[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Consultants and independent contractors, whe...
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       Ask HN: Consultants and independent contractors, where do you find
       clients?
        
       Pre-pandemic, I was able to network easily at conferences and
       meetups, but in the time since, I haven't found a good replacement.
       I'm a software engineer and former CTO, interested in both custom
       development and higher level questions of technical strategy and
       system design. Places like Upwork don't seem geared to this type of
       work (unless I'm mistaken).  Is this kind of work now mostly
       handled by large consultancies that provide contractors, unless you
       have significant connections? How are you all networking and
       marketing yourselves in these unprecedented times?
        
       Author : nomeq
       Score  : 13 points
       Date   : 2022-02-03 21:00 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
       | buttocks wrote:
       | I have found some of my clients in end-user forums related to the
       | tech for which I specialize. In some cases, they have found me.
        
       | vr46 wrote:
       | Word of mouth - they find me. I'm not on LinkedIn, my hatred of
       | it is well-known, but I have met enough people over the years
       | that keep me busy with work.
        
       | fxtentacle wrote:
       | Prospective clients find me on LinkedIn and then contact me.
       | Also, there are some staffing agencies that keep lists of
       | freelance consultants so that they can keep their client happy
       | even if they don't find any suitable hire. Sometimes when I'm
       | bored, I actually chat with their recruiters.
       | 
       | Also, pull requests. I once fixed a crash bug in the Unreal
       | Engine 4 and submitted a patch. Afterwards, a game studio called
       | me. Similarly, I got contacted by an AI consultancy after I
       | submitted a patch to TensorFlow.
       | 
       | Plus me and my friends do a lot of online competitions. Last year
       | we briefly "won" Sintel, this year its Bomberland. Nothing says
       | "this guy can do AI" better than ranking in-between FAANG teams
       | in an AI competition.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | bdcravens wrote:
       | Codementor is good. Doing one-on-one calls at a reasonable rate
       | is good, but even better, many of those "mentoring" calls can
       | turn into long-term engagements.
        
       | rossdavidh wrote:
       | I am usually operating at a senior programmer level, not making
       | CTO type decisions but often making architectural ones (for
       | clients that don't have a full-time IT staff). So my experience
       | may or may not be comparable to yours. But, for what it's worth,
       | here's my count of where I found clients:
       | 
       | job posting forum: 10 (2 of them HN "Who's Hiring" posts, 1
       | meetup.com, 1 Google jobs, the others I don't recall but some
       | were monster.com or indeed.com)
       | 
       | previous coworker: 3
       | 
       | previous client: 2
       | 
       | friend of a friend of a friend: 1
       | 
       | I haven't actually taken a gig found via LinkedIn, but I get
       | inquiries from there.
        
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       (page generated 2022-02-03 23:02 UTC)