/](http://mirrorplacement.com/)

Metova - [http://metova.com/](http://metova.com/)

Mokriya - [http://mokriya.com/](http://mokriya.com/)

HappyFunCorp - [http://happyfuncorp.com](http://happyfuncorp.com)

Savvy Apps - [http://savvyapps.com/](http://savvyapps.com/)

Clevertech - [http://www.clevertech.biz/](http://www.clevertech.biz/)

Workstate - [http://www.workstate.com/](http://www.workstate.com/)

AngelList - [https://angel.co/jobs](https://angel.co/jobs)

I know you're just asking for sites and not approaches to finding contract
work, but getting in with a very promising early stage company through
contract-to-hire [that allows remote] is probably the most sustainable way to
go.

Doing one contract project after another at an hourly rate just doesn't scale
well financially and finding a next decent client can be like pulling teeth.

~~~
victorantos
Thanks for the list! I will use it to extract angularjs jobs only, for my own
job board,
[https://github.com/victorantos/AngJobs/issues/34](https://github.com/victorantos/AngJobs/issues/34)

------
thibaut_barrere
I've been contracting, consulting & freelancing for the last 10 years (5 years
completely remote). My advice is to avoid "searching contract work", but
reverse the situation completely: make your new clients find you instead. I
wrote about this in depth here: [https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/how-to-have-
clients-find-you...](https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/how-to-have-clients-find-
you-rather-than-you-chasing-them).

Sites /can/ work (I know people who make a good living off certain sites), but
nothing will beat self-managed marketing on the long run.

Feel free to email me (see profile) if you have specific questions.

Good luck!

~~~
innertracks
Your blog and twitter feed are very helpful. I was doing part time consulting,
mostly web-related, for a number of years. Getting myself focused in this new
phase of life has been challenging. You are clearly focused in your online
presence. Clear "Hire Me" call to actions among other things, too. Time for me
to do them. Thanks!

------
marknutter
I posted this article on medium the other day that contains all the advice
I've compiled after 8 years of freelancing as a software developer:
[https://medium.com/@marknutter/advice-for-the-freelance-
deve...](https://medium.com/@marknutter/advice-for-the-freelance-
developer-68b63c69b050)

In short, to answer your question, I never used any sites to find contract
work. I got all my leads through face-to-face interaction with real humans in
the real world, and a good deal of it came from word-of-mouth because of
exceeding my clients' expectations.

Contracting sites marginalize developers and the type of clients who troll
them are typically the kind who will try to squeeze as much work out of
developers for as little money as they can. On top of that, developers are
generally a pretty introverted crowd, so the number of introverted and
talented developers who troll those sites looking for work is far greater than
the number of outgoing, personable developers in your local area. Which group
do you want to compete against?

------
mathgeek
Welcome to HN! You'll find that this was asked previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8908279](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8908279)

~~~
Roedou
Good find, thanks for sharing that link.

It's interesting that the other thread was 364 days ago, which would have been
exactly this same Monday last year (ie: the beginning of the third week of
Jan.)

~~~
8draco8
Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year.

------
swimduck
I have a different approach to finding contract work, particularly as I don't
have much work experience. Upwork and similar websites have not worked well
for me.

Instead, I browse job boards and when I find an interesting role I contact the
company. If they are interested in my background and the fit is right, I sell
them on setting up a contract relationship instead of full-time employee.
Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. The important part is being honest
that you are looking to work as a contractor, not an employee.

Job boards to consider: AngelList, WeWorkRemotely etc. If you're looking for a
list of job boards ([http://nodesk.co](http://nodesk.co) has lots and so does
this article by teleport [http://teleport.org/2015/03/best-sites-for-remote-
jobs/](http://teleport.org/2015/03/best-sites-for-remote-jobs/))

------
graham1776
The one thing I always tell anyone on the job hunt (which in your case is
finding contract work), which few ever seem to take me up on: Informational
Interviews.

These are informal "Can I take you out to coffee?" talks with people in your
industry to see what they are working on, what is happening with them, what is
going on in the industry. Every job I have ever gotten is through informal
meetings with people I have met through my network (whether its your old job,
your friends, parents, relatives, or other).

