[HN Gopher] Show HN: Side Quest - An aggregator for not full-tim...
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Show HN: Side Quest - An aggregator for not full-time tech jobs
Author : ryry
Score : 265 points
Date : 2021-07-06 14:59 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sidequestjobs.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (sidequestjobs.com)
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Great idea!
|
| I feel like there is a gap in the market for experiences
| engineers who want to work for good rates on well defined
| projects and occasionally (less than 1 month) and don't bother
| with client management.
|
| I've seen some people charge good hourly rates on Upwork but from
| talking to them there is a lot of friction / time spent in
| managing clients, chasing payments, filtering out all the low
| paid jobs.
|
| It would be nice to have a platform that does product / client
| management for you and just use you for your coding skills.
| ryry wrote:
| Yeah I actually built this after having a bit of frustration
| trying out freelancing platforms. What surprised me is as a
| freelancer, on some of them, I have to pay to apply to gigs. I
| mean I get it, but it still doesn't seem right.
| conjectures wrote:
| +1 Just for the name. Side quest is exactly what such a thing
| should be called.
| ryry wrote:
| Thanks! I play a little too much wow during the pandemic.
| ourcat wrote:
| Hmm.. It'a already the name of quite a popular side-loading
| app/store for VR games. https://sidequestvr.com/
| andyroid wrote:
| Yeah. It's also used in some RPG games to denote quests which
| are done independently of the main quest.
| anoncake wrote:
| Pretty sure that's the origin.
| nitrogen wrote:
| It's a pretty generic term, though.
| ryry wrote:
| I saw this, but not until after I had purchased the domain. I
| always get too excited and commit before researching.
| takenpilot wrote:
| Useful. Bookmarking to watch.
| gumbo wrote:
| The toggles filters are driving me nuts, as it stands, it unclear
| what the checked state is. One would assume that when the
| "handle" is on the right side, however, the color coding suggest
| otherwise. Congrats on your launch.
| the_lonely_road wrote:
| I wish you the best of luck and will be keeping a bookmark to
| check back frequently. I would love some part time work but
| having done the consultant grind for a long time I'm just
| exhausted by the process of finding it. I would love a
| marketplace I could keep tabs on and pick things up when they
| make since.
| ryry wrote:
| Thanks! And I feel you. Occasionally I've wanted to pick up
| some stuff part-time for some extra cash and finding it is few
| and far between.
|
| I created a mail-chimp subscription which I'll get up and
| running as soon as I figure out how, but anyone can sign up
| now.
|
| I'm hoping to get a ton more filters though so people can only
| get notified about positions that actually interest them.
| ashdev wrote:
| I really like the name. It immediately reminded of the side
| quests in RPG games to get more experience. And this is exactly
| that. Good job.
| MikusR wrote:
| Not to be confused with 1st google result for "side quest":
| https://sidequestvr.com/
| sanmak wrote:
| Great idea mate! Kudos for building this!
| mandelbrotwurst wrote:
| Thanks for making this! Would you mind sharing what sources this
| looks at, or are you keeping that proprietary?
| ryry wrote:
| A few I'd like to keep to myself, but if you poke around it's
| obviously no secret that stack overflow contributes a fair bit.
|
| The code is some frankenstein monster of a few failed projects
| I've created over the years, but so far it's doing its job!
| dang wrote:
| If you're using HN Who Is Hiring threads as a source at all,
| we ask people to link back to the original posts when they do
| that.
|
| I feel like that's a good and fair practice in general when
| copying content on the web, but obviously what you do with
| other sources is between you and them.
| tomcam wrote:
| Love this idea. I just went through a painful search for someone
| and finally found a good match (I think), but it would've been
| fantastic to have this a few weeks ago. I look forward to trying
| it out sometime
| prawn wrote:
| Always thought that someone should do something like this but for
| part-time marketing/comms/content jobs. I'm sure there are men in
| the following position too, but in my circles there are loads of
| 30-40yo women returning to work after maternity leave and looking
| for 2-3 days/week, often in marketing and related jobs.
|
| On the other side of the coin, there'd be a lot of small
| businesses sick of paying an agency but unable to justify a full-
| time role. Great match, IMO.
