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Show HN: Call a Dev – Pay Stack Overflow users $1/min for live programming help

• mritchie712 6y ago
  nice, I use codementor, so I'm in your target market. Do you have devs signed up?
  • mcadenhe 6y ago
    Thanks for taking a look! A couple have connected their S/O accounts so far. Launched it today so not much action yet. Do you use codementor as a mentor or as a mentee?
    • mritchie712 6y ago
      I've done both, but mostly I use it to speed up the debugging of JS issues. I'd consider adding a GIF or video of the flow to connect with a dev.
      • mcadenhe 6y ago
        Yea things are always a lot faster when you have someone who can tell you exactly what you don't know. The main difference with Call a Dev is the lack of friction for the devs who need help, and the devs who need work. You just post your question and if someone can help, you'll get a ping with a link to their S/O profile. If you like what you see, you accept the ping and the call starts. A video is a good idea, I'm putting one together now.
        • mritchie712 6y ago
          Good luck! DevOps is another area you could focus on. A lot of people think it's fun to learn programming, but very few want to learn devops (e.g. why does this work locally, but not on AWS?). People will def pay to solve devops problems quickly (source: I've done it many times).
    • scrollaway 6y ago
      I use codementor as well, as a mentor primarily. Got a lot of clients through them, including longer-term clients for my consultancy. Immediate feedback: If you want me to sign up, 75¢/min is too low, and you do need a mechanism to raise rates. My standard codementor rate is $2.25/min (and goes up to $3/min on some specialized skills). Feel free to email me if you want some feedback/video chat. I was on hackhands back when it still existed. I'm a sucker for these types of platform. I especially love getting clients looking for actual coaching/mentoring, not just debugging.
      • mcadenhe 6y ago
        Awesome! Thanks for the feedback and the offer!
• the_jeremy 6y ago
  Interesting idea, but doesn't seem competitive for Americans to ever respond, if you only pay them $0.75/min after the first minute and the experts have to search for questions they want to answer, meaning there is guaranteed unpaid time between calls. A potentially interesting option would be to offer tiers based on stack overflow reputation, and to ensure that a developer has reputation from the desired tags.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• ricardobayes 6y ago
  What a great idea. My advice to the OP is to get a few questions going. I made a similar site for remote work ads but I only had like 2-3 ads on it, expecting the users to fill it up. Well pretty much the initial feedback was that users felt it was a pre-launch/scam site because there was nothing on it. Look up how reddit was started. It took a long time even for them before actual users started to post.
• sscarduzio 6y ago
  I like the concept, but you can't pay the same proce for all developers.
  • terse_malvolio 6y ago
    Or for all problems!
  • robertlagrant 6y ago
    You don't - with this model you pay less for better developers.
• Ragnarork 6y ago
  The idea looks interesting, but a couple things of note that make me kinda wary: - $0.75/min is $45/h and it's awfully cheap for what's ultimately consulting work - 1 free minute in each call, call ends if no payment source is connected: what about people that would keep getting those one minutes? I know it's not much, but for some problem it might be enough if not to solve it, at least to get input that could lead to resolution. I still like the idea because I feel strongly about stackoverflow pushing for solving everyone's issue instead of someone's, which often end up solving barely anyone problem as solutions provided are way too generic. The added effect is also that the community has devolved into a hot mess that will close so many questions as dupes even when they're not.
  • munk-a 6y ago
    The free minute sounds like a really good idea to me - there might be twenty seconds or so of introduction which younger folks will tend to view as unnecessary time-wasting and older folks will tend to view as necessary pre-connection and the free minute allows these greetings to go uncharged and be mostly uncontroversial. I think it both counters the greeting time and also serves as a pretty good PR move. Also, if I can answer your problem in less than a minute then you didn't even google it. I am sure a bunch of these sorts of questions will roll in and, if you're trying to continuously get answers within the free minute you're probably going to end up accidentally paying them a good portion of the time.
    • unanswered 6y ago
      > Also, if I can answer your problem in less than a minute then you didn't even google it. And so the person who has to field this call shouldn't get paid?
      • munk-a 6y ago
        Actually looking at the model setup by the site for contractors to grab questions on a voluntary basis - I sorta doubt anyone would actually take your question. The site design is pretty opaque so I imagined you had some SMEs out there that a call in would be automatically connected to but the contractors can view a list of questions and pick and choose ones they think they're a good match for. I think that makes it a valid question to the site designers if there should be either: 1. Some level of payment for the first minute of calls to make sure those dumb questions get answered 2. Some feedback mechanism for contractors to mark specific calls as googleable and for the site to send back a "Did you try googling it buddy?" response via email (though in much more diplomatic terms) It sounds like this service might actually struggle with questions that are too easy - I'm also really wondering about the unpaid research time potential. Will it be a faux pas on this service to call up the client at the point where you think you know the answer reasonably well but may need to do some on-the-phone research for their specific details or would the expectation be an expert ready to answer your question specifically for the Sun Sparc 8 architecture?