At the end of every one I ask: "Is there anyone else you think I should talk
to?" and "Do you currently have any opportunities at your company for me?".
Rinse repeat. I guarantee that after investing in 30 informational interviews
you will find work.

~~~
mdpopescu
I just don't see how I could call someone I've never met and ask them out for
a coffee. It sounds so strange it just "doesn't compute".

~~~
eric-hu
I've been on the receiving end of these. I'm usually happy to oblige unless
the other person sets of some major red flag. I don't find them strange,
though I'm usually doing it for friends of friends or acquaintances.

------
pmorici
I would avoid sites like Upwork (aka: odesk), elance, and anything similar
like the plague unless working for less than minimum wage and dealing with
morons is your idea of good contract work.

I suspect the secret to contract work success lies in having really good
networking skills and a Rolodex of contacts from having worked in a given
industry and having a reputation as someone who delivers. If you don't have
that then you would probably have better luck finding reasonable work by going
to meetups or similar industry events to build a network of professional
contacts. The only way I know of to do this online is to become a notable
contributor to prominent open source projects and then use that to leverage
paid work.

~~~
akshatpradhan
I disagree. I love Upwork, and I pay my contractors well. What Upwork provides
me with is an incredible ability to keep payments maintained and work honest.
There's a sense of honesty when using the oDesk application, where both
parties can say, "we feel confident that parties will get paid, and work can
be reviewed."

Neither my contractors nor I would want to move to any other platform because
no other platform provides that kind of honesty and confidence between
Contractor and Employee.

~~~
pmorici
Would you be willing to share with us the average $/hr rate you pay your
Upwork employees? I'd be willing to bet it is quite low.

As an employer I can totally see why you would love it, it's an effective way
to pay bottom dollar for simplistic computer tasks.

From the stand point of someone looking to get into software engineer contract
work it's lame. The guaranteed payment thing you are talking about is only for
projects that are billed hourly. If you bid on a flat rate project there is no
such guarantee. The hourly pay rate guarantee also requires you to install a
spyware app on your computer to monitor your work.

~~~
jeddawson
I use upwork to sub-out work that I don't have time to tackle or for tasks
that I lack expertise in. Once I've found someone on the platform that is
really talented at what they do, I return to them for subsequent projects that
need their skillset. The challenge on that platform is finding the people that
stand out since there are so many low-bar contributors.

Examples of work that I use it for are simple html/css stuff that just needs
to get knocked out prior to integration into an app. I'll pay between $300-500
from some straight forward design to html/css conversion. I want it to be
worth their while.

Also, I've use it frequently for GIS work. I'm just not proficient in it and
would rather pay someone that is. I managed to find an incredible person on
upwork and give him the specs for each project before I quote my customers. He
sets the price for the GIS components and I routinely encourage him to charge
more.

So to be clear, I don't use upwork to find a deal on the project (no doubt a
ton of people do). I use it because it is a platform that can keep talented
people busy and available for the next time I need to rely on them. I'd hire a
full time GIS expert if I had steady work for the, but I don't so going with a
subcontract makes a lot more sense.

~~~
pekk
> since there are so many low-bar contributors.

That's because there are so many low-bar employers.

Many of whom are also hanging out places like HN, complaining that there are
no good developers while praising anything which drives down wages.

To know why there are few good developers, look no further than the market
price. It doesn't justify top effort. I could sweat blood competing on price
and throughput with people who have a cost of living that is a small fraction
of mine, hoping against reason that someone will spontaneously give me a raise
out of the goodness of their hearts. Or... not.

