5 ms·

Problem with your solution is that you already now people, if you don't you have to rely on websites like freelancer that pretty much are the same as paid-to-wi

Problem with your solution is that you already now people, if you don't you have to rely on websites like freelancer that pretty much are the same as paid-to-win-the-bid in modern mobile video games and it's sad when people all over the world bid really low those making the website effectively racist regarding devs that to this for living instead of side jobs.

tjic 10y ago
Knowing people happens after 20 years in the industry. It may very well be that the best way to kick start your career is to move to SF or some other big city. So be it. I did the first 20 years of my career in the Boston area. I have no idea what you mean about websites being racist. For picking lower cost developers? It seems odd to call people who give work to people in other countries "racist". Isn't doing that exactly the opposite of racism?
- SadWebDeveloper 10y ago
  Just try to win a project on any modern "freelancing" website and you will understand... personally i used to make solid money on Rent-A-Coder even before getting my CS degree and when they sell us to Freelancer, i started losing bids and the great bids were "closed" to only accept bid "first world developers" (ie US Developers) or limited to people that already paid for the website membership to get in so pretty much any bid today had like 20 indian developers working for 5c/hour.
  - tjic 10y ago
    Re-read my statements above. I'm telling you not to use those websites. Move to the city, make contacts, do good work.
  - debaserab2 10y ago
    So why not pay for a membership if it gets you access to more exclusive contracts? Or establish relationships with people instead of lowest common denominator platforms and let the quality of your work sell itself? Word of mouth and personal recommendations are worth more than how many stars you are on a platform.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
tjic 10y ago
Also, the way to compete with someone who's charging $10/hr for crappy code is to do what they can't or won't do: * be an excellent communicator * be high bandwidth. F2F, skype, etc. * be a whole stack developer * manage "up". Think of things before your manager does, alert the manager to dangers and problems, give expert advice, avoid the problems. Managers love people who solve the total problem; they hate people who solve one very very narrow niche problem and then leave them (the manager) dealing with a leaky bag of shit. Saying "well, that wasn't in scope!" does not make them happier about holding the leaky bag. I guarantee you that no one bidding $5/hr and working on a timezone 12 hours away delivers this. So, to recap: 1) work in a city when young 2) make contacts 3) be good at what you do 4) manage up ; solve the REAL problem Do that and you'll have lots of work and make good money.
- witty_username 10y ago
  timezone 12 hours away from where? US?
  - spoonie 10y ago
    SE Asia/Australia are 8-16 hours ahead of either Europe or the US.
- bluetwo 10y ago
  Yep. Yep. Yep. Agreed.
- jnbiche 10y ago
  > * be high bandwidth. F2F, skype, etc. * I agree, and I hate it. What happened to the days when I could just be productive? Now, I have to spend hours "working as a team" (ie, socializing) on Slack. I hate it so much that I've dramatically cut down on the work I do. It's not that I'm asocial, it's just that I don't want to be exchanging memes when there's work to be done. I want to do the work, and do it well, so I can spend time with my wife and kids. Work for work, socializing for after work. Even with IRC, it didn't use to be like this. What happened? For the record, I'm not talking about being responsive, or good communications. That's critical. I've always responded to client emails within 2-3 hours (I break up my day into 3 email checks). But I find it impossible to get much done with teams that expect me to hang out in Slack or Hipchat all day long. But the younger kids love it. Maybe they code and chat at the same time, I don't know. I can't do it. Doesn't anyone just hire people to do a job anymore? Are even contractors doomed to spending their days "meshing"?
bdunbar 10y ago
Everyone knows someone. Build on that. You work with people. Those people know people. They know other people. Someone says 'I need a good PHP guy' and a guy in the network replies 'I know a guy, SadWebDeveloper - here is his email address'. Boom: you have made contact with someone who wants to hire you. Join the Whatever User Group in your area. Go to the meetings - introduce yourself. Be a presence on their mail list. Boom: more networking contacts. This is a really good example. TJIC and I have talked on the internet for -years- via email and twitter and blog. A customer of mine mentioned she was looking for a local developer (Los Angeles) but couldn't find anyone who met even her minimal standards. I said 'Hey, I know a guy', he lives 8,000 miles away, he's about a hermit and a half, and he knows his sh*t' and a few weeks later TJIC got some months of work and everyone was happy. And now, here we are, talking. Maybe I can be converted to a networking contact. You never know, hunh?
- mhurron 10y ago
  > Everyone knows someone No they don't. And your solution to not being stuck with closed and insular groups is join some closed and insular groups so that your name can be passed around as one of the group.
  - tjic 10y ago
    If you want to be miserable and ineffective, you can be. All you have to do is set your mind to it. ...and you're doing a great job so far!
    - drdeadringer 10y ago
      mhurron has a valid point and it is worth considering beyond him//her "doing a great job so far" being "miserable and ineffective".