• ryanSrich 6y ago
  Why not use Upwork? I’ve found very good devs on Upwork to help me for an hour or two. They make $200-$400 for basically just talking me through something on zoom call.
• sidpatil 6y ago
  This reminds me of the premium-rate 1-900 numbers back in the day. I specifically remember seeing one of them which offered tips and strategies if you were stuck in a video game. I would definitely love to try this out at least once. I could see it being helpful.
  • easton 6y ago
    Nintendo had something like this in the days of the NES: https://gamingbolt.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/nintendo-hotline.jpg https://gamingbolt.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/nintendo-h...
    • blackrock 6y ago
      I recall seeing a video of the Nintendo support center, where people (kids) would call up for video game help. And these game wizards would help them step through the game. I would’ve never thought that was a thing, much less a little career while it lasted. But it provided some jobs to people, whose purpose was to just play a bunch of Nintendo video games. I don’t have the link, but maybe someone can find it on YouTube somewhere.
      • awad 6y ago
        The Deja Vu feeling was bothering me. Luckily found it pretty quickly..."High Score" Episode 2 on Netflix has the most footage of what you're talking about. Not quite the video, but if you don't have Netflix, this is publicly available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKAf8eXuh9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKAf8eXuh9s
        • blackrock 6y ago
          Ah yes, this was it. Good find! I’m surprised it grew up from 6 to 400 support staff working on this. This would’ve been a fun job as a teenager.
      • artificial 6y ago
        I worked at the Redmond WA Nintendo of America location. You'd get qualified to do the game support lines. The starting was on setup and installs. There was a 4 week onboarding program teaching you how to easily look up things inside of their custom help database. The database would have model numbers and give pointers on identifying the input select. Identifying the equipment usually involved the son/daughter since they could get behind the entertainment center. Super Agents were the ones who answered both support lines and used a different part of the same db program. There was some AS400 looking terminal for subscriptions, ticketing, and creating shipping labels for say Pokemon game carts that died. People naturally abused this and would send wood blocks. The desks had TVs and game systems and tons of issues of Nintendo Power magazines. The floor was huge, hundreds of people grouped in by "streets" named after characters. The cubes were in clusters of six. I recall the game testers, they were in a different area, playing and playing one part trying to replicate issues or discover them. Sounds soul crushing. The neat thing were the marketing displays, like the units that would be installed at stores or showing the old card games Nintendo started with. The employee store was neat, getting that gold controller or other games was a breeze. There was an indoor lounge full of arcade cabinets, usually the cheats listed on the sides and one of the corp guys would geek out on Robotron 2084 and get a score so high it would reboot. Good times.
• kjhughes 6y ago
  You'll need some mechanism to raise rates to attract top developers. Even without the first free minute and time spent reading questions, the most a dev could hope to earn with this service is ($0.75/min)(60 min/hr) = $45/hr. Perhaps for students or devs who barely meet the 100 rep minimum requirement, that might be attractive, but for the experts who've written the best Stack Overflow answers, that's likely to be a (small) fraction of their bill rate. Free contribution is rewarding as a means of helping. Well-paid contribution is rewarding for the $$$. Poorly paid contribution often loses both incentives.
  • dheera 6y ago
    What if there were really good devs on StackOverflow in developing economies that were willing to take on $45/hr consulting because their day job pays them $20/hr? Just because Silicon Valley developers want $300/hr doesn't mean the whole world regards that as a standard.
    • vsareto 6y ago
      Agreed, plus the day to day answering developer questions is going to be a little more tame than if you were in a job constantly putting out fires or maintaining a tight and stressful schedule
    • jasonkester 6y ago
      They’ll still lose money. $45/hr, billed by the minute for a bunch of short gigs spread out across the day with the need to do fresh business development between each one will never leave you anywhere near half utilized. Put the bill rate at $200/hr in this situation and you might replace that steady $40k/year salary. But it’ll be a lot more stressful.
  • crazypython 6y ago
    Exactly. My usual hourly rate is a minimum of $70/hour. (I only recently became a freelancer, and am still learning to maximize my rates– I suspect my current rate is a small fraction of what I could earn.) The only thing this provides for me is a more liquid/elastic way to earn money. I can and do regularly solve problems that save people hundreds of hours. I would gladly pay to have someone solve my technical challenges that cost me hundreds of hours. (I am an expert in Python and a deep Generalist with experience across many domains and types of software.)
• nichch 6y ago
  Interesting. I always envisioned a site where more experienced devs could help out newer ones with mock interviews or coding prompts to help quantify self taught coding skills. I just realized services like this would probably fit the bill if they also offered code reviews.
