[HN Gopher] Fractional Jobs - Job Board for Fractional Work
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       Fractional Jobs - Job Board for Fractional Work
        
       Author : bilsbie
       Score  : 96 points
       Date   : 2024-12-15 19:44 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.fractionaljobs.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.fractionaljobs.io)
        
       | xnx wrote:
       | Only 17 jobs listed. How does this work? indeed.com filter for
       | part-time and remote shows 20K+ jobs.
        
         | adrianhon wrote:
         | If you fractionate them, that's 1700 jobs
        
         | designerbenny wrote:
         | If I may paraphrase "300" with some stylistic embellishments:
         | 
         | - [Fractional], only 17 jobs listed. We thought your commitment
         | would at least match our own. Indeed has 20k+ jobs.
         | 
         | - Indeed opportunity 1, what is your status?
         | 
         | - Unresponsive company.
         | 
         | - And opportunity 2?
         | 
         | - Fake role.
         | 
         | - And you, opportunity 3?
         | 
         | - Underpaying role
         | 
         | - Fractional roles, what is your status?
         | 
         | - Aoo, Aoo, Aoo.
         | 
         | - See, Indeed. We did bring more actual roles to the table.
         | 
         | (Allegedly, but 17 real roles is better than 20k fake or
         | unresponsive ones).
        
       | cryptozeus wrote:
       | This is a great start, clearly world is moving towards this.
        
       | rqtwteye wrote:
       | Seems "part time" would be a better name?
        
         | beezle wrote:
         | fractional : pre-owned
        
         | jtwaleson wrote:
         | Fractionals are typically senior++ that work part-time for a
         | company. "Part time" can be any seniority level so it gives
         | less information.
        
           | zerr wrote:
           | Is it really the case though? i.e. aren't there fractional
           | interns or juniors?
        
             | jtwaleson wrote:
             | I've never seen one marketing themselves as that or a part-
             | time position advertised as fractional. In my 2 year
             | experience as a fractional CTO it's only "Head of" and
             | C-level. Happy to stand corrected.
        
       | neilv wrote:
       | I skimmed their "12 minute read" about how it works, and didn't
       | see this information:
       | 
       | * How does Fractional Jobs (the company) get paid? (For example,
       | do they only get paid to list an ad?)
       | 
       | * Is Fractional Jobs involved at all, after initial contact
       | between contractor and client is made? (For example, do FJ charge
       | either parties a finder's fee or contract fee, or take an ongoing
       | cut, or place restrictions on the relationship?)
        
         | hipadev23 wrote:
         | Like any job site, it costs to list postings. And once they
         | amass a newsletter audience that's something they can sell ads
         | into.
        
         | tbird24 wrote:
         | [I'm the founder of https://fractionaljobs.io] We get paid in
         | two ways, 1) companies pay us a flat "referral fee" if they
         | hire a candidate we send them, 2) through sponsorships of our
         | newsletter.
         | 
         | We are not involved at all after the contract is signed. We
         | believe in independent fractional hiring vs. a middleman.
         | Therefore, we don't take any % from the fractional or the
         | company, aside from the referral fee mentioned above. No
         | restrictions on relationship, do as y'all please.
         | 
         | I used to do fractional work myself, and I designed this
         | structure with myself in mind, if that makes sense.
        
       | cj wrote:
       | I have extensive experience hiring fractional talent at our
       | company over the past 2 years (CMO, CFO, CTO). I'm currently
       | spending $250k/yr on fractionals.
       | 
       | To avoid disappointment 2-3 months into the engagement, my #1
       | recommendation is to have a very specific and well written
       | statement of work that you mutually agree on so that it's
       | perfectly clear what your expectations of them are.
       | 
       | When our fractionals didn't work out, it was _always_ because we
       | had expectations that the fractional wasn't able to live up to.
       | And in hindsight, simply spelling out the work in a SOW would
       | have avoided the misalignment.
       | 
       | In general, there are a lot of fractionals who don't like to roll
       | their sleeves up to do real work. IME most fractionals could
       | simply be described as "paid advisors". For our company, when
       | we've had fractionals not work out it was always because the
       | fractional simply didn't want to do anything other than join
       | meetings and advise.
       | 
       | Again, all solvable by simply having a clear SOW and making sure
       | mutual expectations are clearly communicated.
       | 
       | It's extremely tempting to just engage a fractional because it's
       | easy and quick, especially when you're desperate to get someone
       | in the door. Don't make that mistake and take your time.
        
         | dave2299 wrote:
         | Thanks for sharing. Any thoughts on hiring a fractional CTO?
         | I'm a barely-technical founder, working w/ no code/low code
         | tools like Airtable, Copilot for my product and services but
         | want to outsource work and move towards more technical product
         | but have been striking out trying to hire more technical people
         | than I am directly and don't want a cofounder. Where to find a
         | fractional CTO, how to go about it, etc. thanks
        
           | yehudabrick wrote:
           | I'm curious why you've been striking out? What seems to be
           | the issue with the people you're trying to hire. I'm looking
           | to get into being a fractional CTO and would love to talk
           | with you if you're interested. You can reach me at the email
           | in my profile.
        
         | ajb wrote:
         | So I'm curious- I can understand why you'd want a fractional
         | CFO or CMO, but what does a fractional CTO even do? In my mind
         | a CTO is either someone who manages multiple teams,or someone
         | who manages a team that does 'de novo' deeply technical work.
         | It's difficult for me to see how either of those would work
         | part time, or really that that their skill set would be
         | applicable to a company that can only afford part of their
         | time. In a small team,why would you hire a fractional CTO as
         | opposed to just making sure your most senior engineer is able
         | to mentor the juniors?
        
