
Ask HN: How do I get freelance developer jobs? - jamesmp98
Sure there are sites like Upwork or Freelancer, but they limit the amount of jobs that you can bid for. I&#x27;m not sure if I could successfully get jobs there, so I don&#x27;t want to waste any bids. People jump on any good projects like crazy. Aside from that, I&#x27;ve been told to scout out local business, but for the moment lets just say that one&#x27;s a no. How can I get freelancing jobs as a developer?
======
TamDenholm
Go to google, type in "web agencies [yourLocalCity]", make a list of the
agencies, go on linkedin and try to find their technical director or lead
developer or even the head honcho if they're small and get their name. Phone
the main number, ask for that person, when you're on the phone with them,
introduce yourself, say you're a new freelance dev with XYZ skills and ask if
they would have any need for some extra resource. Try to get a meeting in
person as you'll stick in their head more. Be ready to send a CV and/or body
of work.

This works really well if you dont want to deal with end clients. You should
also phone them every 3 months to remind them who you are, send them christmas
cards, show them something you've done recently, etc. You can also replace
"web" with "marketing", "advertising", "development", "design" etc in the
initial google query.

If you're not an idiot and you're reliable and cost effective, this is a VERY
good way to get regular, long term work.

~~~
katzgrau
> if you're not an idiot ...

I lol'd, but to clarify this very accurate point:

* Be reliable (never, ever go dark)

* Be a nice person (polite and upbeat, even if the client isn't exactly deserving)

* Do quality work, regardless of the circumstances (even if you're over budget)

If you hit those three points, you will perform far better, revenue-wise, than
the average contractor - I did it for years while I was getting my product
business off the ground.

~~~
tbendixson
Can you clarify what you mean by "even if you are over budget" ?

What if you estimated all of the features, built them, and then the client
comes back with a bunch of new features and changes that would require a new
contract. Do you do them for free?

What about ongoing support? My contracts give the client one week to test any
features, and once that week has elapsed without any issues, the contract is
considered "complete" and they have to pay the other 50%. Would you be for or
against that practice?

I guess I am wondering where the balance lies between protecting yourself and
protecting your reputation.

Unfortunately, clients (just like all human beings) are squishy and forgetful.
Your reputation can get damaged through no fault of your own. When do you
decide to let someone go because their expectations don't match the contract
they signed? Is the penalty to your reputation so high that it's never worth
the time you would save by doing this?

I am genuinely curious to see how other contractors manage this.

~~~
katzgrau
If the client is coming back with clearly unscoped changes, it's generally out
of the question. Be polite at first and let them know that it's "out of scope"
and that you could estimate the time required to do it.

When I said "clearly over budget," I meant in terms of your own estimate.
Sometimes feature X takes longer to build out, and there's the inclination to
cut corners to get things done so you don't drive your effective hourly/day
rate down, assuming that the poor estimate was yours and you'll eat the cost.

But expanding on that, do quality work regardless of the scenario, such as:

* The codebase is already a pile of s __* left behind by someone else * They 're miserable, complaining, sons a' bi _ches no matter what you do for them_ A fix could be sloppy and take 1 line of code, or quality and take 10

That kinda stuff.

------
mrajcok
Specializing is the best thing you can do to get higher rate work. Read
[https://philipmorganconsulting.com/the-positioning-manual-
fo...](https://philipmorganconsulting.com/the-positioning-manual-for-
technical-firms/) for a lot of great advice on this.

Do fixed fee if you can -- this gives you an incentive to invest in becoming
more efficient and gives your clients predictability. Jonathan Stark has some
good material on moving away from hourly:
[https://expensiveproblem.com/](https://expensiveproblem.com/)

The thing that's been a huge success for my freelancing business and helped me
avoid feast or famine is having ongoing, hands-off sales processes that keep
going no matter how busy I am with client work.

I hired a VA and originally had her email relevant leads from lead newsletters
like LetsMakeApps or Workshop, and now am shifting towards cold email towards
relevant leads. Use a CRM (close.io is my personal favorite) and a drip email
service like prospect.io for automatic followups -- persistence boosts
conversion rates massively for this sort of sales. Block off a day or two a
week to take sales meetings and use Calendly to schedule -- meetings popping
up whenever is huge impediment to flow, but keeping up sales regardless of how
busy you are. If you get overwhelmed, raise your prices to reduce the amount
of work you are selling.

Happy to talk about building a freelancing business -- email in profile.

