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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: 0.254s | 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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paxys ◴[13 Mar 25 16:24 UTC] No.43354837[source]▶
Having the right technical skills is only 50% of the requirement (and realistically even less than that). The harder battle is being a good salesman. Push yourself and your services at every opportunity. Send mass emails to friends and old collegues. Write daily puke-inducing posts on LinkedIn. Write blog posts and make toy Github projects with "looking for work" blurbs at the top of each one. Set a goal to post N times a day on X/Threads/LinkedIn/Reddit/wherever else you can think of, and hit those targets. Keep doing all of this for an extended period of time and the leads will start flowing in. Then you need to start putting even more effort into closing those leads and signing contracts.
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ryandrake ◴[13 Mar 25 16:30 UTC] No.43354896[source]▶
Ugh. This is probably one of those "Thanks, I hate it!" moments. You're probably 100% right, and this is why I could never be an independent contractor. This kind of self-promotion and lead generation seems so demeaning, slimy, and shameful, and I'd probably die of embarrassment if I ever had to do it. Yet it comes so naturally to some people. It sucks that this kind of skill is required to make it on your own.
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1. kmoser ◴[13 Mar 25 18:03 UTC] No.43355800[source]▶
Independent contractor here. Admittedly, it's not for everybody. But once you've built up a base of clients who need your services regularly, you don't need to keep seeking more, at least not at nearly the same rate. Also, word of mouth will keep people coming to you. The reality is that I almost never have to sell myself. But I've been doing this for decades, and YMMV.

Of course, your ability to do this will be somewhat dependent on your stomach for communicating with strangers who come your way.

replies(2): >>43356119 #>>43368250 #
2. ghaff ◴[13 Mar 25 18:43 UTC] No.43356119[source]▶
Yeah. I have a contractor at the moment who has been in business for a long time and inherited the business from his father. He doesn't market or advertise. But he still needs to communicate and deal with someone who comes his way.
3. mancerayder ◴[14 Mar 25 23:05 UTC] No.43368250[source]▶
Do market downturns affect you greatly? I'm curious how the past 12 months have gone so far. As someone who's considered what you're doing.
replies(1): >>43368608 #
4. kmoser ◴[15 Mar 25 00:03 UTC] No.43368608[source]▶
Not really, because the bulk of my work is building websites, and even in a down market, a website is an integral part of my clients' business. My work is not really seasonal, either.

To be honest, the distinction between full time employee vs. contractor is less important (i.e. affects your work less) than other factors like your capacity and willingness to engage with people, industry, tech stack, and willingness to learn new stacks.

replies(1): >>43370940 #
5. ornornor ◴[15 Mar 25 08:20 UTC] No.43370940{3}[source]▶
Wry curious to know what is your strategy for sales and marketing. How did you find your first customers and how do you keep getting more (besides existing ones comes back for more)

Would chat privately if you prefer but no contact details in your bio.

replies(1): >>43372855 #
6. kmoser ◴[15 Mar 25 14:43 UTC] No.43372855{4}[source]▶
A few times in my career I've responded to job listings and contacted recruiters but these days I do no sales/marketing. The vast majority of jobs I've gotten, even the first few, have been through contacts I made online in the BBS days. I was also lucky that my first few real jobs were long-term freelance contracts (1-2 years each) so I didn't have to look for work very often. The landscape has changed tremendously since then, though, and these days a resume is less important than a good portfolio.

My advice: join a small, local tech oriented community, contribute regularly, and don't discount the value of F2F. Happy to go into more detail here, or contact me at kmoser.com.