      - SyneRyder 10y ago
        I downvoted mhurron, I found it a fatalistic response that isn't constructive or helpful. Even if you feel you don't know anyone, you have to put effort in to meeting people. Here's three ways I got remote work before I knew anyone: * I emailed a band I liked whose song was featured as Demo Of The Month in a magazine, asking to buy all their CDs. We kept in touch, and months later they asked me for some (free) advice about setting up their website. Later again, one of their friends was looking to hire someone & they recommended me - I worked remotely for them for 10 years. * I wrote a script in PHP and made both a free version & a paid version, then mentioned it on a forum. I got a handful of sales, but one of those customers liked the code quality so much they asked if they could hire me for contract work. That work was done remotely too. * I went to a blogger conference overseas & before I went I made a Twitter list of all the attendees, read their tweets and made online friends with a few who I found interesting. I met some of them at the conference, and one of them I kept in touch with for a year after the conference. We grabbed some coffee when they visited my city, I mentioned I was having a slow work period, they mentioned they needed someone technical, and we worked together for a couple of years. Again, mostly remote work (though I did fly to their offices every few months). Instead of being negative, plant the seeds now. Start making friends, keep those friendships alive, keep letting people know what you do, keep creating proof that you're good at what you do (even if it's your own projects). It's a long process and it still won't guarantee you work, but it will give you a much better chance of offers coming your way. That's what worked for me anyway.
witty_username 10y ago
How is the website racist?
ASalazarMX 10y ago
"making the website effectively racist regarding devs" Just so your communication skills improve, discrimination is not the same as racism.
- Noseshine 10y ago
  On this different topic: I got a lot more relaxed about language after reading numerous books by linguists (because that is their attitude, they just watch what is going on). In this context, I think the train has left the station (as we Germans say, "der Zug ist abgefahren") and "racist" now indeed has a new much wider meaning in public discourse contexts. It now seems to include "being different", in not necessarily clearly defined ways, the exact nature of the differences are to be taken from context. I could just yesterday or today read about "racism" in a Guardian article about an attack on a Polish immigrant somewhere in Britain, who certainly wasn't of a different race [0]. However, I'm very relaxed about it - everybody knows what is meant. Also, a shift in meaning in some context does not mean the stricter meaning of the word is lost! The exact same people who may use a word loosely in one context use it with its strict meaning in a different one. If you start talking about biology this will happen. Words and language are extreme flexible, and such a change is not the end of the world. I think their is some justification: When the word is used in such wider meaning it's more about the effect, not the cause. My motto for language is the same as in programming: Be as lenient as possible with input - but be strict about output. In the language context that means I won't criticize when I actually clearly understand the meaning, but I myself try to use the right expressions, grammar, punctuation, etc. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/12/polish-man-attacked-beaten-gang-20-teenagers-leeds-racially-aggravated-assault https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/12/polish-man-a... (sub-headline: "...they are treating incident ... as racially aggravated")
  - kafkaesq 10y ago
    "...they are treating incident ... as racially aggravated" The term is used because the person being attacked was thought of as being of a different "race" by their racist attackers (and because that's the reason he was attacked; bot for being non-heterosexual, or for being a fan of the wrong football team). Not because one is in agreeance with the alleged "racial" distinctions (in the mind of the racist). BTW: der Zug ist abgefahren In English one would say "the horse has left the barn."
larve 10y ago
I never had any problem finding serious gigs on freelancer.com. Advertise your rate (in my case 70-100$/h depending on the technology), without bowing down to the $10/h bids. Just the fact that you can write a grammatically correct sentence in your bid, with a few questions showing that you know what the problem is about, is enough to get you a solid gig. If people don't hire you because you are too expensive / think they can get away with a cheaper bid, you don't want to work for them. Now, there are obviously a lot of great programmers living in places with lower living costs, but they are already buried in projects anyway. I usually find a good "day" gig in about 1-2 h on freelancer. Do two or three of those, with clients who turn out to be solid, intelligent and paying promptly, and you most probably found a reliable pipeline of work.

tjic 10y ago

Knowing people happens after 20 years in the industry. It may very well be that the best way to kick start your career is to move to SF or some other big city. So be it. I did the first 20 years of my career in the Boston area. I have no idea what you mean about websites being racist. For picking lower cost developers? It seems odd to call people who give work to people in other countries "racist". Isn't doing that exactly the opposite of racism?