~~~
zo1
What does VA stand for? Voice Actor, Virtual Assistant?

~~~
bkovacev
In this case I do believe it's a Virtual Assistant :)

------
Brajeshwar
## Short Term

\- [https://www.pipelinedaily.com/](https://www.pipelinedaily.com/) for
$49/mo, James will send you really good leads on Mondays.

\- [http://letsworkshop.com/](http://letsworkshop.com/) for $597 every
quarter, Robert will send you leads daily.

\- Get back to your LinkedIn connection and let your friends/connections know
that you're looking for freelance work. I had always had LinkedIn
friends/connections who gave me enough work, while I freelance in-between my
Startups.

\- As for the other advice about working for Agencies. You can try that too. I
used to lead a 50+ team of designers and front-end engineers. I had a
spreadsheet of my outside contacts (freelancers/contractors) who supplement my
team, and for those special requirements.

## Long Term

\- Maintain an updated Github (or Bitbucket, Gitlab) public profile, with few
public repositories that a potential client can see and gauge your talent.

\- Write a blog. You can go technical, or just updates about the
works/projects you do.

### Plug

I run a remote-first design + front-end services firm, show me your work
(Github, portfolio or otherwise), we might have something for you -
[https://alarisprime.com/](https://alarisprime.com/)

------
alexee
Here is what I did: I applied to 10 jobs at UpWork everyday. After 2 weeks or
so, I thought it is impossible to get a job with empty profile. (Even though I
had LinkedIn with 8 years of Java experience, I think it does not matter when
your UpWork profile is empty). At last I got some job from a student, and
earned $50, after that I got some more small jobs for $100-$1000 fixed price,
finally I got hourly job at $35/h. I think it took less than a month, but you
need to be dedicated. After you have some jobs in your profile everything is
MUCH easier. It is 1.5 years since I'm on UpWork and I earned around $200K so
far.

~~~
OJFord
> _finally I got hourly job at $35 /h ... It is 1.5 years since I'm on UpWork
> and I earned around $200K so far._

You're averaging roughly double that $35/h, consistently for a full working
week, every week, solely via UpWork?!

~~~
alexee
Yes, solely via UpWork. I got a bit better hourly rate since then, and I
usually work around 60h per week.

~~~
OJFord
Well, kudos for making it work so well!

------
sketchthat
Meet Ups are a great place to go. There are often people trying to find
developers.

Other ways are through LinkedIn groups or small business groups that you can
find in your area.

At the end of the day it comes down to networking. Say yes to every meeting
and say yes to meeting people. Even if they aren't wanting to hire you, they
know your name and will pass it on.

I've freelanced for the last 10 years on and off. I've never needed to
advertise, I just make a post on LinkedIn and say I'm freelancing or go to a
Meet Up and contracts start coming through.

~~~
vjankov
What kind of Meetups would you recommend going to (Tech vs Career/Bussiness
Networking)? I started doing this last week and have had few leads but nothing
concrete yet

~~~
Lalabadie
Business, industry-specific, etc.

You're looking for people with costly problems who need a developer to solve
it. Meeting up with developers is pretty much the opposite of that.

Also: It can take a long time (months, years!) before the inflow of work has
any sort of steadiness. And it will be steady only due to how good you are at
turning back the bad contracts. Don't fret about a week.

~~~
vjankov
Thanks for the great advice, already making changes to my Meetups schedule!

------
Udo
I'm just going to write down some things that went wrong/right with my own
freelancer experiences about getting and keeping jobs, hopefully it's somewhat
useful to someone.

First, there is a drastic oversupply of programmers, as you noticed, and
everybody knows it. You're competing with people earning $5/h or less, or are
straight-up working for "equity" or "portfolio". Public opinion of programmer
skills and value is exceedingly low (" _we just need some coder to make it all
work!_ "), and programming shops that do value developer time are usually
religiously keyed to one specific toolset and methodology, only recruiting
from that specific pool.

By and large, there is only one in: getting referred by people who already
like your work. That's why so many freelancers fall into the working-for-free-
to-get-referrals trap, by the way, never do that. But what you can do is start
small. Look up local companies working in your field, and comb through your
address book for _anyone_ who could possibly have use for your services.

After getting any contact, your most important job is to cultivate the good
customers and get rid of the bad. I cannot count the number of times I failed
at either of these, it's my number one regret from when I started freelancing.
There were two instances in my freelancer career where I let people down very
badly that still haunt me - don't be that guy. Sometimes you get lucky and you
hit upon a successful relationship by chance, keep such relationships alive at
all costs.

Finally, as a mostly-ex web developer I think working for web stuff is poison.
Often, people looking for skilled allrounders will actually think less of your
skills if they include web work. Also, web development is by far the _most_
overcrowded field in software development. And web shops themselves are
getting utterly ridiculous in their use of overblown tools and bloated
frameworks. If there is any way you can get into low level programming,
graphics programming, maybe game development, framework development, and so
on: I'd suggest you do that.