| ryry wrote:
| I suspect a fair few of the short to long-term contract
| positions I see advertised are to cover someone's parental
| leave.
|
| Content though definitely. I tend to see more short-term/part-
| time content creation positions than I do eng ones.
| the_lonely_road wrote:
| This rarely works in fields where they hire full time salary
| employees. The reason being that the part time employee is
| still very expensive in a lot of fixed 'per employee' cost
| areas like hardware and licenses combined with the fact that
| the full time salary person is supposed to be available to get
| the job done even it that involves some overtime or just off
| hours work, things part time people are notorious for being
| unable to do (the reason they wanted part time in the first
| place, they are unavailable).
|
| This really narrows the scope of what employers are willing to
| hire part time for. Contractors are usually called instead.
| IshKebab wrote:
| I think hardware and licenses are minimal costs in most
| businesses. Desk space is probably more. But I think even
| that isn't the real reason businesses like full time. It's
| probably cultural, not wanting to have to hire loads of
| people, and the difficulty of splitting some jobs between
| multiple people.
| uranium wrote:
| It's worked for me for the past 10 years, part-time in
| engineering at Google, Makani, and Elemeno Health. Not
| wanting or being able to work a lot of hours doesn't
| necessarily mean not being flexible on hours. I've known a
| number of other part-time people at e.g. Google, and they
| were generally people I'd trust to get stuff done. Often
| they're time-management _masters_ , due to necessity.
|
| Sure, there's more overhead per working hour. But there's
| also more mulling-things-over-in-the-shower time per working
| hour, so for creative work, one can be a lot more effective
| than you'd think. I also get more sleep and do all my
| appointments and errands in non-working hours, which improves
| my duty cycle and performance.
| prawn wrote:
| I'm talking small business. Hardware would be employee's own
| laptop. Software in those fields would be a pittance.
|
| If I was a bastard who wanted value for money, I'd hire those
| part-time mums. From what I've seen, they end up feeling
| obliged to work out of hours, so you'd effectively get 0.8
| FTE while paying for 0.4-0.6. Roles like social media or
| content writing with scheduling involved instantly creeps
| into days off. Horrible approach from an employer, but like I
| said, if I was a bastard.
| stevesearer wrote:
| On the flip side, if you want the best part-time moms, pay
| well, supply the hardware, and be very flexible with when
| work hours happen.
| xondono wrote:
| This type of site is what always has me considering moving "up"
| in the stack.
|
| Remote work on either hardware or systems level programming
| (embedded) is almost non existent. Remote and not full-time is
| even rarer.
| jlokier wrote:
| > Remote work on either hardware or systems level programming
| (embedded) is almost non existent. Remote and not full-time is
| even rarer.
|
| The trick is to do such things as your own business, i.e.
| freelancing or consulting (t's all in how you present it),
| doing projects for clients.
|
| This can definitely work for hardware and systems level
| programming.
|
| Then you set your own schedule and your own rules, and clients
| don't even expect you to come to their office. They expect you
| to have your own, and the "home office" engineering consultant
| is quite common.
| protomok wrote:
| SaaS could be a good transition, there are quite a few SaaS
| shops using C++ for example. Or possibly backend if you're
| willing to do some cloud based side projects.
|
| Embedded is a lot of fun but IMHO there is more opportunity and
| compensation up the stack.
| diyseguy wrote:
| part-time tech work sounds like a good idea, but it seems to me
| most serious tech jobs can't be done part time
| ryry wrote:
| It's definitely not the norm, but I'm willing to bet it'll
| become more common especially after the pandemic.
|
| That said - it's not just part-time jobs I'm curating, but
| full-time contract positions too!
| jjice wrote:
| Love the concept. I'm fresh out of college, so I'm more than
| happy with full time work at the moment, but I'm definitely
| hoping to FIRE (or more like FIPT) within 10 or so years if
| things go well. Working 20 hours a week sounds fantastic. Enough
| to give me something to do on a regular basis, but also enough to
| let me do whatever I want to do, whether that be freelance
| development, or a new hobby.
| ryry wrote:
| Best of luck! I spent most of my twenties using all the cash I
| had on travelling. I don't regret it at all, but some of my
| friends showed me their retirement accounts recently and I'm
| definitely a little concerned.
|
| I'd love if North America would get behind the 4 day work week.
| I might even make a category for employers offering that.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| I worked for a company once that was very remote friendly. You
| could disappear for a month and then pop into Slack and ask,
| what's next in the issues queue? Then work on issues for however
| long you wanted, billed hourly at a generous rate. Several times
| I disappeared for weeks to travel and climb and was always
| welcomed back.
|
| That company was minting money and wasn't worried about
| deadlines. I wish more work was structured this way.
| rrggnnlldd wrote:
| Wow that sounds great. Were you be able to charge overtime?
|
| And since you said "worked", what made you decide to stop
| popping back to the issues queue at this particular org?