SadWebDeveloper 10y ago
Just try to win a project on any modern "freelancing" website and you will understand... personally i used to make solid money on Rent-A-Coder even before getting my CS degree and when they sell us to Freelancer, i started losing bids and the great bids were "closed" to only accept bid "first world developers" (ie US Developers) or limited to people that already paid for the website membership to get in so pretty much any bid today had like 20 indian developers working for 5c/hour.
- tjic 10y ago
  Re-read my statements above. I'm telling you not to use those websites. Move to the city, make contacts, do good work.
- debaserab2 10y ago
  So why not pay for a membership if it gets you access to more exclusive contracts? Or establish relationships with people instead of lowest common denominator platforms and let the quality of your work sell itself? Word of mouth and personal recommendations are worth more than how many stars you are on a platform.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

tjic 10y ago

Also, the way to compete with someone who's charging $10/hr for crappy code is to do what they can't or won't do: * be an excellent communicator * be high bandwidth. F2F, skype, etc. * be a whole stack developer * manage "up". Think of things before your manager does, alert the manager to dangers and problems, give expert advice, avoid the problems. Managers love people who solve the total problem; they hate people who solve one very very narrow niche problem and then leave them (the manager) dealing with a leaky bag of shit. Saying "well, that wasn't in scope!" does not make them happier about holding the leaky bag. I guarantee you that no one bidding $5/hr and working on a timezone 12 hours away delivers this. So, to recap: 1) work in a city when young 2) make contacts 3) be good at what you do 4) manage up ; solve the REAL problem Do that and you'll have lots of work and make good money.

witty_username 10y ago
timezone 12 hours away from where? US?
- spoonie 10y ago
  SE Asia/Australia are 8-16 hours ahead of either Europe or the US.
bluetwo 10y ago
Yep. Yep. Yep. Agreed.
jnbiche 10y ago
> * be high bandwidth. F2F, skype, etc. * I agree, and I hate it. What happened to the days when I could just be productive? Now, I have to spend hours "working as a team" (ie, socializing) on Slack. I hate it so much that I've dramatically cut down on the work I do. It's not that I'm asocial, it's just that I don't want to be exchanging memes when there's work to be done. I want to do the work, and do it well, so I can spend time with my wife and kids. Work for work, socializing for after work. Even with IRC, it didn't use to be like this. What happened? For the record, I'm not talking about being responsive, or good communications. That's critical. I've always responded to client emails within 2-3 hours (I break up my day into 3 email checks). But I find it impossible to get much done with teams that expect me to hang out in Slack or Hipchat all day long. But the younger kids love it. Maybe they code and chat at the same time, I don't know. I can't do it. Doesn't anyone just hire people to do a job anymore? Are even contractors doomed to spending their days "meshing"?

bdunbar 10y ago

Everyone knows someone. Build on that. You work with people. Those people know people. They know other people. Someone says 'I need a good PHP guy' and a guy in the network replies 'I know a guy, SadWebDeveloper - here is his email address'. Boom: you have made contact with someone who wants to hire you. Join the Whatever User Group in your area. Go to the meetings - introduce yourself. Be a presence on their mail list. Boom: more networking contacts. This is a really good example. TJIC and I have talked on the internet for -years- via email and twitter and blog. A customer of mine mentioned she was looking for a local developer (Los Angeles) but couldn't find anyone who met even her minimal standards. I said 'Hey, I know a guy', he lives 8,000 miles away, he's about a hermit and a half, and he knows his sh*t' and a few weeks later TJIC got some months of work and everyone was happy. And now, here we are, talking. Maybe I can be converted to a networking contact. You never know, hunh?

