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Ask HN: Where do seasoned devs look for short-term work?

224 points shinypenguin | 6 comments | 13 Mar 25 15:06 UTC | HN request time: 0.21s | source | bottom

Hello HN

In a short form question: If you do, where do you look for a short time projects?

I'd like to put my skill set to use and work on a project, I'm available for 6-9 months. The problem seems to be for me, that I cannot find any way of finding such project.

I'm quite skilled, I have 15 years of experience, first 3 as a system administrator, then I went full on developer - have been full stack for 2 of those years, then switched my focus fully on the backend - and ended up as platform data engineer - optimizing the heck out of systems to be able to process data fast and reliably at larger scale.

I already went through UpWork, Toptal and such and to my disappointment, there was no success to be found.

Do you know of any project boards, or feature bounty platforms, that I could use to find a short time project?

Thank you for your wisdom :)

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deadbabe ◴[13 Mar 25 15:26 UTC] No.43354289[source]▶
Short term work is more plentiful when money is easy and there’s a lot of entrepreneurial activity going on due to some recent catalyst such as mobile app platforms or the dotcom boom etc.

Right now we’re in the AI boom and some people may be making money peddling agentic solutions but money is tight and businesses are hurting.

It’s also hard to trust a short term dev who doesn’t really need the money. You have no leverage over them. They sort of just do as they please.

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1. praptak ◴[13 Mar 25 16:49 UTC] No.43355061[source]▶
> It’s also hard to trust a short term dev who doesn’t really need the money. You have no leverage over them. They sort of just do as they please.

On one hand I agree. On the other hand I cannot help but contrast this with how free market capitalism is advertised: free agents entering free mutually beneficial contracts at their own free will, everyone benefits. Then suddenly when the worker is actually free to leave then it becomes a problem.

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2. deadbabe ◴[13 Mar 25 17:11 UTC] No.43355305[source]▶
It’s not a problem if the worker is offering a commoditized service. Problem is a dev isn’t really a commodity. Their value increases the more they work on your application and build familiarity, which isn’t easily replaced. Sometimes a short term dev can construct a system only they truly understand and then you’re entirely at their mercy. Now you’d have to keep an ongoing arrangement with them for future support.

It’s a similar issue with long term devs too. Employers hoping to squeeze their devs for 40 hours a week consistently are going to be very disappointed if they found out how much their devs actually work. What you’re really paying them for is to stick around so when shit hits the fan or you need new features fast you already have the best people for the job ready to go, no need to hire some contractor and go through an onboarding.

3. aaronbaugher ◴[13 Mar 25 20:08 UTC] No.43356798[source]▶
There's a common belief, especially among older people -- and not just employers -- that the natural way of things is for there to be a larger number of workers competing for a smaller number of jobs, and if that ratio gets flipped, something's gone wrong. They consider it unseemly for the worker to have the upper hand, especially if it might raise prices for them.
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4. dragonwriter ◴[13 Mar 25 20:11 UTC] No.43356820[source]▶
This belief is fairly central to capitalism, and capitalist societies are actively managed to maintain the described conditions.
5. deadbabe ◴[13 Mar 25 23:59 UTC] No.43358429[source]▶
It is the natural order because it is much harder to be an employer. You have to secure financing, you have debts to pay or the business ends. You don’t have time to get jerked around by workers who basically have nothing to lose, and can just go from job to job siphoning income with their skills.
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6. praptak ◴[14 Mar 25 08:24 UTC] No.43360599{3}[source]▶
Competition between employers is supposed to benefit workers, yet when it actually does it becomes something outside the natural order. Again, the reality contrasts with how capitalism is being advertised.