• m00dy 6y ago
  Do I need to install software in my computer to use this platform ?
  • mcadenhe 6y ago
    It's browser-based using webrtc so you don't need to install anything.
    • linux2647 6y ago
      Built with Phoenix and LiveView?
      • mcadenhe 6y ago
        Affirmative.
• lettergram 6y ago
  I used to offer tutoring for C, Go and Python programming for $50/hr. I can’t tell you the number of people who asked me to do work on for their day job... I would always accept at $100/hr. Almost every week I’d max out my 15 hours I’d set aside for “tutoring”. So beyond that I’d charge $200/hr, and I’d still get people for both tutoring and day job style work lol $1/min is a fair price, but if you’re good you can make a lot more
  • padthai 6y ago
    This is fascinating to me. Is there any particular kind of profile that hired you as a ghostwriter? Do these people know how to do their work and decide to outsource it or they have no clue and just got lucky in the interviews?
    • daniellarusso 6y ago
      There was a story about a developer from IBM that hired somebody, and was only discovered because the inbound VPN IP was from a different country.
      • branon 6y ago
        I would like to read this story!
        • MattGaiser 6y ago
          https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21043693 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21043693 Not the same one in all likelihood though.
          • 908B64B197 6y ago
            That's a failure from the dev and management. Being able to find and get repeatable good results from contractors across the globe and manage them is a skill in itself.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• munk-a 6y ago
  Do you have any guarantees about how quickly a response will come in? I'm a bit concerned that the low payrate to the dev means that you're likely to miss higher skilled respondants. The payout isn't high enough to justify going FT on it and it feels like it'd be unreliable to try and pickup questions here and there when you happen to be available.
  • mcadenhe 6y ago
    Thanks for the question! Your concern is justified. There are no guarantees. The only thing for certain is that if you don't get a ping within 60 minutes then your question will be deleted. It's kind of a chicken/egg problem where there aren't enough questions because I don't have enough people to answer them, and there aren't enough enough people to answer them without a steady supply of questions to keep them busy. I'm reconsidering the pay rate after reading a few of the comments here.
• crazypython 6y ago
  Users with more than 2,000 reputation and/or at least one Gold badge can give higher-quality help. I would either restrict the site only to these users, or I would put them in a higher-quality section. They would also get paid more, at least $1 per minute. (It currently pays $0.75 per minute.) I am an expert in Python and a deep Generalist with experience across many domains and types of software. https://stackoverflow.com/users/1459669/no%c9%a5%ca%87%ca%8e%d4%80%ca%8ez%c9%90%c9%b9%c6%86 https://stackoverflow.com/users/1459669/no%c9%a5%ca%87%ca%8e...
• Closi 6y ago
  Considering the questions tab currently includes "What the fuck is this?" and "Why is my butt full of poop?" I am going to assume they will turn off anonymous posting soon.
• avipars 6y ago
  You need a way to report posts ...
• armadsen 6y ago
  This interesting to me. I spent the last 4 years teaching programming full time, and also have a decently high SO reputation. I've recently gone back to full time software development, and miss teaching. The main problem is that at $0.75 / min, it's not worth my time. I generally have at least one contract side job making several times that much, and I'm not unusual in that respect.
• debarshri 6y ago
  This is cool from a Dev who needs help. It feels more like a micro-consultancy or more like a call center model. It is really bad from the Dev who takes the call. If I put myself in the position of the Dev who takes the call, It is pretty crap. Let say average call duration is 3 minutes, that means I have to take 20 calls/hr. Thats 20 context-switches per hour. I have worked at call centers, after first few calls in a day, people are just not motivated enough to help. There is going to be mental fatigue for the developer who is helping.
• heavyset_go 6y ago
  I used to provide services like this, but at a much higher rate. $60/hr is not competitive at all, especially if you're charging by the minute without a minimum of at least one hour.
• MattGaiser 6y ago
  Is there a similar site where you can put a dollar bounty on a solution for faster service? There have been SO questions where I would have paid for faster attention.
  • repartix 6y ago
    Cool idea. I might work on this.
  • dumbfounder 6y ago
    Google Answers tried this way back when for general search related questions.
    • MattGaiser 6y ago
      I know Quora did as well.
  • riekus 6y ago
    I am working on something like this.
  • xtracto 6y ago
    At one point there was a site where you put bounty on Crypto Tokens to solve your programming questions and problems. I just cannot seem to find it.