~~~
iends
Game development has historically been very toxic. Long hours, average pay,
and very high stress. Why do you recommend it?

~~~
Udo
> _Long hours, average pay, and very high stress_

There are many shops in various fields that work like that. Certainly game dev
is notorious, especially if you're a salaried worker at a big studio. However,
someone starting out with their freelancer career, that's not the same thing.
You're going to contract with smaller studios and tools developers. I don't
think they're especially toxic as compared to other software shops, and
certainly being a freelancer protects you from some of the general traps that
befall salaried workers, at the expense of financial security.

> _Why do you recommend it?_

Several reasons. Being an old programmer, I lived through several bubbles and
hypes. I can recommend games or game tool development because it's challenging
work with a somewhat stable demand, and it's an industry with enough funding
in general. It's also an opportunity to create things that will be part of our
culture for a long time, as opposed to most other software that's being
written.

------
wyclif
Assuming you're already past the meetup stage, and you already know some
developers, this is what worked for me:

Identify and find a more experienced developer (it doesn't necessarily have to
be a "senior developer", just somebody more experienced than you) who has far
too many plates spinning and is getting bogged down in lower-level tasks, and
offer to take care of that work as a contractor. Be great at unsexy things
nobody else wants to do. Make sure these are the kinds of jobs where you can
fill out your GitHub and get a few recommendations from the person or team
you're contracting for.

Use this experience to get more jobs. Wash, rinse, repeat.

------
theparanoid
Specialize, I made 25k on upwork doing exclusively Go development. The first
jobs were tiny, $50 total. After building reputation I upped to $45/hr.

~~~
truth_sentinell
How much time did it take?

~~~
theparanoid
20hrs/wk over 9 months.

~~~
truth_sentinell
Damn. I work like 60 hours/week and I barely make a thousand a month when is a
good project. I have to get first-world projects.

~~~
g00gler
Maybe perceived value has something to do with it. I believe I listed my
hourly rate at $25 thinking I'd be competitive for some side $$.

I made some money but it seemed most things tagged JavaScript or PHP were
either design work or WordPress plugins.

This thread inspired me to sign back up and raise my rate to something more
realistic IRL ~ $30-35/hr.

~~~
Implicated
> This thread inspired me to sign back up and raise my rate to something more
> realistic IRL ~ $30-35/hr.

Double that.

~~~
g00gler
For real? Lol maybe I'll try $50 and see where it gets me.

~~~
Lalabadie
How much would an employer pay you? Generally speaking, your employer has to
make between 1.5 and 2.5x the salary you're paid to be in the black.

Now consider that you _are_ your employer.

~~~
g00gler
Good way to look at it. Double that it is!

------
crystalPalace
I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet but post in the monthly Ask HN: Who
wants to be hired? and Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? threads. I've
had some success and it costs you very little.

~~~
constantlm
I've never actually seen one of these threads, and I tent to visit HN on a
daily basis. Is there a system around these posts that I should be aware of?

~~~
detaro
regularly posted by
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=whoishiring](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=whoishiring)
(at 11 AM Eastern time on the first weekday of every month), together with the
_Who is hiring?_ threads.

------
aptsurdist
I would recommend finding a group of freelancer friends so you can build a
community and share projects between each other. This is a fun group my
friends and I started [http://www.raptorsaur.com/](http://www.raptorsaur.com/)
it's been fun. If you don't know people in your area yet, go to some meet ups
and ask people how you can help with their projects. Good luck!

~~~
wedmondson
Your raptorsaur logo is pretty cool and the name is catchy. Are you actively
doing anything with the site? I doesn't look like there is a lot of activity
on it.

~~~
pimlottc
The logo, of course, is based off the "Philosoraptor" image meme:

[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/philosoraptor](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/philosoraptor)

~~~
aptsurdist
Yup, totally is! My friend James who is a fantastic illustrator inked that one
for us.

------
cshipley
In what way do you mean "freelancer". There are multiple types of freelance
jobs.

"Freelance" can mean:

1) Working remotely as a contractor though a 3rd party agency.

2) Working remotely hourly or per gig for yourself.

3) Doing end-to-end project work. Start with designs, code, test, and submit
as a package deal.