Most of the people who would eat your projects for breakfast don't want to be
worked like pizza delivery drivers, delivering as cheap and fast as possible
and hoping for tips. So they aren't on these sites. These sites are where
careers go to die.

~~~
jeddawson
I think we're on the same page. I don't use the platform to get work for
myself, but I don't think it's a completely useless platform. That's all I was
trying to convey.

It has its place and I do my part to make sure that the qualified people that
I hire on it are well compensated with clear expectations and no need to hope
for tips. Maybe I'm doing them a disservice by offering a glimpse of sunlight
on a platform that otherwise stacks the cards against them. You have me
wondering.

I 100% agree with you that it's mostly a crap shoot of competing with people
that have a cost of living that is so utterly different that ours that it's
impossible to make a living. But I do think there are some niche skills where
this is not the case and people with a high cost of living can still thrive on
the platform.

------
ThePhysicist
I recently made it through the Toptal
([http://www.toptal.com](http://www.toptal.com)) screening process but haven't
taken on any work through their site yet, the hourly rate that you can ask
there seems to be quite reasonable though compared to sites like upwork.com,
where you will mostly compete with people that are willing to work for 10 $ /
hour (which for someone living in a developed country is just not possible).

For Germany, Gulp (www.gulp.de) is a very good site where you can actually
find clients that are willing to pay a reasonable hourly rate (they even have
a rate calculator on their site).

~~~
zerr
Do you think having accounts at Gulp (and XING?) would help for a person
outside Germany (and non-German speaker)? Are [prospective] clients on those
sites interested in remote consultants?

~~~
ThePhysicist
it depends, most gigs are on-site but there are exceptions.

------
Nursie
What's the context? Which country are you in? What are your skills?

If you're in the UK...

I've been contracting about 3 years now and started it the simple (and
probably dumb) way - stick a resume up on jobsite.co.uk, wait for agents to
call. Lots will. Be nice to them on the phone but be firm about what rates and
locations you're willing to work. You'll get lots of useless ones who haven't
even bothered to read it, but no matter, you'll learn to filter them out
pretty quickly. Remember the good ones. Rinse, repeat.

I've had two contracts now through reputation, which is quite nice, but
getting contracts from previous workmates isn't a panacea. One of them was the
most boring thing I've ever done in my life (worse than shelf-stacking in a
warehouse) and I quit after three weeks because I was literally unable to
complete the work it was so dull. I told the client that I was poor value for
money and a recent graduate would be a better choice. The other one was good
though!

Also, make sure you're prepared for some time off between contracts, it's
pretty much going to happen.

~~~
millak
I'd be interested to hear how you made the jump to contracting? I find myself
wanting to make the jump from my permanent job (in London) but being anxious
about whether or not it's the right time to do so, if my skill set
(sysadmin/devops) as it stands will provide value to clients, if I have the
right mix of personal qualities to make a success out of it, etc.

~~~
Nursie
Bloody-mindedness mostly.

I worked permanently for various companies in and around London for about 10
years, then got sick of London, moved to Australia, did a couple more years
permanent work there, then decided to move back to the UK. At that point I was
sick of being an employee and had a vague offer from a friend to help
bootstrap a startup, which fell through. So in lieu of having an idea to start
up a company myself I decided I was going to be a contractor, set myself up a
limited company and started throwing my CV at anyone that asked. I have got
most of my contracts through agencies that called me, not through contacts.

Making the leap can be tricky - if you have a notice period longer than one
month you may have to quit your current job and then look for contracts
afterwards. A lot of people want contractors to start _now_. You may not find
one for a month or more, I've had dry patches lasting a couple of months
before, and it might be another month after you start before you can invoice,
and it could be another month again before you get paid, so you need a
financial cushion.

As soon as you get your first contract you'll need an accountant. These come
in at about £100 per month. I use Nixon Williams, this is not necessarily a
recommendation, they deal with hundreds of contractors, the service is
streamlined but pretty basic and if you need anything out of the ordinary they
probably won't do it.

Errr.... time of year may have an effect, like a lot of things it seems to be
easier to find work in the first few months of the year, though I have had two
start in November/December.

Anything else you want to know?

