Ask HN: Where to find contract work as a developer?

50 points by wayne_skylar 5 years ago | 20 comments

Either here or on reddit I've seen plenty of people mention the option of working as a contractor as a viable option.

I have been working as a developer for 12 years. For the first six years of my career I wrote C++ / Python for a finance-adjacent firm.

The second half of my career has been the typical full-stack developer stuff. Django / Pyramid / SQLAlchemy backend and several different front-end frameworks like Vue and React.

It's enough to say that I'm a generalist and a decent enough programmer.

I'd love the ability to work a contract for 6 months to a year and then take a few months off between gigs. But when I search for contract opportunities they seem somewhat rare. Additionally, the contract gigs I find seem to be seeking people who would prefer full-time employment but would settle for the contract as a sort of 'probationary' measure. I never seem to find opportunities where it is seen by all parties as a temporary placement.

Am I looking in the wrong place? Are there certain employment agencies that I am not aware of that have these in abundance? Am I lacking in experience? If so, what do I need to do?

I live in NYC. I would think that would be helpful but I'm not sure.

davesailer 5 years ago |

Try government work. I was in state government for a long time, trying to make it work. It doesn't. Unless you're a contractor.

They get all the development work, and then regular staff have to try to actually get things working, and maintain it, not knowing how or why it was built that way, but by then the contractor is off doing something else.

During the last failed project I was in the middle of, in 2003 (mostly as an observer, because I actually worked there), I was making around $42k/yr, and the guy in the next cubicle was making $200k.

He knew different things than I did, but I also knew different things than he did, so the difference in pay was because he was a contractor, and therefore considered to be valuable.

Whenever I got a chance to actually do something, my stuff would slip into production and actually work, silently and forever, so I never got to be a hero by coming in on weekends to perform miracle rescues when everything blew up. Because it didn't. One reason that I was never considered to be an asset.

Anyhow, there's government all over. Exactly every town has it, every county, and every state, and there are lots of companies already set up to feed on it, and usually always looking for bodies to throw at it. You can find a niche.

wayne_skylar 5 years ago | |

Are you saying to look at NY state government job listings and find contracting roles that way? Or are you suggesting I make connections with state gov't to get work as a contractor?

molecule 5 years ago |

Have you checked out the monthly "Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer?" posts?

May edition: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27025921

E.g. there's a 6-month opportunity for React + Django

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27040390

gregjor 5 years ago |

I’ve freelanced for over a decade. Possibly useful:

https://typicalprogrammer.com/how-to-start-freelancing-and-g...

https://typicalprogrammer.com/how-to-work-with-freelance-dev...

technics256 5 years ago |

Firstly you should have some sort of signaling to people interested in working with you that you know what you're talking about.

So ideally a portfolio site with some blog posts in your area of expertise. These are often very very beneficial.

In terms of finding work, firstly be sure to post every month in the hacker news freelancer/seeking freelancer threads! It's very helpful and how I got started.

Secondly, find larger consulting shops and cold emailing them asking if they have extra work. It's also worked for me.

Keep trying, don't give up, and it WILL come. Good luck.

phibz 5 years ago |

I've signed up for the major jobs sites, dice, monster, etc. And some smaller ones like cybercoders and talentpair. I indicated I was interested in contract work and my mailbox is full of 20 to 50 emails a day.

A majority are for lower rate jobs, but there's a promising nibble once or twice a week.

Contract to hire seem to be super popular right now, but you're under no obligation to accept their offer. In my experience their offers are less than have the contract rate.

I also ran my own consulting company for a while. Word of mouth was my best way to find work. It seemed like once I finished a job with someone they were happy to tell me about their buddy than needed work done too.

Do prepare for the downtime between jobs. I had dry spells as long as 5 months.

softwaredoug 5 years ago |

Look for small to med consulting firms in your field of interest, they’re always looking for subcontractors to staff projects. They have a sales pipeline and the good ones take care of their best subs.

tigroferoce 5 years ago |

I’d like to do something similar too. I’ve seen many enthusiastic posts on the upwork Twitter account, but every time I’ve tried to look there I’ve seen just very underpaid gigs and some fierce competition from places where cost of living is very low.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about this, just nothing that upwork might be a difficult road, at least until you get enough reputation.

Another possibility is to join things like toptal. It shouldn’t be too difficult, given your experience

ipaddr 5 years ago | |

I tried that a few years ago and was able make a semi decent go of it. But not since they started to charge to bid on projects.

What most people don't realize is you are playing a completely different game. People want the cheapest and good. Most of the work involved quickly understanding what the project needed and wording it in a way that could get a conversation going and then the real work of selling yourself, defining the project and trying to justify why you need so many hours when the 5 dollars an hour guy says no problem we'll do it today.

The biggest problem is upwork ranks people by score, salary and/or specialist creds they give. You need to respond within minutes or be cheaper.

The work required to make things work and the rewards don't add up. I'm old enough to remember rentacoder and freelancer. These platforms startoff paying well and slowly turn into something else as supply increased. What happens is the quality drops so the best clients move on and you are left with vague requirements and impossible tasks like the $100.00 build me a google search engine project and it becomes unusable.

FearNotDaniel 5 years ago |

I've worked as a contractor on and off for years. In the UK it was always quite easy to find, once you have a few years experience, you just go to the usual job boards and tick the box for employment type "contractor" instead of "permanent". e.g. [0]. First time round you'll get asked in interviews why you want to switch from perm roles, so prepare an answer for that. Most of the listings actually come from recruitment agencies, but once you've done it a few times you can build a relationship with the more reliable agencies who will start to send work your way before it gets advertised.

I have no idea if there are similar opportunities in your part of the world, and it's not quite such an easy option in Britain any more since the tax rules changed. But it could be worth looking for some equivalent.

[0] https://www.cwjobs.co.uk/jobs/contract/developer/in-london?r...

bestinterest 5 years ago | |

Do you setup a company for IR35? How bad is the hit of the new tax rules for yourself?

Also any disadvantages that you have found yourself from going to contracting? Is it more high pressure/stress compared to permanent roles if you have any insight?

jclissold 5 years ago |

I'm not sure if it's a option, but contract roles are probably more common than FTE here in Aus. I've been contracting for the last 6 years and most of the work I've had has either been through my network, or through recruiters. There are tech recruitments agencies here and nearly all of them have someone that specialises in contracts.

In my experience, if you have the right people in your network that you know will be looking for contractors at some point, they'll come to you first before putting the job out on job sites.

Are you thinking of being a contractor (as in you work for one company like an employee for 3-6 months), or a freelancer that comes in to complete certain tasks?

admissionsguy 5 years ago |

You could try Toptal. It sucks big time, but it puts a six-figure floor on my (yearly) income, and gives me exposure to a variety of decently paying clients.

akudha 5 years ago | |

Does it suck at Upwork level? Or less?

admissionsguy 5 years ago | | |

It sucks far less than Upwork. The staff and clients are professional for the most part, the clients often value quality work (they actually pay quite substantial rates, it's just that Toptal takes such a big cut). It still sucks, though, to leave so much money on the table, indefinitely, for what amounts to a simple referral - while not being allowed to use Toptal to grow your own network.

Chyzwar 5 years ago |

There are options for this in Linkedin. You specify in your profile location and type of work (perm/contract) you are interested.

auslegung 5 years ago |

I don’t really know much to help out, but have you considered reaching out to recruiters? If they don’t have contract positions they may know who does

ArtTimeInvestor 5 years ago |

Have you tried Upwork?

kofejnik 5 years ago | |

only if you want to compete with people willing to work for ramen

excitednumber 5 years ago | | |

Lol