• munk-a 6y ago
  A question here, it seems like the flow is: 1. I post a question. 2. Someone elects themselves as a candidate to answer that question. 3. I receive notification of the candidate and approve them 4. A call happens Do you have any idea around what sort of time lag would be inherent in each step? Do you expect steps 1-4 to happen within a half-hour window and thus be mostly instantaneous as far as phone interactions go or could it go longer? If you expect a quick response then I don't know if your rates are high enough to keep people actively watching the question board instead of checking in a few times a day - if not then I think the usability of the product may suffer since scheduling the call could become problematic. If I have a meeting in an hour should I bother trying to set up this call or do I need to wait until I have several free consecutive hours?
  • mcadenhe 6y ago
    Ideally you'd post a question and get a ping within the first few minutes. But there is a 1 hour max window for any question to receive a ping. Once the ping comes through, if you decide to accept it, then the dev has 60 seconds to answer the call. As it stands, there isn't much supply of questions or devs to answer them (just launched today with no early signups). I was thinking one way to get around this would be to let devs subscribe to email or text notifications when a questions is posted with a specific tag.
    • munk-a 6y ago
      A diverse notification setup seems wise - otherwise yea, I think solving the balancing problem is going to be an ongoing struggle. The one hour limit sounds pretty wise!
• wwww4all 6y ago
  My current hourly rate breaks down like this. I make adjustments every 6 months. 15 years professional experience + 5 years experience in latest specialized tech stack + 1 hour = $200 dollars/hour for contracts longer than 6 months. Hourly rate is higher for shorter term contracts. My rate is more cost effective than not delivering the solution.
  • atleta 6y ago
    How/where do you manage to charge this kind of rate? Are you contracting clients directly or through some agency? Also, is this for on premise or remote work? You take on full projects or augment existing teams?
    • wwww4all 6y ago
      Simply ask for the highest rate within reason. $200 per hour is about $400K per year, which is around senior engineer total comp rates, https://www.levels.fyi/ https://www.levels.fyi/. You have to ask for the rate and demonstrate that you can deliver solutions and deliver solutions.
      • atleta 6y ago
        Yeah, so I'm aware that the way to charge more is to tell clients that you'll charge more ;). However, the range people work for is pretty wide and depend on a lot of variables. I was trying to figure out some of those in your case to see whether there is a big difference with the type of the clients you work with.
        • wwww4all 6y ago
          There are companies that need senior level software engineers to lead in updating legacy enterprise applications to latest tech stack. Development and integration into existing systems are extremely difficult and time consuming. These companies have attempted several updates and most have failed over the years. These are mission critical systems that process and generates millions and billions in revenue. They have already spent millions of dollars and years of effort in failed attempts. These are the companies that will pay to get their systems back on the roadmap schedule. There are big names and small names.
• paulie_a 6y ago
  So pay someone else to use google?
  • blackbear_ 6y ago
    No, pay someone to read the first google result to you. A large part of stackoverflow questions are like this honestly.
• hntrader 6y ago
  Interesting idea. When I use Fiverr to hire a dev, I often have to contact multiple prospective devs to figure out that their skills are a match for the problem I'm trying to solve. I'll chat to 5 (all who advertise python) and give a one line intro about the problem, and it's immediately clear than only 2 can or wish to do it. E.g if I need someone who specifically knows the Selenium package. Do you have a similar mechanism that can help to match the right dev with the right customers? Also, $1/minute is more expensive than Fiverr. For my quick projects I would still use Fiverr due to the cost savings. I'd expect to fork out $60 for a two hour project there. On the other hand, others here are saying that it's too low for their hourly rate. Some price flexibility might be a good idea?
  • jtth 6y ago
    what are you building that you are soliciting development labor from fiverr and think $30/h is appropriate for anyone on earth involved in programming
    • daniellarusso 6y ago
      I am guessing scraping, if using Selenium, Python, and hiring folks via fiverr.
    • hntrader 6y ago
      Ad hoc scraping tool for something experimental that I didn't want to do myself. Would've taken me 2x as long as the dev I hired since I haven't done that before. Quality wasn't so important, I just wanted the output of the scraper on a specific site for a one off thing. $30/h is a typical rate for a dev on Fiverr, I've been very happy with the value I've gotten from it.
      • AlchemistCamp 6y ago
        Why are you dictating the language they use, then? It just shrinks the pool and increases the odds you're missing out on a simpler way to do it. If they delivered a working scraper using Ruby or JavaScript or even a 3rd party service, the output would have been the same.
• e-clinton 6y ago
  I think it’s a great idea, but it should cost at least $3/min or more to get real talent to join. I’d pay top dollar if you can also guarantee that they’ll solve my issue.