~~~
chrishn
What's the work like? Is it mostly legacy code or are you creating new
projects from scratch? What's the usual contract length? I'm really interested
in contracting this year and I see a lot of 3 month contracts for my stack,
I'd prefer to do a 1 month contract to test the water first. Do you feel you
have enough time to connect with the employees, etc?

~~~
Nursie
I'm a bit of a dinosaur in some ways, my main saleable skill is C, with some
C++11 thrown in and various other bits and pieces.

The work varies. I've been brought in as a 'resource' little different to an
employee by a few places, tinkering at the edges of long-established products
and having to take technical direction from senior staff, with little to no
input to designs myself.

OTOH in other places I have been brought in during the very early phases of
product development, and even more or less taken ownership of direction for
entire products. These companies also tended to treat me more like the
consultant I'm trying to portray myself as. You can probably guess I prefer
these ones :)

Contracts have varied from 1 year (with no exit clause, regretting signing
that one but it's over next week!) down to 2-months, but then that was renewed
on a monthly basis several times. Mostly due to hysterically over-optimistic
delivery estimates by the guy running the project...

I've made some connection with the employees pretty much everywhere, and have
been in contact with a few since the end of contract, sometimes they've even
been enquiring whether I'm free for a stint at some new place they've moved on
to.

------
coderKen
Anyone, currently looking for a remote front-end developer? I am full-stack
developer (tending towards front-end nowadays), I live in Lagos, Nigeria and
looking for remote work. I have a strong Javascript(NodeJS, AngularJs)
background with over 3yrs experience.

Portfolio: [http://goo.gl/OmEpz8](http://goo.gl/OmEpz8)

Git: [https://goo.gl/oYbi8F](https://goo.gl/oYbi8F)

some side projects I have done:

[http://goo.gl/TGRSWg](http://goo.gl/TGRSWg)

[http://goo.gl/kHcn5M](http://goo.gl/kHcn5M)

[http://goo.gl/eUPozF](http://goo.gl/eUPozF)

[http://goo.gl/6orP0y](http://goo.gl/6orP0y)

Have done more complex stuff but requires user to login.

~~~
udswagz
looked at your projects, cool stuff.

------
dmitri1981
For those who are London based, I recently launched a mailing list for members
of the London Hacker News Meetup, which sends out contracts based on your
language preference. It's averaging about 10 jobs a month at the moment
however I am working on getting it to about 100 pm by the end of the year. The
current sign up page is at
[http://eepurl.com/byq7Af](http://eepurl.com/byq7Af)

~~~
osullivj
No C# or C++ on signup page language list?

~~~
Nursie
Nor C, unfortunately. The list seems a little more narrowly targeted than I
had anticipated.

~~~
osullivj
Yeah, seems very web dev centric.

------
odonnellryan
A lot of people are saying job websites don't work. I don't agree with them.

I've been consulting over a year (US-based, near NYC) and I've found plenty of
very good clients (small and large) through freelancing websites.

Few loose guidelines I've used to help me with applying to gigs:

1) Evaluate if you think the person understands the value of the work, and
only reply if you can somewhat-confidently answer "yes."

2) Reply to gigs that say "$5" or some other crazy low number, as long as they
seem competent at explaining their project.

3) ALWAYS follow up with your past clients! Ask them for new work regularly.

~~~
pacomerh
Can you elaborate on #2 ?, are you saying that starting a good relation is
more important?

~~~
odonnellryan
Of course! There are two aspects to this.

First, you obviously cannot work for $5 unless you're located in a low-income
country. They are putting it up for $5, because they don't know how much it
costs. However, you have to be careful to make sure they are competent so
you're not ending up with a client who does not value your time.

Second, getting a job for $1,000 (when maybe it's really a $1,500 job) with
the possibility of future work is better than not getting that job at all, in
most circumstances.

------
nbrempel
I've never used a website. Reach out to everyone you know. Buy them a coffee,
mention you are getting into contracting, ask who else you should talk to,
thank them, repeat.

~~~
decasteve
Have you ever just reached out to someone you don't know this way and had
success? Cold calling or knocking on doors? I haven't been in a position to
have this need but this whole comment thread made me think about doing it the
"old-fashioned" way, rather than browsing the web meat/meet markets.

~~~
nbrempel
I've never reached out to someone I've never met but I've reached out to a lot
of people that I met _super_ briefly. It let me go "remember me?" in an email
I sent and it breaks the tension. People are surprisingly willing to help.

I found that it wasn't the first degree connections that led to work but the
second degree connections. Get your immediate network to introduce you to
others and drum up work from them.

~~~
peter_l_downs
Not sure if you're aware of it, but this is a well-studied phenomenon. Check
out Mark Granovetter's seminal paper "The Strengrth of Weak Ties" [0] [1],
it's pretty interesting reading.

