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Show HN: Rent Engineers – Freelance professional engineers directory

30 points by RentEngineers 4y ago

RentEngineers is a freelance professional engineers directory. It helps engineers to monetize their free time and businesses to find the best engineers in the world to solve their problems. Its a simple app, no bells & whistles. If the app finds enough traction then i will rent a designer to improve the UI. Pros: Desktop view is good, not SPA & lite Con: mobile view is not good at the momment Suggestions/feedback/advices/feature requests are welcome Thanks for your time.

diceduckmonk 4y ago
Since the company the engineer is currently employed is listed, how can customers feel confident in Intellectual Property restrictions / overlap, and, ultimately, legal protection? Is this intended for prototypes where the code is okay be to be thrownaway?
- thdespou 4y ago
  I assume they will be moonlighting since they can't be doing it during their working hours, who knows... ( They could do it but they would be breaching their employment policies)
sph 4y ago
As an engineer and long-time consultant looking for part-time or short term consulting, the directory is the least of my problems. The problem that needs to be solving is being matched with someone that actually needs me. Unless you know someone in your network that can personally recommend you, it's only spammy LinkedIn recruiters or going to interview that go nowhere or are just about full time employment. What freelance engineers need is a manager like an actor might have. Someone on retainer I can call and they find me a job. Someone that sends me high quality tailored contracts. I have been looking and talking about this for so long I should just do it myself, if only I had the time. The choice right now is either shouting in the void, the race to the bottom of freelance platforms or wasting an enormous amount of time cold calling. It boggles my mind how substandard, inefficient and often exhausting the tech recruitment system for freelance/consulting is. Yet everyone else is building yet another job board and competing for a minute in the spotlight in the monthly "Who is hiring" threads. -- On the "Create account" page there's a small typo: "Sing in" should be "sign in". And maybe add a 11+ years of experience category. It just goes up to 10, which is not a lot.
- rtp4me 4y ago
  Honestly, I have found HN’s monthly “Who wants to be hired” threads to be very productive. Since last May (2022), I have personally picked up 3 clients who I would never have known about except for HN. It might not sound like a lot of traction, but I have managed to build long term relationships with each of them. Additionally, I reached out to a few people on the “Whose hiring” thread and have a very positive lead for additional work. I know this is anecdotal info, but I can only imagine others are getting similar results.
- lance_klusener 4y ago
  Excellent feedback. What you are requesting is hard to scale.
  - sph 4y ago
    Not every good thing has to be scalable.
- RentEngineers 4y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. Thats really a wonderful suggestion. I think about it.
rtp4me 4y ago
I like the page and have some input: * Showing $$/hr on the first page (summary page) is going to lead a race to the bottom. Most people are fixated on $$ and will immediately gravitate towards the lowest price possible. Not good for anyone * On the first page focus on skills, availability, communication methods, and time zone. This should be just enough to filter down to a select number of people who may be a fit. * Provide a “get to know me” page where each person can include more about details about their work history and expand on bullet 2 above. * For availability, allow people to add buckets of time like per project, ad hoc, xxx time per week, etc Remember, in the end, people have work that needs to be done, and finding the right mix of skills, availability, communication, and cost is difficult. Focus on solving the “mix” problem and you should have a great platform!
- RentEngineers 4y ago
  Thanks for the feedback & suggestions. >> * Showing $$/hr on the first page (summary page) is going to lead a race to the bottom. Most people are fixated on $$ and will immediately gravitate towards the lowest price possible. Not good for anyone You got a point but dont you think not revealing rates helps businesses more than engineers? you know businesses can lie about other engineers quotes to drive down prices. >> * Provide a “get to know me” page where each person can include more about details about their work history and expand on bullet 2 above. Engineers can add their blog/github repo/portfolio site to their profile.

30 points by RentEngineers 4y ago

diceduckmonk 4y ago

Since the company the engineer is currently employed is listed, how can customers feel confident in Intellectual Property restrictions / overlap, and, ultimately, legal protection? Is this intended for prototypes where the code is okay be to be thrownaway?

thdespou 4y ago
I assume they will be moonlighting since they can't be doing it during their working hours, who knows... ( They could do it but they would be breaching their employment policies)

sph 4y ago

As an engineer and long-time consultant looking for part-time or short term consulting, the directory is the least of my problems. The problem that needs to be solving is being matched with someone that actually needs me. Unless you know someone in your network that can personally recommend you, it's only spammy LinkedIn recruiters or going to interview that go nowhere or are just about full time employment. What freelance engineers need is a manager like an actor might have. Someone on retainer I can call and they find me a job. Someone that sends me high quality tailored contracts. I have been looking and talking about this for so long I should just do it myself, if only I had the time. The choice right now is either shouting in the void, the race to the bottom of freelance platforms or wasting an enormous amount of time cold calling. It boggles my mind how substandard, inefficient and often exhausting the tech recruitment system for freelance/consulting is. Yet everyone else is building yet another job board and competing for a minute in the spotlight in the monthly "Who is hiring" threads. -- On the "Create account" page there's a small typo: "Sing in" should be "sign in". And maybe add a 11+ years of experience category. It just goes up to 10, which is not a lot.

rtp4me 4y ago
Honestly, I have found HN’s monthly “Who wants to be hired” threads to be very productive. Since last May (2022), I have personally picked up 3 clients who I would never have known about except for HN. It might not sound like a lot of traction, but I have managed to build long term relationships with each of them. Additionally, I reached out to a few people on the “Whose hiring” thread and have a very positive lead for additional work. I know this is anecdotal info, but I can only imagine others are getting similar results.
lance_klusener 4y ago
Excellent feedback. What you are requesting is hard to scale.
- sph 4y ago
  Not every good thing has to be scalable.
RentEngineers 4y ago
Thanks for the feedback. Thats really a wonderful suggestion. I think about it.

rtp4me 4y ago

I like the page and have some input: * Showing $$/hr on the first page (summary page) is going to lead a race to the bottom. Most people are fixated on $$ and will immediately gravitate towards the lowest price possible. Not good for anyone * On the first page focus on skills, availability, communication methods, and time zone. This should be just enough to filter down to a select number of people who may be a fit. * Provide a “get to know me” page where each person can include more about details about their work history and expand on bullet 2 above. * For availability, allow people to add buckets of time like per project, ad hoc, xxx time per week, etc Remember, in the end, people have work that needs to be done, and finding the right mix of skills, availability, communication, and cost is difficult. Focus on solving the “mix” problem and you should have a great platform!

RentEngineers 4y ago
Thanks for the feedback & suggestions. >> * Showing $$/hr on the first page (summary page) is going to lead a race to the bottom. Most people are fixated on $$ and will immediately gravitate towards the lowest price possible. Not good for anyone You got a point but dont you think not revealing rates helps businesses more than engineers? you know businesses can lie about other engineers quotes to drive down prices. >> * Provide a “get to know me” page where each person can include more about details about their work history and expand on bullet 2 above. Engineers can add their blog/github repo/portfolio site to their profile.