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| I never hit 40 hours a week. Thirty seemed like a good
| balance between work/life. Eventually, working on a CRUD app
| didn't peak my interest anymore and I moved onto some other
| projects. Company was sold a few years later.
| mrkurt wrote:
| How did you track your time? I kind of love this idea but
| time tracking is a pain in the ass. Seems like maybe you
| could use "day" or "half day" granularity?
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| What was the company?
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| It was a crypto exchange during a BTC boom period (2016-2017)
| vsareto wrote:
| Oh good lord, just when I think I've found the perfect job, you
| have to go and shatter my comfortable illusions!
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| There is greener grass to be found everywhere. It tends to
| wilt once you find it.
| ryry wrote:
| Hey all!
|
| I recently had some personal stuff which made it necessary for me
| to cut back on the hourly commitment I could make to work, but
| found it difficult to find contract, part-time, freelance
| (anything not full-time) jobs through traditional means, so I
| built sidequestjobs.
|
| It's an aggregator, so it gets jobs from various sources and
| curates them into part time, freelance, or contract based
| positions. I'm hoping to add more sources over the next coming
| weeks, but I wanted to post it to get some feedback now.
|
| Thanks for checking it out!
| endlessvoid94 wrote:
| This is such a great idea.
| ryry wrote:
| Thanks! If you have any feedback on what to change/add/remove
| I'm happy to hear it!
| mtm112 wrote:
| I'd probably add geographic filters to the front page if you
| can - I'm guessing a bulk of the positions are remote, but
| not everyone may have the ability to hire or manage
| intercontinentally even in that case.
| BoysenberryPi wrote:
| This is very timely for me so thanks for making it. Looking to
| cut back on my work hours and would like to find something part-
| time.
| ryry wrote:
| I think there's a fair few of us looking to do the same. The
| pandemic caused a huge shift in how I approach everything in
| life.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Looks pretty cool.
|
| Also looks like a lot of companies are using it to find FT
| employees.
|
| If so, you are saving them a lot of money on recruiter fees.
|
| Good job!
| blacktriangle wrote:
| Makes sense. Interviewing is a dumpsterfire. The only reliable
| way I've ever seen hiring work is to actually work with
| somebody on a project while paying them a fair market rate.
| Anything that faciliates that type of relationship, like for
| example having a bunch of developers working non-full time is
| the closest thing to an answer for hiring there is.
| runawaybottle wrote:
| Interesting, I didn't know big companies like eBay would actually
| consider a part time employee. Do they really mean that, or are
| they signaling they seek an intern/student?
|
| The availability of part time work always felt like a package
| that included a tiny shop, cheap clients, and insane amount of
| cheap international labor competition, and only available through
| platforms that promote all three things (upwork, etc).
| ryry wrote:
| I've got a feeling some of the posts that do mention "part-
| time" are just signalling, which is why I have a ton of them
| marked "part-time possible" instead of just part-time.
|
| If you have any better classification ideas I'm open to hearing
| them too!