  • euph0ria 6y ago
    +1
  • mcadenhe 6y ago
    Thanks for checking it out! I could never guarantee that tho as Call a Dev is mostly self-service from the standpoint of the question asker and the question answerer. I wanted to reduced friction as much as possible for both sides of the equation. If you're willing to pay more money for more guarantee you should check out codementor.io
• notyourday 6y ago
  Answering questions for money even at $1/min is fine if the payouts work like clock work. I'm not seeing anything that indicates to me how that part works. That's the only USP. The rest is just another non-liquid information market
• ufmace 6y ago
  Site is down right now. I'm wondering if there's any mechanism to verify the developer you're paying for help. If I'm going to be paying, how do I know this person is actually knowledgable about my problem domain and good at troubleshooting? On the helper's side, since it's by the minute, it's not much risk if the person is completely over their head and beyond any reasonable help, you're still getting paid while you try to figure that out. Except that the pay is somewhat low versus the going rates for consulting work in the western world.
  • jcun4128 6y ago
    Would think a feature would be rating from confirmed payments by other users but that can be gamed too.
  • np_tedious 6y ago
    Stack Overflow rep/profile is probably a decent start
• robertlagrant 6y ago
  It costs $1/minute, and pays $0.75/minute. What is this site charging 25% for supplying?
  • sjburt 6y ago
    Matchmaking, promotion.
    • cambalache 6y ago
      rent seeking
    • sscarduzio 6y ago
      yeah, they don't accept those currencies at the grocery store. I'll pass.
  • pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    In the first minute I guess the seller can send you a message - contact me on tenpercentoff@example.com with a cheaper offer of the same labour.
• new_guy 6y ago
  This is a fundamentally broken model. You get a good developer they fix the issue in a minute get $1. You get a not-so-good one they take all day and bankrupt you. You have an expectation mismatch, you pay the developers for their value not their time. Better to have a model like Quirky did, $80 flat rate or something and obviously filter out the bad developers on sign up.
  • atleta 6y ago
    The problem is, that no one can give you (or themselves) a reasonable estimate on how much it will take (and thus how much it should cost) to fix an issue in an unknown codebase. The mismatch is easily done away with by adding ratings to the system. So much so, than on similar platforms, if you are unlucky and run into a hard issue/prick customer (or some combination of this) too early then it can ruin your chances forever. (It does matter a lot whether you get your 1 out of 100 3* ratings as the first one or the 100th one.)
• banana_giraffe 6y ago
  I'm sure there are people that will do this, but I view it as particularly grueling work. If I want to work an 8 hour day to pay the bills, I need to work 8 hours at top efficiency since I'm always being watched, and on top of it, be social in different calls all day. Some of my best problem solving is while I'm out for a walk letting my mind wander. This is very much not for me. Oh, on top of this, I'm sure the dispute process after spending say two hours trying to do something and failing for whatever reason is going to be _fun_.
• tomaszs 6y ago
  10/10. It is a bullet proof success. Congrats from a top 2% SO user who just joined
• _lemur 6y ago
  Many comments highlight the issue of verifying developers. Did you think of leveraging Github Sponsor program?. Developers can be verified via github profile and paid through the same platform. [1]: https://docs.github.com/en/github/supporting-the-open-source-community-with-github-sponsors/receiving-sponsorships-through-github-sponsors https://docs.github.com/en/github/supporting-the-open-source...
  • mcadenhe 6y ago
    Right now devs are verified through S/O and it seems to fit the bill nicely because then you can vet the person's history of answering questions.
• whobar 6y ago
  Reminds me of "The Knowledge", pitched on Dragon's Den (UK's shark tank) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf4zNLxJZnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf4zNLxJZnY
• atarighat 6y ago
  It's a great idea. But this probably works best as a bounty.
• tppiotrowski 6y ago
  I worked on a startup that received seed funding to tackle this. I helped build the platform (using Twilio video) and then answered the first $5000 of calls. Things I learned: - Many entry level programmers at big companies (think Walmart Labs, Target, Goldman Sachs, etc) are too scared to ask managers/team for help. If you work for a large company, make sure new hires feel safe asking questions and seeking help or they will seek it elsewhere. - The really hard questions they're willing to pay $240 an hour for have too much context for you to grasp. They want you to replace their ORM layer or tell them why their 600 line test case is not working. - Getting customers is not too hard by poaching them from Stack Overflow, Reddit, CodeMentor. - Developers make good money working full time and idly sitting at their desk part of that time. Here you only get paid for active time and the idle time in-between will kill your salary. Your motivation has to come from helping other people and watching them grow, not from $$$.
  • atleta 6y ago
    Yeah, the idling thing, or looking from the other side, the on-demand expectation pretty much kills it. Or makes it hard to organize. I used to be active on CodeMentor a few years ago, and the bad thing for these problem solving kind of requests is that they are usually prompt requests. Now working remotely, in theory, you can be available almost any time, the problem is, that after a while you just feel like not wanting to leave what you do. At least not on a short notice. Agreed upon mentoring sessions that can be scheduled work a lot better from this regard. Actually, when I joined codementor, I was working on a startup that offered psychology consulting in a similar way. (And one of the reasons me joinging codementor was to get first-hand experience of the dynamics of such a service.) Our psychologists didn't like either that they had to be around and that they had a lot of non-meaningful inquiries. (Similar to what you see on codementor.)
