[HN Gopher] Where to find contract work as a developer?
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Where to find contract work as a developer?
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.
Author : wayne_skylar
Score : 27 points
Date : 2021-05-09 16:43 UTC (6 hours ago)
| auslegung wrote:
| 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
| Chyzwar wrote:
| There are options for this in Linkedin. You specify in your
| profile location and type of work (perm/contract) you are
| interested.
| tigroferoce wrote:
| 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
| ArtTimeInvestor wrote:
| Have you tried Upwork?
| kofejnik wrote:
| only if you want to compete with people willing to work for
| ramen
| technics256 wrote:
| 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.
| molecule wrote:
| 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
| FearNotDaniel wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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?
| gregjor wrote:
| 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...
| phibz wrote:
| 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.
| davesailer wrote:
| 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.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| 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.
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