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| I'll definitely keep an eye on this! Much appreciated.
| dreyfan wrote:
| Full-time remote jobs don't require a full-time commitment
| the_lonely_road wrote:
| A lot of us have integrity. We would like part time work but
| are not willing to lie and steal from our employer to get it.
| dreyfan wrote:
| Employers are generally paying for your output not the hours
| spent.
| readonthegoapp wrote:
| I doubt that this is true.
|
| And I'm not sure workers would want it to be true.
|
| We know about the warehouse bots hounding humans into
| subservience/defeat.
|
| I'm guessing the other bots are right behind -- just not
| quite as popular yet.
| [deleted]
| anoncake wrote:
| That would be awful considering how hard it is to measure a
| developer's output.
| codegeek wrote:
| Depends on the job. If you are in customer support, I don't
| want you to be working for another company and switch back
| and forth if you are full time employee. I want you
| focussed 100% on my company and hence you are paid as a
| full time employee.
|
| Also, legally you are bound to work for a company according
| to contracts. I don't want you working for another company
| on the company's time. It introduces potential liability
| and risks especially if you are remote.
| dreyfan wrote:
| This is HN. It's a bunch of entitled mediocre programmers
| copy-pasting from stack overflow or automating the
| process via copilot. We're not talking about your average
| wage slave.
| jlokier wrote:
| > Also, legally you are bound to work for a company
| according to contracts. I don't want you working for
| another company on the company's time. It introduces
| potential liability and risks especially if you are
| remote.
|
| Just on this point, what you say is common but it's not
| universal. A lot depends on the type of contract.
|
| I'm working full time at the moment. Yet my contract is
| structured to allow me to work on other companies' work
| if I want. And I control my time. It's quite explicit.
|
| That clarity has a real positive payoff for both me and
| the company I'm working for. I'm more enthusiastic about
| the work in large part because this arrangement is
| compatible with me keeping open several research projects
| on ths side, and I'm confident if they lead anywhere,
| there isn't a conflict - and that the company people
| recognise this.
|
| They wouldn't want me not working on the company's
| projects or not acting as a responsible person. But the
| whole attitude is to assume I am and support that in an
| adult-to-adult way. I really like that I feel we could
| talk freely about outside business interests at work.
|
| It helps a lot that this is a mission-oriented open
| source company.
|
| TL;DR it does depend on the job, but it's not an
| inevitable fact that remote work contracts bind a
| person's time exclusively, even during hours worked.
| ryry wrote:
| True enough, but a fair few require at least some commitment
| every day. For some that's not as easy of a commitment to make,
| but I totally see your point.
| codingdave wrote:
| Sure they do - even if the workload does not demand that I sit
| in my chair in front of my screen all day, I do need to be
| committed to be available. If a project hits a crunch, or some
| crisis arises, and I say that I'm too busy with other
| commitments to do my job, that is a major problem.
| Sanguinaire wrote:
| They shouldn't, but it's clear we're not at that stage of
| societal development quite yet.
| jrsj wrote:
| I could quite easily do 2 full time jobs simultaneously except
| that it would be impossible to get them not to schedule
| overlapping meetings. Wish I had a reliable way around that
| because I'd love to get paid twice as much for working maybe
| 50% more since I typically have a decent amount of idle time
| within a 9-5
| soco wrote:
| Congratulations, I love it! To me it would be very valuable to
| have a filter on location requirements - if you have such
| information available of course. Like, who needs office presence
| (and where), who is okay part-time, who is offering full
| remote... but once again, great thing!
| ryry wrote:
| Great idea. I'll get on this. Thanks!
| rexyg wrote:
| Fantastic name
| sepbot wrote:
| I wish recruitment platforms would start classifying the level of
| remoteness instead of a blanket remote allowed statement.
|
| These days remote often means work from home due to COVID in the
| time zone of the physical office. Presumably won't be remote
| forever.
|
| Remote used to mean people would be working asynchronously, and
| it didn't matter where you were physically situated and what
| hours of the day you were online. Obviously this only tends to
| work for places that are results driven as opposed to ones that
| care about the number of hours you put in.
| gota wrote:
| Good point. I imagine there must be ongoing research to define
| the most relevant (frequent, desirable) "classes" of remote
| work.
|
| If there's isn't, then large moderated communities like HN and
| Stackoverflow are in an unique position to survey folks and
| help define these classes. If the "Who's Hiring" threads here
| adopted a "remote work classification" catalogue, I think it'd
| catch on easily
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Lol I thought that this was a spinoff of the sidequest app for
| the oculus quest (which is kind of an app store - really the main
| none for unofficial content).
|
| Even though the name is very well chosen, expect this confusion
| to come up more...
| ryry wrote:
| Yep definitely. I'm thinking I'll brand it specifically as
| "Side Quest Jobs", and hopefully that'll create enough
| differentiation.
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