    • tppiotrowski 6y ago
      There’s also the awkward feeling of not being able to solve the problem and still charging something. I actually preferred “tipping”. I solve your problem and then you pay me instead of running a timer.
• exabrial 6y ago
  Interestingly today, I was posting an answer, and I added some polite wordage to the bottom of what was a fairly dry post to offer the [clearly new] user some encouragement. I'm also a committer/developer on the project in question. I was edited several times by non-contributors removing my desire to be polite. What bothers me is that these words are being attributed to me without my usual polite demeanor. StackOverflow was pretty awesome at one point in time, but I'm not providing free answers on the site anymore.
• kodah 6y ago
  $1/min seems like a very arbitrary threshold. That means, that you as a developer, need to be making no more than $60/hr for your expertise. Following Indeeds hourly to salary conversion that means that if you make over $124,800/yr then you are actively losing value for each minute you spend in this ecosystem. That may be as intended. In certain states you may never make more than that, in others you may (almost) always make more than that.
  • A12-B 6y ago
    Who is making 125k p/y that needs a second job??
    • kodah 6y ago
      In a high cost of living area that would most certainly be the case. Usually these devs will get room mates and do other cost cutting activity to compensate but I imagine they'd be the ones most economically drawn to this solution other than other underpaid parts of the world.
• xwdv 6y ago
  This is a profoundly inefficient way to make money. Since you can’t really serve multiple people simultaneously there’s no opportunity to apply leverage to your work, every dollar you earn has to be 1 to 1 effort, and because the rates are so low very few skilled devs will spend focused time on this. You must raise the rates.
• fabian2k 6y ago
  I'd guess that the people at Stack Overflow might have an issue with someone using their name in this way. It should probably be clearer that this is entirely unaffiliated. 100+ reputation on SO is also a ridiculously low bar, it's almost meaningless. Not that any amount of reputation by itself is a sure indicator, but 100 really doesn't mean anything at all. This kind of site also requires a pretty large critical mass to work, you don't just want a bunch of random SO users willing to participate, but you need the right users with experience in the right tags to match to the requests in a reasonable timeframe. There's a good reason Stack Overflow doesn't allow people to pay for answers, people already cheat enough for meaningless internet points, this will get much worse with real money on the line.
  • erhk 6y ago
    You can get 100 rep on stack overflow by getting high rep in any other stack exchange site. By knowing a lot about tabletop games I could sign up.
    • azemetre 6y ago
      I'd definitely call you to handle the flow of a few rules in certain games haha.
      • tvb12 6y ago
        First, the person who brought the game spends an hour reading the rule book. Finally, someone finds a 10-minute video on youtube where the creator of the game walks you through a few rounds of the game. That was my experience with Mice and Mystics, anyway. Awesome game. Still can't get anyone else to play it with me.
  • hiimtroymclure 6y ago
    I am a junior dev with ~400 reputation. Trust me you dont want my help lol!
    • Frypa 6y ago
• A12-B 6y ago
  "Work from home Be your own boss Set your own schedule" I've heard this one before. Next you'll get the state of california to classify me as an employee.
• dlevine 6y ago
  This sort of reminds me of Airpair. Does anyone know what happened to them? Any learnings there?
• atleta 6y ago
  Not unlike codementor, though the landing page maybe has a bit different value proposition. There they offer mentoring, this one looks more like specialized problem solving. But, of course, the two overlap strongly. E.g. on codementor quite a few of my sesssions were about looking into and helping to solve specific issues. Those are actually pretty high adrenaline situations, at least in the beginning, because you only have a few minutes to grasp what's going. Or at least it feels like so and at least you need to start showing signs of understanding the problem. It was pretty fun (and stressful, in a positive way) in the beginning.
• naebother 6y ago
  Yeah, no.
• xtracto 6y ago
  I love it, and I think $45 USD an hour is great (it comes to $7,200 USD a month) which is great for the part of the world I am in. My worry is about the payout, which apparently requires Stripe. Personally I would be happy to receive payment in some crypto (even a stablecoin), or Paypal. But having to setup a stripe account seems overkill for me.
  • atleta 6y ago
    Paypal is f*&^ expensive. They'll enforce a conversion to your native currency which will cost about 2.5% (but no one really knows - at least this used to be the case last time I used them). $45/hr seems pretty low from here (Eastern Europe) and it definitely DOES NOT translate to $7200/month (which would be an OK income). Anywhere. You can't do this kind of work 160 hours/mo. Though if you have a stable project and you do this on top and only calculate the monthly income for a comparison, then OK. But you'd still have to calculate with at least your holidays.