[0]
[http://www.jstor.org/stable/2776392?seq=1#page_scan_tab_cont...](http://www.jstor.org/stable/2776392?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Granovetter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Granovetter)

------
quackware
I get my clients primarily through gigster
([http://www.gigster.com](http://www.gigster.com)), referrals, and my website.

~~~
jcsnv
I'm having issues with Gigster. I did the first interview and passed. The
subsequent follow ups (4 already!) have all been either postponed, interviewer
no shows (yes really), or setup with the wrong interviewer.

I understand there are growing pains, but not one of my emails have been
responded to regarding this issue.

~~~
quackware
Yeah that's unfortunate... They are growing very quickly in terms on
onboarding devs right now. They're also putting a lot of effort into building
better tooling for interviewing / onboarding. I fortunately jumped on before
the growth really got crazy.

------
Mandatum
Depends on how I'm feeling. If I'm not looking for very interesting work or
I'm saving for travel, I have a few large clients (5000+ employees) that
always have projects going. They are the bread and butter of my contract work
and I'm known across pretty much all of the IT senior management at those
companies.

If I'm looking for more cutting edge, interesting work I'll go out and find
either a company, industry or project I'm interested in and try and insert
myself into it somehow. Usually through meetups, over coffee or in one case
just showing up (probably wouldn't recommend that, depends on the people - in
my case it was 4.30PM on a Friday and I brought beer).

Usually I'll either do it gratis (if it's non-profit or public domain) or cut
my rates if I'm learning on-the-job.

When I started pretty much all of my job offers and contracts came by word of
mouth. I only had to kick down doors a few times before I had developed a
reputation as a good worker. This involved cold-emailing, calling and meeting
people at various industry events.

------
fasouto
Some people at HN will tell you the opposite but I find two of my best clients
at Upwork.

I didn't bid to low quality jobs and once I finish my job I offer them an
maintenance contract outside upwork.

~~~
sixQuarks
When I hire through Upwork, I ignore all the low hourly rate freelancers. I
use a high hourly price as my first requirement.

Few years ago, this worked quite well, but now there are some idiots that
charge a high price for low quality work just to try to take advantage of
people like me. So, now it takes some more time to filter through, but still
works pretty well.

~~~
learc83
What do you consider a high hourly rate. Last time I looked, I didn't see
anything above $50 an hour.

~~~
sixQuarks
Are you kidding me? There are lots of high hourly workers. I consider $40/hour
as minimum, generally $65/hour or higher is where the line starts to separate
between pros and average freelancers. I've seen as high as $150/hour.

------
BorisMelnik
I like to go to places like upwork or elance and seek out people in the US
with low rep that haven't done a lot of jobs. A lot of times those people are
ones for big companies that are stuck in a situation that need a quick hack
put together. Do a good job and you get put on their 'list' for future use.

------
mirap
Does anyone have good place to look for contract work in field of UX & Product
design? I'm UX designer currently living in Prague, looking for remote work
(and I'm open to relocate). My portfolio:
[http://podorsky.cz/](http://podorsky.cz/)

------
122333444555666
A bit of tangent but some advice needed. So I've been contracting out a bit on
UpWork - used all the bahavioral hacks in the book: using "we" etc... It's
worked amazing for getting clients. Not bad at sales. I've got one client now
-- a hedge fund -- that's being very stingy. We agree on a fixed price for a
particular scope/milestone, the release is shipped, but they come back and say
"this is great, but we need this one additional feature or this whole release
is worthless." Usually I, I mean "we", oblige. But it's getting ridiculous.
What do we do? Play hardball and say no shipment until payment? Or just ditch
the client. The day rate is plummeting mind you, closing in on free. Total
contract size in the low XXks.

~~~
elbear
Is it worth to you to keep this client? What are the advantages?

~~~
122333444555666
They baited "us" with a long term relationship. They have a ton of cash so it
seemed rational to take a hit on the effective day rate. So ostensibly they
are like perfect for this but the amount they are willing to pay for the type
of milestones is pretty low. Like it hurts them.

~~~
elbear
They don't sound like the kind of client I would like to deal with. I would
recommend trying to find better customers and then ditching this one.