       | pickle-wizard wrote:
       | This is a great start. I've been looking for part time work, so I
       | signed up.
        
       | hobofan wrote:
       | I think the crux is here (from their explanation post):
       | 
       | > extract the most valuable 10 hours/week ...
       | 
       | > ... don't pay payroll taxes, don't pay bonuses, and don't need
       | to offer benefits
       | 
       | How they define a "fractional" is almost 1:1 the definition of
       | false self-employment, which is illegal in many parts of Europe,
       | as it fulfils all criteria of normal employment without any of
       | the security for the employee and circumvention of paying for
       | social safety.
        
         | philip1209 wrote:
         | Europe isn't known for being progressive.
        
           | fastasucan wrote:
           | Not if you define progressive as allowing exploitation of
           | people. But if you follow the normal definitions of the word
           | it is.
        
             | ponector wrote:
             | And don't forget to put 25% progressive tip to everything!
             | 
             | I've recently heard some people are paying tips to the
             | collectors company who while paying minimum monthly payment
             | to the debt. How progressive!
        
         | jtwaleson wrote:
         | I'm a Fractional CTO in NL. We're quite a bit more expensive
         | than regular employees or even freelancers (per hour), so I
         | think they mention the lack of payroll taxes, bonuses etc to
         | persuade companies that it's less expensive than it appears.
         | 
         | We're still paying taxes, the only difference is that the
         | client isn't paying for it, and maybe there is a bit of a
         | discount for starters.
         | 
         | As a fractional/freelancer, I enjoy the freedom and mutual
         | expectation that I'm in this for the money and for the short
         | term. (In my case it gives me the resources to bootstrap my own
         | product company).
         | 
         | In NL the regulations for false self-employment (enforcement
         | kicks in January 1st) is primarily aimed at low-wage jobs like
         | meal delivery etc. High paid professionals with multiple
         | clients per week (like most fractionals are) are not the
         | target.
        
           | MichaelZuo wrote:
           | > We're still paying taxes, the only difference is that the
           | client isn't paying for it, and maybe there is a bit of a
           | discount for starters.
           | 
           | How can the client not be paying for it somehow?
        
             | jtwaleson wrote:
             | They pay a higher hourly wage. As an entrepreneur you
             | typically you see "monthly salary of employee is X" and
             | translate that to "actual cost is X*1.4". With fractionals
             | you don't have to do that. The hourly wage is simply what
             | you pay.
        
               | MichaelZuo wrote:
               | Bundling things together still means they are paying for
               | it with one degree of separation...?
        
               | jtwaleson wrote:
               | Yes they are, but I think the blog post is meant to
               | educate the companies that they don't have to mentally
               | multiply the price again. What you see is what you pay.
        
           | hobofan wrote:
           | > High paid professionals with multiple clients per week
           | (like most fractionals are) are not the target.
           | 
           | Yes, that's also what used to be the common knowledge in
           | Germany. However (according to my tax advisor), the tax
           | office here has gotten increasingly agressive and are now
           | also targeting high paying jobs like physicians and software
           | engineers more and more.
           | 
           | > We're still paying taxes, the only difference is that the
           | client isn't paying for it
           | 
           | Yes, that's also how you in Germany would optimally protect
           | yourself against fallout from false self-employment (=
           | backpay of evaded social security payment), but even in that
           | case your customers can be fined for engaging in false self-
           | employment, which will likely kill that customer
           | relationship. One practice against that I've seen is to have
           | a clause in the contract where you as the freelancer
           | guarantee that you also spend X time with other clients,
           | which should give the customer a shield of plausible
           | deniability, but I haven't heard any experience reports
           | whether that holds up in an audit. The most bullet-proof
           | method seems to be to have at least one employee that you pay
           | minimum social security for (e.g. working student or family
           | member), but that's not trivially cheap.
        
             | jtwaleson wrote:
             | In NL, UK and probably Germany there is a plague of
             | "freelance" developers and indeed also physicians that work
             | full-time for the same companies for multiple years. In my
             | opinion, it's fine to raise taxes on those kinds of
             | freelancer/employer relations to the same level as salaried
             | employees.
             | 
             | I see my own services as very different. You call me when
             | you need short-term & part-time help to solve a problem or
             | bootstrap something within your own company. Doing that in
             | a long-term salaried position would not make sense.
             | 
             | Curious to see what will happen over the next years!
        
         | alberth wrote:
         | Isn't this just a 1099 contractor.
        
       | welder wrote:
       | I'm building something similar, but to find remote contact jobs
       | instead of fractional work:
       | 
       | https://wonderful.dev
        
         | seabass-labrax wrote:
         | The issue with displaying statistics to potential employers is
         | that they can easily be gamed or even falsified. If your site
         | really takes off, you'll have to be careful that it is not
         | inundated with 'developers' whose contributions include
         | renaming str_name to name_str in a thousand repositories.
         | 
         | Cf. https://blog.domenic.me/hacktoberfest/ and
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24643894
        
       | TZubiri wrote:
       | What's the difference between engineering and product?
        
       | tbird24 wrote:
       | So cool! Founder of https://fractionaljobs.io here, bilsbie
       | thanks for posting this.
       | 
       | If anyone has questions about Fractional Jobs, fractional work,
       | etc. lmk and I'll do my best to answer all of them.
        
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       (page generated 2024-12-15 23:00 UTC)