• bcoughlan 6y ago
  Cool idea. Where I work it would be much more useful to use it to find someone who can consult on specialised knowledge rather than programming problems. For example we are working on a disaster recovery architecture at the moment. This whole area is new to us so I'm reading a lot about it, but I know that an hour long discussion with someone with expertise in that area could save us months of time and tens of thousands in costs. It would be great if the platform could hook me up with those kinds of people.
• zoba 6y ago
  Relatedly, if you would like help fighting procrastination you may benefit from me as an accountability coach. It's just me personally helping folks stay accountable to their goals with a couple of calls for a couple of hours every week. I'd be delighted for you to sign up. More info here: https://coding-pal.com/ https://coding-pal.com/
• dougSF70 6y ago
  Surely this will attract those developers least likely to answer questions that cannot be/ haven't been answered on SO.
• atleta 6y ago
  So they charge $1/min the customer but only pay out $0.75. That's pretty steep a commission. The usual rate for similar services is around 20% (or between 10-20%).
• site-packages1 6y ago
  I would pay so much more than this for help with random Pytorch/Tensorflow questions throughout the day.
• fxtentacle 6y ago
  I feel like this is horrible both for the person getting help and the person doing the helping. The person getting help is effectively trained to apply a quick fix mentality to everything because nobody is going to pay by the minute to learn fundamental software engineering concepts, no matter how much they should know them. And for the person doing the helping, the pay is below average plus they need to review call requests for free in addition to it. They'll probably also have to deal with entitled stubborn people line in every customer service gig. I predict the result will be that capable developers will avoid helping, because they can have a better working experience and more salary elsewhere. At the very least, I'd avoid wasting my time on such a platform. I would maybe consider it at $300 per hour, but the pay needs to be extremely high to compensate for the free reviews and idle time in between paid calls. That again makes the service less useful for people needing help, because all the truly capable developers are off the platform. So you pay to get a quick fix from a mediocre developer... Kind of like on fiverr.
  • HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
    Let me offer a different perspective. I'm a professional developer and I write arduino software for money "on the side." The effective rate varies a lot, but it's safe to say I won't be giving up my day job too soon. I basically describe it as getting paid to tinker. It benefits two parties: the person who needs help/needs code written and me. I get paid to do stuff I like and can do it sitting on the couch watching TV. This is how I envision a lot of skilled devs doing this: as a nice sideline that's fun to do. Not everything needs to be thought of as a replacement for your primary income source.
• vmception 6y ago
  I somehow remember something like this I think I had actually signed up to it as a sidegig, from one of those corporate HN threads
• suyash 6y ago
  this won't work at most companies since they have strict IP policy and no one would let random strangers access to thier code
• YesThatTom2 6y ago
  All their quotes about Stack Overflow are from Jeff Atwood, the co-founder that hasn't been involved in the company for many, many, many years.
• sosruf 6y ago
  Nice! I was getting tired copy/pasting code from stackoverflow. Now I can pay someone with SO reputation to do this for me. The price isn't too high, so very appealing.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• yrgulation 6y ago
  Cool idea - could also hire those people to pass “coding interviews”. Wont reflect bad on candidates as they wont really have to apply interview skills anyway. Jokes and downvotes aside i support any product or platform that helps devs gain independence.
• 55555 6y ago
  I would definitely use this. Very interesting idea. It's like a 911 for development. However I do worry that more complex problems cant be solved over a phone call. So it has to be a context less question that's simply over my head. But I have had many! Cool project. It may or may not work, but with a pivot it definitely could.
• xyst 6y ago
  $1 per minute? Reminds me of those collect call numbers you would see on a late night commercial, except instead of a "hot girl" you get a condescending asshole.
  • hn_asker 6y ago
    To be fair, it is sometimes not our fault we are "condescending assholes". It's the environment we are in. It could be from management and/or HR not hiring for the right skillset, to underspecified design details from even more condescending assholes called architects, to leadership not leading but just delegating important decisions (and thus covering their own asses) to engineering teams.
• alexashka 6y ago
  The only positive use case I can think of, is self taught developers using this to avoid wasting hours being completely lost learning something new for the first time. Once you're working, you have peers you can ask who will answer any beginner/intermediate questions.