mhurron 10y ago
> Everyone knows someone No they don't. And your solution to not being stuck with closed and insular groups is join some closed and insular groups so that your name can be passed around as one of the group.
- tjic 10y ago
  If you want to be miserable and ineffective, you can be. All you have to do is set your mind to it. ...and you're doing a great job so far!
  - drdeadringer 10y ago
    mhurron has a valid point and it is worth considering beyond him//her "doing a great job so far" being "miserable and ineffective".
    - SyneRyder 10y ago
      I downvoted mhurron, I found it a fatalistic response that isn't constructive or helpful. Even if you feel you don't know anyone, you have to put effort in to meeting people. Here's three ways I got remote work before I knew anyone: * I emailed a band I liked whose song was featured as Demo Of The Month in a magazine, asking to buy all their CDs. We kept in touch, and months later they asked me for some (free) advice about setting up their website. Later again, one of their friends was looking to hire someone & they recommended me - I worked remotely for them for 10 years. * I wrote a script in PHP and made both a free version & a paid version, then mentioned it on a forum. I got a handful of sales, but one of those customers liked the code quality so much they asked if they could hire me for contract work. That work was done remotely too. * I went to a blogger conference overseas & before I went I made a Twitter list of all the attendees, read their tweets and made online friends with a few who I found interesting. I met some of them at the conference, and one of them I kept in touch with for a year after the conference. We grabbed some coffee when they visited my city, I mentioned I was having a slow work period, they mentioned they needed someone technical, and we worked together for a couple of years. Again, mostly remote work (though I did fly to their offices every few months). Instead of being negative, plant the seeds now. Start making friends, keep those friendships alive, keep letting people know what you do, keep creating proof that you're good at what you do (even if it's your own projects). It's a long process and it still won't guarantee you work, but it will give you a much better chance of offers coming your way. That's what worked for me anyway.

witty_username 10y ago

How is the website racist?

ASalazarMX 10y ago

"making the website effectively racist regarding devs" Just so your communication skills improve, discrimination is not the same as racism.

Noseshine 10y ago
On this different topic: I got a lot more relaxed about language after reading numerous books by linguists (because that is their attitude, they just watch what is going on). In this context, I think the train has left the station (as we Germans say, "der Zug ist abgefahren") and "racist" now indeed has a new much wider meaning in public discourse contexts. It now seems to include "being different", in not necessarily clearly defined ways, the exact nature of the differences are to be taken from context. I could just yesterday or today read about "racism" in a Guardian article about an attack on a Polish immigrant somewhere in Britain, who certainly wasn't of a different race [0]. However, I'm very relaxed about it - everybody knows what is meant. Also, a shift in meaning in some context does not mean the stricter meaning of the word is lost! The exact same people who may use a word loosely in one context use it with its strict meaning in a different one. If you start talking about biology this will happen. Words and language are extreme flexible, and such a change is not the end of the world. I think their is some justification: When the word is used in such wider meaning it's more about the effect, not the cause. My motto for language is the same as in programming: Be as lenient as possible with input - but be strict about output. In the language context that means I won't criticize when I actually clearly understand the meaning, but I myself try to use the right expressions, grammar, punctuation, etc. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/12/polish-man-attacked-beaten-gang-20-teenagers-leeds-racially-aggravated-assault https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/12/polish-man-a... (sub-headline: "...they are treating incident ... as racially aggravated")
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  "...they are treating incident ... as racially aggravated" The term is used because the person being attacked was thought of as being of a different "race" by their racist attackers (and because that's the reason he was attacked; bot for being non-heterosexual, or for being a fan of the wrong football team). Not because one is in agreeance with the alleged "racial" distinctions (in the mind of the racist). BTW: der Zug ist abgefahren In English one would say "the horse has left the barn."

larve 10y ago

I never had any problem finding serious gigs on freelancer.com. Advertise your rate (in my case 70-100$/h depending on the technology), without bowing down to the $10/h bids. Just the fact that you can write a grammatically correct sentence in your bid, with a few questions showing that you know what the problem is about, is enough to get you a solid gig. If people don't hire you because you are too expensive / think they can get away with a cheaper bid, you don't want to work for them. Now, there are obviously a lot of great programmers living in places with lower living costs, but they are already buried in projects anyway. I usually find a good "day" gig in about 1-2 h on freelancer. Do two or three of those, with clients who turn out to be solid, intelligent and paying promptly, and you most probably found a reliable pipeline of work.