------
eswat
I tackle this sideways by going to Meetup or Eventbrite. Specifically I go to
meetups and events that potential buyers go to and let them know what I do (I
don’t try to sell my services on first contact). It takes some pruning but
after a while my preferred clients are the ones I keep in contact with and we
start working. I get less work through this than just by referral though.

Depending on your living situation and time available I’d recommend trying to
establish your own identity so you don’t have to go through a marketplace for
contract work. Instead you’ll have the contract work come to you and not
filtered through a middleman that would take a cut out of your work. I would
never recommend someone go through fiverr, Upwork or these other marketplaces
unless they were just moonlighting.

------
dustingetz
HN who's hiring threads, exclusively

update: I post my pitch in the freelancer thread and potential clients contact
me, for example
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9998249](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9998249)

~~~
darklighter3
Have you had success replying to those posts and asking 'Would you consider a
freelancer for this position?' or how do you go about it since these threads
seem to implicitly indicate that they're looking for employees?

~~~
dustingetz
I definitely don't do that. I posted once in the who-wants-to-be-hired thread,
but I don't do that anymore, because I had one guy get really angry once he
realized I didn't want to be his employee, he accused me of bait-and-switching
him to outsourced development (LOL). I was open to perm/ft work at the time
for the right fit (which this guy wasn't), but his response was so visceral
that I decided it was just a bad form to post there knowing for 95% of
inquiries there was no chance of me going perm and that for the longshot 5% i
would probably find them through another channel.

------
WoodenChair
One thing that I think is valuable when looking for contracting work (what I
call consulting) is to learn how people that have been highly successful in
consulting built their business. Checkout episodes 4 (Marcus Zarra) and 5
(Michael Fellows) of Consult:
[http://consultpodcast.com](http://consultpodcast.com)

or

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/consult/id1018251429?mt=...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/consult/id1018251429?mt=2#_=_)

------
bcks
I've had good success hiring developers for short-term project work through
[https://gun.io](https://gun.io).

~~~
pekk
Good luck getting paid on gun.io, if the buyer just decides they want the work
for free then they can take it and wander off. Gun.io doesn't care because who
is bringing them money?

~~~
eropple
Is this a hypothetical, or are you speaking from experience?

------
gist
I'd like a way, similar to the first of month feature (where employment
possibilities are posted on HN) where you could post requirements for a
software project and get responses from the hacker news community (or at least
links to either relevant profiles or reputable hackers as suggestions).

Edit: I mean on HN similar to the first of month feature not a site (I know
these are out there obviously).

------
gk1
Wrote about this recently: [http://www.gkogan.co/blog/how-i-learned-to-get-
consulting-le...](http://www.gkogan.co/blog/how-i-learned-to-get-consulting-
leads/)

The gist of it is, as many here are saying: Don't use marketplace sites.
Instead show off your knowledge in a way that gets attention of potential
customers, then they'll come to you.

------
peacemaker
I've done this by reaching out to friends and old work colleagues to see what
they're up to and offering to help. Because it's people you know it is much
easier to make arrangements you will both be happy with. After 15 years
working in software that turns out to be quite a lot of people, especially if
you take the time to regularly reach out to people via LinkedIn etc.

------
telecuda
Tip: Have an Indeed.com resume verbose with your areas of expertise. Build a
project using Parse.com or the Twitter API? Put that in there. As an employer,
one of my more successful methods is to search for specific skill sets that a
project may require, then reach out to a small handful of developers who hit
on those searches with a pitch to why -new project- is exciting.

------
victorantos
If you are looking for frontend contracts, in particular - angularjs,

I would recommend [http://AngJobs.com](http://AngJobs.com)

disclaimer: I run AngJobs,
[https://github.com/victorantos/AngJobs](https://github.com/victorantos/AngJobs)

------
juliend2
LinkedIn.

I send a LinkedIn message to some of my contacts I'd like to work with,
telling them it's been a while and that I'd like to get in touch, and offer
them to take a cup of coffee with them this week.

During the meeting, tell them about your freelance status and that you're
looking for work.

Good luck!

------
nnd
I'm fairly new to consulting (been doing it for almost a year now). I'm on my
second gig right now, and both of them are through Toptal. For the first one,
a recruiter reached out to me with a gig, the second one I got thanks to an
article I wrote in their blog.