• mcadenhe 6y ago
  I built this app and want to say first and foremost, thanks for checking it out! I also want to address a few common things I've seen mentioned. > 75¢ a minute is not enough I personally don't think it's too low for a job where there's no interview and the only requirement is > 100 rep on S/O. With a critical mass of question flow, answering questions on Call a Dev would beat working at your local gas station making $11.50 an hour. The job market is ultra competitive for junior-intermediate devs. And there's not a lot of opportunities for them to make money b/w grinding leetcode, sending out resumes, and competing for contracts on upwork in a race to the bottom. I made Call a Dev as a place to find a companion to help you while you are struggling with something. They may not know the exact answer to your question, but sometimes two heads are better than one and getting a little perspective from someone else is all you really need. > 100 S/O rep is too high/low For todays questions about whether aliens exist, where do babies come from, and why do my balls have sperm in them, it's admittedly too high. But until I get some real data points of people requesting refunds (which you can opt to do just by clicking a button after a call ends) it's seems okay. > Letting people post anonymously/not having a report button The first app I ever built on my own was all thanks to Michael Hartl and his rails tutorial from 7 years ago. As soon as I deployed that app I was eager to show him what his free tutorial had enabled me to build so I emailed him and he said, to paraphrase, "Cool. I can't really see it though because it wants me to sign up to use it." Ever since then, I've been relentless about removing friction. That trade off means that a few troll posts are bound to get through and I'm ok with that. This app is still in the interesting project phase so adding a report button is a nice to have that I can add down the line, but after working on this for 3 months I had to get it out the door. Appreciate all the feedback. For anyone curious about the stack its an elixir/phoenix/liveview app.
  • jasonkester 6y ago
    The job market is ultra competitive for junior-intermediate devs. And there's not a lot of opportunities for them to make money b/w grinding leetcode, sending out resumes, and competing for contracts on upwork in a race to the bottom. I’m not convinced that digging out a new, lower, bottom is the right solution to this issue. If you were truly stuck on a problem at work, wouldn’t you be willing to spend $2 or even $5 per minute to solve it? That could be the difference between your service paying sweatshop wages versus actually providing a viable option for underemployed devs.
• andy_ppp 6y ago
  It’s one of those startups that sounds like a good idea but isn’t... everything that needs this has too much context and is dependant on being able to be answered quickly. The combination is intractable.
• mdemare 6y ago
  I’ve always wondered why StackOverflow didn’t implement a bounty system based on money. I’ve regularly asked questions on SO that were too specific to get a good answer. I’d have loved to be able to just award $100 for the accepted answer. It seemed so bloody obvious. But no, bounties are based on karma, you can’t even set a bounty if you’re a new user, and SO tries to make money as a job board...
  • philshem 6y ago
    Or donations* —- like seemingly every other platform does * to those who have enabled the feature
• alkonaut 6y ago
  I'd be very happy to answer voice questions about an answer I wrote on SO (or one of my questions without an answer, which is an even stronger sign that I spent time on the problem and perhaps have found a solution which isn't on SO). Since I already know the answer to the question, the call would simply be me expanding/explaining the answer. It would be very valuable for the person on the receiving end and not much work for me. The value isn't in that I'm "an experienced developer", the value is that I'm a developer that had the exact same problem the asker is having. Answering some "general" question wouldn't be very interesting to me, and wouldn't have the known value of asking the exact right person. That to me just looks like a gig economy version of Stack Overflow. The mechanical turk version of enterprise development.
• hn_asker 6y ago
  I wonder how well this idea translates to other engineering disciplines and if there is something about software that makes this idea easier. What kind of liability is there for engineers asking for help and working in FinTech for example? The attack surface here for social engineering gets bigger.
• amelius 6y ago
  Is this on a no-cure-no-pay basis?
• jfk13 6y ago
  Just FYI, the landing page seems slightly broken in Safari (the right-hand half of the footer is cut off). I suspect this may be a bug in Safari's handling of CSS Grid layout, but you might want to try and work around it.
• rjmunro 6y ago
  Does this have screen sharing? Helping people with computer issues with just audio sounds like a nightmare. It is possible to share your screen or share a tab over WebRTC connection nowadays, e.g. Google Meet does it. If it could integrate with a pair programming thing that let the helper edit the user's code on their machine in real time, that would be even better.
• ivanche 6y ago
  "Latest questions" page [0] is currently hilarious, with questions titled "Boik natcha patcha?", "what this fuck" and "hey this is a test". [0] https://calladev.com/questions https://calladev.com/questions
• Farbklex 6y ago
  This isn't something I would use to earn any significant amount of money. But I would still want to try this out. The only feature I need are notifications and subscribtion to tags. Say I want to keep the site in the background and only answer specific questions. I want to subscribte to the `android` tag and get a notification in the browser, whenever an android questions comes in.
• bluedino 6y ago
  They should have something similar for system administrators. Like a non junk-filled Technet or Spiceworks
• rhacker 6y ago
  $1 down to $.75 is a rip off. I don't want the intermediary making more than %5.
• lookdangerous 6y ago
  Make this a browser extension that understands what Stackoverflow questions I am digging through. Show me a couple of hihhhly relevant Devs who are _online now_, and let me start a conversation with them from right there in the browser toolbar.