All have different ways of finding clients. However, they tend to follow a
career progression in that same order. My career path did.

I advise you to think about freelancing, not as a developer, but a business
owner. Consider the following:

* What sort of business entity are you going to have? All have trade offs, and specific obligations from a pure business perspective. One piece of advice that my accountant gave me: Just because you create an LLC with your state govt doesn't make you an LLC. From a court's perspective you have to act like it. In my state that requires Articles of Organization, an Operation Agreement and at least yearly documented meetings with the stakeholders.

* Learn how to protect yourself legally. This means find a lawyer and get a standard contract. Have an attorney review any contract before you sign it. Figure out a strategy for when someone doesn't pay, and how this strategy may change if they are local or remote. It is much harder to take someone out of state to court. I have turned down gigs because we couldn't come to agreement on contract language. One contract asked me to pay all court fees in the event the software led to any issues for their clients. (It was for a medical device.)

* Think about how you are going to charge. Hourly/by the project. Clients may ask for fixed prices and not-to-exceeds. There are a lot of opinions about this. Make an informed decision about how you are going to approach this.

* How are you going to sell yourself. Most of my work comes through word-of-mouth. Figure out your pitch, and how you differentiate yourself from competition. Reputation counts for a lot. Think about setting networking/sales goals. Expect the engagement process to take a long time, and not all of it to pan out. I've spend many hours trying to engage a new client, only to have them change their mind at the last minute. Account for this in your pricing.

* Expect feast or famine. Sometimes you may be sweating bullets because you don't have enough work and bills are coming due. Sometimes you're sweating bullets because several clients are wanting things all at once. Sometimes you may be working nights and weekends.

* As a small guy, you are the product. It pays to be a high quality product.

------
jstewartmobile
Network, put yourself out there, let people know you are in business, do good
work, and reach out to help others. The leads will eventually come, and some
of them will even pan-out!

Work boards only make sense if you're in some developing country where dollars
will go further. In a developed country, they're a waste of time.

~~~
jamesmp98
Yeah, I just don't know how to do that. I recently moved to a small city in
South Carolina, and only get out at night to go to my job lol.

~~~
jstewartmobile
Meetups, chamber of commerce, rotary/kiwanis, swingers club, church, nerd
convention, or whatever happens to float your boat.

You've got to press the flesh.

~~~
ksdale
I second this! My wife and I have been doing freelance web design for about a
year now and we've been completely shocked at how quickly some people will
hire you while only knowing that you are 1) a generally respectable person and
2) a web designer. Our number of clients seems to correlate directly with how
many people we meet rather than any particular strategy.

------
pablo-massa
I wrote an article [1] with a personal list of websites to find remote work as
a freelancer, here is the list:

Job boards

* [http://weworkremotely.com](http://weworkremotely.com)

* [http://remoteok.io](http://remoteok.io)

* [http://remotebase.io](http://remotebase.io)

* [http://linkedin.com/jobs](http://linkedin.com/jobs)

* [http://workingnomads.co/jobs](http://workingnomads.co/jobs)

* [http://angel.co/jobs](http://angel.co/jobs)

* [http://authenticjobs.com](http://authenticjobs.com)

* [http://folyo.me](http://folyo.me)

* [http://getonbrd.com](http://getonbrd.com) (latam)

\----------

With broker

Here you apply as a professional, they approve you (or not) and then assign
you projects.

* [http://toptal.com](http://toptal.com)

* [http://workmarket.com](http://workmarket.com)

* [http://crew.co](http://crew.co)

* [http://hired.com](http://hired.com)

* [http://onsite.io](http://onsite.io)

* [http://workingnotworking.com](http://workingnotworking.com)

* [http://gun.io](http://gun.io)

\-----------

I do not recommend

* [http://upwork.com](http://upwork.com)

* [http://freelancer.com](http://freelancer.com)

* [http://nubelo.com](http://nubelo.com)

* [http://fiverr.com](http://fiverr.com)

* [http://workana.com](http://workana.com)

* [http://guru.com](http://guru.com)

\-----------

Not reviewed yet

* [http://gigster.com](http://gigster.com)

* [http://wearehirable.com](http://wearehirable.com)

* [http://localsolo.com](http://localsolo.com)

* [http://speedlancer.com](http://speedlancer.com) (looks fishy)

* [http://yunojuno.com](http://yunojuno.com)

* [http://coworks.com](http://coworks.com)

* [http://theworkmob.com](http://theworkmob.com)

[1] [https://medium.com/@pablomassa/sites-to-get-remote-work-
as-a...](https://medium.com/@pablomassa/sites-to-get-remote-work-as-a-
freelancer-16092a954e21#.y8b5nzm3o)

~~~
mkl
Several people have mentioned Upwork positively in this thread (first I'd
heard of it). Why don't you recommend it?

~~~
formula_ninguna
\- because they take 20% of fees

\- they treat freelancers badly

\- there're also a lof of other kinds of downsides about working there. google
"why upwork sucks". or "odesk sucks".

