6 ms·
Ask HN: Where do you find freelance developers
I've been running a small rails development shop for the past 6 or so years and the past year we have seen an explosion in new business. I've been building our network of freelance designers and front end guys but been having a really hard time finding freelance rails developers with enough free cycles to commit to a fixed amount of hours/week or entire projects. I know there are a lot of other individuals in my position out there so where do you go when you need freelance developers?
- patrickryan 16y agohttp://pick.im http://pick.im
- Ixiaus 16y agoThank you for posting this, I'm a contractor looking for work; this looks to be a bit more niche than ELance et al (you have to request an invite to be listed!).
- andrewhyde 16y agoMention this interaction and I will get you in. http://pick.im/request/invite http://pick.im/request/invite
- sebastian 16y agowhat is the name of your shop?
- kitcar 16y agoI've used Odesk.com with good success. Much more individual-developer focused than elance.com or similar (which is full of overseas firms)
- tudorw 16y agoI've used Odesk.com with good results too, I was very selective. I looked for individuals as opposed to groups or agencies, I avoided 5 out 5 star (100%) ratings and headed for better than 2 and not better than 4, I chose people who had experience in the technologies I needed, almost invariably they overestimated their ability, but I do that too, that's just human. I chose people who had been with Odesk at least 6 months and not more than a year or so. I checked that they were able to speak enough English to understand job requirements, don't expect impeccable grammar, this is after all the twenty first century! I made very clear the commitment required and we discussed at length the time they would have available and what factors would affect that, every one I worked with had a 'day job', so my arrangement was that they would be required for a maximum of 10 hours in any week and we would agree in advance realistic schedules. With those caveats in mind go for it, it is an enlightening experience to work with people from around the world, all so far have been honest and hard working, I pay everyone the same wage which is 10% or so above the minimum wage for my country, a rate that I have had to work for numerous times in my life. Invariably their living expenses are lower than mine and all have appreciated the income, I have a freelancer who has emigrated to avoid persecution and another that had 11ft of water through their home but was back online within 5hrs as they had taken the computers to the attic space, instead of a gift of charity I made an advance so they could rebuild their home and the advance was paid of with labour at a slow rate so they could maintain their current commitments. We live in a global community, and it is truly awesome :)
- ericb 16y agoWhat was your reasoning behind avoiding 5 star people and people who had been on Odesk more than a year? Those seem counterintuitive, so I'd like to hear more.
- jpablo 16y agoI would guess he didn't want to pay the high price of quality workers.
- stcredzero 16y agoI rather guess that he wanted high quality at bargain rates. The ones without 5 stars are harder to find, but clearly exist, and are willing to give a discount so they can establish a rep.
- tudorw 16y agoRegarding why I went for anything but 5 stars, yes, it is true my expectation was that a novice would not expect to command the wage paid to someone with experience. I also believe that some reflection on errors and examining how to avoid those errors in the future is an important part of my job. I would not rate myself 5 stars, would you? 5 stars might reflect a desire to only try safe things that can be accomplished with excellent results. On the internet development is fast, there are no experts in a technology that was only available yesterday so I was interested in people willing to try something new, risk to fail. Regarding the rates, a job is a job, as I stated, this is a wage that I have worked for in the past, and probably will in the future, for me work is not entirely about the money, I seek satisfaction, for me that has a high value. I pay around $12 per hour, or about £8.20 which is a fair bit more than minimum wage is here in the UK (£5.80 per hour for workers aged 22 years and older a development rate of £4.83 per hour for workers aged 18-21 inclusive).
- jraines 16y agoI might fit the bill for some of your projects. Send me an email at jraines@gmail.com
- phsr 16y agoIf I was further along in my Rails learning, I would be interested, as I am looking for some work. Still feel free to drop me a line at freelance@phsr.org if you wouldn't be opposed to a bit of learning on the job.
- Zak 16y agoLooking at the responses, I'd say here isn't a bad place, though it would be problematic if there were too many posts like this. Somebody created http://hnhackers.com/ http://hnhackers.com/ to solve your problem. I could probably commit some time. zak.wilson@gmail.com
- hajrice 16y agoI'm currently free, I'm a rails/php developer and badass designer. Here are some things I did last week(though this was design =/) http://imgur.com/KRbNx.jpg http://imgur.com/KRbNx.jpg http://imgur.com/w8S4A.jpg http://imgur.com/w8S4A.jpg http://imgur.com/DlHDb.jpg http://imgur.com/DlHDb.jpg http://imgur.com/qfhbv.jpg http://imgur.com/qfhbv.jpg http://imgur.com/KedPg.jpg http://imgur.com/KedPg.jpg lets get in touch, hajrice@gmail.com
- andrewhyde 16y agoSelf promotion here, we built http://pick.im http://pick.im for just this purpose... Check it out and let me know how you like it?
- GFischer 16y agoIt happens to be down at the time
- patio11 16y agoUnsolicited advice: this is the market telling you "Charge more." (I also suspect that, if you offered more money, your freelance contacts would discover an almost magical ability to find free cycles for you.)
- megamark16 16y agoThis. I did some freelance Django for a guy from Canada who was paying me about half what I make at my day job. It was nice having a little extra cash but in the end I just wasn't motivated, so it was difficult to make time for the low paying work.
- jaredhansen 16y agoI'm using and loving www.solvate.com -- think odesk or elance, but curated by people who know what they're doing, so you get matched with someone already well qualified for the project, and you don't have to waste so much time combing through results trying to figure out who is any good. Solvate connects you with the contractors, then handles contracting, NDAs, billing, etc. so that it's a really easy process. For this, they take a cut of what the freelancer gets paid. I've worked with Solvate "talent", as they call their freelancers, on several projects now and I have yet to be disappointed. I don't work for them or anything, just a happy customer.
- stcredzero 16y agoI'm using and loving www.solvate.com -- think odesk or elance, but curated by people who know what they're doing Another curated experience! I think this is a key idea. Raw web experiences either suck or will degenerate to that point over time. A lot of websites that succeed do so by utilizing knowledgeable crowd sourced curation. A key reason why the iTunes App Store sucks, is because their curation is clueless!
- gte910h 16y agoThere is the hacker news spreadsheet: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlD_6iEb8Ed9dGs3clVJYi0yYVBka181Z0ZKRW9kQ0E&hl=en http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlD_6iEb8Ed9dGs3clVJ... oDesk has a reasonable number of qualified people Guru/Rentacoder seem saturated with low bidding "fail 3 times before you get a success" types. Additionally, the Basecamp people have a site with samples (but the name escapes me).
- vamsee 16y agoI'll soon be finishing up a project myself, and will be looking for work in a couple of weeks. I'm a Rails coder (freelancer), with sysadmin chops and close to 6 yrs web dev exp (major part of it Rails related). Please mail vamsee AT viamentis D0T com if you're interested.
- lleger 16y agoI'm currently available for freelancing, especially to commit to a fixed amount of hours. I'm a kickass front-end and back-end guy. Send me an email to get in touch, logan@loganleger.com.
- johnarcews 16y agoPost it @ WebGeek Philippines Job Board http://webgeekph.com/jobs/ http://webgeekph.com/jobs/