------
lazyant
Anybody knows of (good) sites for remote server (Linux esp.) contract work
(sysadmin/devops/optimization/security/reliability)? if there are none,
anybody interested in one?

------
JoeAltmaier
My way was working at several successful startups, and _then_ going into
contracting. So I had contacts at every level of Silicon Valley. Might not
work for everybody.

------
jameslk
I've been contracting/consulting for a couple of years now. Most my contracts
have come through referrals (of friends) and sometimes recruiters. However, I
was able to start my contracting career thanks to a contract that came through
Toptal. This allowed me to quit my job and do this full-time.

Here's my list of resources that I would be looking at if I needed to start
looking for a contract immediately:

Boards:

\- Authentic Jobs:
[http://www.authenticjobs.com/](http://www.authenticjobs.com/)

\- StackOverflow Careers:
[http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs?type=contract&allowsre...](http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs?type=contract&allowsremote=true)

\- We Work Remotely:
[https://weworkremotely.com/jobs/search?term=contract](https://weworkremotely.com/jobs/search?term=contract)

\- Angelist: [https://angel.co/jobs](https://angel.co/jobs)

\- Github Jobs: [https://jobs.github.com/](https://jobs.github.com/)

\- Hired: [https://hired.com/contract-jobs](https://hired.com/contract-jobs)

Networks:

\- Toptal: [https://www.toptal.com/](https://www.toptal.com/) (I'm a member of
Toptal's network)

\- Gigster: [https://www.trygigster.com/](https://www.trygigster.com/)
(haven't used it yet)

\- Crew: [https://crew.co/](https://crew.co/) (haven't used it yet)

Offline ideas:

\- Approach companies at Meetups

\- Meetups, meetups, meetups

\- Pitch on forums

\- Work with contract agencies

\- Become a subcontractor

It also helps to work on branding yourself, blogging, and integrating into
communities (like HN!). Generally, just becoming an authority on a topic and
allowing people get to know you before they work with you helps a lot. Kind of
like patio11 has done for himself around here. Then people start coming to you
instead of the other way around.

I would also highly recommend looking at DevChat TV's Freelance podcasts for
ideas, they're really great:
[https://devchat.tv/freelancers](https://devchat.tv/freelancers)

------
qp9384btv_2e
For those who do contract work, what is your policy on code-reuse between
clients?

~~~
eropple
It depends on my arrangement with a client. Work-for-hire contracts make reuse
impossible, and so I tend to price higher, whereas a perpetual, transferable,
etc. license to the code I work on has a better chance of being useful down
the line and so I may knock a couple bucks off.

~~~
qp9384btv_2e
My thought was to develop a library for code re-use among clients. It would
cover common problems/features. In your experience, do many contract workers
have such a thing?

~~~
err4nt
I dunno about others, but I sure do! I have CSS stylesheets in 7 colour
themes, a dozen bootstrap-like JS plugins that add common interactive elements
I can drop into any site, and tons of parts and pieces of layouts (like an
order form, signup form, pricing chart, or media player) isolated and ready to
re-use.

I also maintain a big snippets file, filled with HTML, CSS, JS, and command-
line snippets and tricks so I can grab them from anywhere.

I dont know how any freelancer or contractor doesnt have a bag of tricks like
this.

~~~
qp9384btv_2e
How do you incorporate this re-use into your contracts?

~~~
bartvk
You could explicitly retain the copyrights on your code. Actually that is the
default so in general it's not actually necessary.

------
chilicuil
Fiverr ([https://www.fiverr.com/](https://www.fiverr.com/)), tasks usually
take less than an hour and give me enough revenue to pay domains and hosting
for my pet projects.

~~~
peterbsmith
Hey thats a really good idea! How long does it take to get started with that?
Do you find a long lead time from signing up to building a reputation to
getting a lot of gigs?

~~~
chilicuil
Depending in the gigs you offer your experience may differ, I do
python/perl/sh scripts and sysop tasks and after a month I started receiving
enough gigs a month (5-8) to pay my digital bills.

I think logo designers, web developers and translators get a lot more traffic.
I just recently was upgraded to 1st level seller after 3 months, so I think
it's relatively fast.

------
awjr
Which country? ;)