~~~
rando444
how do they treat freelancers badly?

Disclaimer: I have used it three times, made requirements clear, and paid
workers fairly, and had no problems.. but I am interested to hear about
others' experiences.

~~~
formula_ninguna
I've used it for a few years.

they've introduced job success, now those who know how it works more or less
or newbies with an empty job history -- are the top freelancers, whereas those
who have been there for a long time, for years -- at the bottom. Needless to
say, upwork doesn't disclose the exact formula used to calculate your job
success.

more over: upwork claims it's guaranteed 100% you get your money if a job is
hourly paid. No. they still can take your money and return it to a client.

they're many good freelancers who have been banned for no wise reason, among
them are the top ones.

there're many other insights.

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

It's way easier than constantly hustling for new jobs. Don't waste your time
on Upwork—you'll make peanuts.

~~~
tempw
Isn't it invite only?

~~~
morgante
You can apply online:
[https://www.onboardiq.com/gigster-e787c98b-90dc-41dc-a8e3-8c...](https://www.onboardiq.com/gigster-e787c98b-90dc-41dc-a8e3-8c7d18c65e47/apply)

~~~
pm
Where did you find that? Last time I looked at their website, I couldn't find
anything remotely like that.

~~~
morgante
It's right there in the footer.

~~~
pm
I don't know if that link wasn't there last time or if I was just blind.
Cheers.

------
webtechgal
>Sure there are sites like Upwork or Freelancer, but they limit the amount of
jobs that you can bid for.

Yes, bid limits are there but you can pay a (very) small amount to get a
(much) higher number of bids. At Freelancer.com, it is something like <$10/mo.
for 300 bids. I have also found PeoplePerHour.com [1] to be a good market
place. Over there, after the free bids, it is more expensive to buy additional
bids but I've found the overall quality/mix of buyers to be at least somewhat
better comparatively.

[1] [http://www.peopleperhour.com](http://www.peopleperhour.com)

------
trost
I guess it depends on what kind of software you want or can develop. I just
started freelancing as web and hybrid app developer this year and what works
for me is going to meetups, especially startup/entrepreneurship meetups. There
are always founders there looking for developers. For me, this is the place to
collect leads. And it's pretty easy, too, because developers are rare. If you
tell them your a developer, the founders who are looking for one will probably
approach you.

------
sbisker
A number of startups have begun hiring freelancers on Hired.com (which is, in
full disclosure, my employer) - developers can choose to go on our platform as
contract only. [https://hired.com/freelance](https://hired.com/freelance)

A few other platforms with a focus on contractors you might want to check out
are Toptal and Gigster.

------
ioblomov
Spitshine your LinkedIn to a high polish. Focus on projects without jargon and
their benefits to the client/employer. Dollars saved or earned go further than
the latest buzzwords. When I moved to NYC, all my gigs came from LinkedIn.

------
mikeegg1
My apologies about possibly deflecting this thread... If you're a remote only
(nomadic developer, can develop anywhere I have a 'net connection), are the
methods to find work the same?

~~~
patzol
It also depends on the timezone you are in. For me when being in South East
Asia I found it hard to get clients from USA because of ~12h time difference.
I go mostly contracts as referrals from other freelancer friends. Stay in
touch with them and let them know that you are currently looking for a
project.

Contacting agencies my be a good bet - but so far I found still a lot of them
don't want to work with remote/nomadic developers.

As for me, when I don't have contract I keep working on my own apps and put
them on shelf when a new client deal is finalized. Most of the time finalizing
a deal takes time.

------
timtronic
Do you have a github account with projects that can help get your name out
there?

------
naavinm
Commenting to read later.

~~~
FullMtlAlcoholc
Quick advice: You can simply upvote the article. If you look in your profile,
there is a history of articles you voted on, and you don't contribute to
comment spam

~~~
crystalPalace
You could also favorite this article. Your favorites are probably less crowded
than your upvotes.

~~~
_coldfire
I use pocket and there's a subtle "save to pocket" option after comments
number on the main page. Does well enough for me.

