

Ask HN: Programming on the side for money - balakk

I am interested in doing a few programming assignments a month and collect some folding money in the process.  Not for a living, but just to keep myself motivated.<p>I understand there are dozens of sites which offer odd jobs like this - are there sites that you would recommend? For people who do this, can you talk about your experiences please? What to watch out for, how do you get paid, how much can you make realistically (while doing it on the side). Thanks!
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quicksparkle
I've had some good results with
[http://peopleperhour.com/](http://peopleperhour.com/) It's a bit smaller than
a Elance, Freelancer, etc. Really though, all these 'standard' freelancing
sites are the same.

Some tips I'd probably give: focus on listings in your own country/area, you
will have better results. Don't be too formal, try to build a good rapport
while staying professional (especially in proposals). Focus on things that you
find exciting, or you'll get bogged down.

No idea what your background is, but web dev is the best area to be looking
in. PHP et. al. have thousands of available at any time, at a variety of
difficulty. Finding clients that will let you work in more 'trendy' (i.e. fun
and productive) languages is a little harder, but if you're really pedantic
you can find them.

Pay rate is very variable. One thing I've noticed is that a lot of clients
just don't know what they should be paying. Most sites require an 'expected
budget' on listings, but you can usually budge this up quite a bit if it's too
low. Keep in mind if you're in the UK, EU, etc. that you're competing against
developers in other countries with lower living costs, and that a lot of
clients (especially on simpler projects) don't always have the budget you
might be looking for.

The most important part of freelancing isn't your tools or your programming
skills or how much time you have available - it's how you communicate with
clients, especially non-technical ones (i.e. most of them). Email regularly.
If you're in the same city and the project will take more than a couple of
weeks, meet up for an hour to introduce yourself and discuss requirements.
Always explain what you're going to do, and if you have any doubts at all, ask
about it. A misunderstanding is easily made when working remotely.

I'd recommend you go into it (for the first few jobs) without worrying too
much about money. Take projects that look interesting and at least cover your
costs, and get a feel for how the process works and how you can attract better
clients.

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fsk
If you're doing it for fun, why not do a personal side project rather than
being paid to work on someone else's idea?

I didn't like any of the other RSS readers out there, so I wrote my own, and
now I'm using it and liking it. (I was pretty annoyed when Google Reader shut
down.) Now I'm working on my delicious clone. (I really liked that site and
was sad when Yahoo and AVOS ruined it.)

~~~
nitishmd
+1 we need a better cross platform bookmark manager

~~~
fsk
I'm writing it as a single-user (for myself only) project. Is there enough
interest out there for me to put it up as a project? (That's only a little
extra work; I'd just need to add logins and user accounts.)

I really miss delicious, and none of the others that I've tried are any good.

Also, my RSS reader has one neat feature. On WordPress and Blogger, there's an
undocumented feature that lets you grab older items (?paged= on WP, ?start-
index= on Blogger). That's really useful when you find a new site and want to
look at the history.

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MichaelCrawford
I've had the best luck with
[http://www.codementor.io/](http://www.codementor.io/) I don't really write
software there, rather I give advice to others as to how to write theirs.

I tried odesk and guru, their pay rates were too low.

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guru_meditation
What do you think about Toptal?
[http://www.toptal.com/](http://www.toptal.com/)

I have a few startup acquaintances that are bootstrapping their startup mostly
by churning out decent quality PHP for $30/hr .

They could aim for higher paying tasks, but then the level of challenge would
probably interfere with working on their startup.

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helen842000
I'm interested in something like this. I'd be looking for someone to build out
quite a few projects I have. Probably 10 to 20 hours a month, maybe more.

They're all things I could build myself over time but it would be 10x faster
with someone experienced on it. I can wireframe, provide decent requirements
and fast feedback.

I'm really looking for someone to help me simplify my projects (not turn them
into long development cycles) I want to iterate quickly and see what gets
users, try some things for fun and learn from there.

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readme
It really depends how many hours a week that you can commit and what your
expectations are.

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balakk
Okay, let's say I can put in 10-15 hours a week. As I said earlier, I don't
want to make a living out of this. I want to make useful things, useful enough
for a person to pay me to do it.

I don't have a revenue target in mind. If I get at least $25 per hour I spend,
I'm more than happy. I have no idea what the market rates are though. I am
handy with most technology, and have enough equipment at my disposal.

~~~
readme
Yeah, that's do able. You need to find basically 1 client and hope they're
pretty decent. Try services like toptal.com, grouptalent.com etc. The high end
type ones are best: search HN for more of them. Tell them your time
commitment.

Alternatively look on craigslist.

Make sure you have a good portfolio before you start looking: build some stuff
to show off.

