5 ms·

Show HN: Freelance Hacker Network

83 points by mekarpeles 14y ago

Maascamp 14y ago
What is this? I ask because neither the title nor page give me any indication. [edit] At the time I asked this the HN title was "Freelancing, solved."
- mekarpeles 14y ago
  Howdy Maascamp, I hope you're having a nice week. Here's a post from earlier which explains the concept (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4710470 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4710470) My co-founder (sabalaba) and I have been working on Hackerlist (http://hackerlist.net http://hackerlist.net) - a selective network of great freelance engineers. This seems like something many of you have been looking for as there are a shocking number of "freelance" posts (from both clients and programmers) on HN each month -- HN ids: 4596379, 4463692, 4323612, 4214767, 4184757, 4053078, 3914001 3783658, 2539892, etc. We admit, at this stage Hackerlist is an experiment. We're only asking for your time and patience -- we'll help you land contracts with top companies, handle the logistics, and you'll keep 100% of your earnings. No catch. We'll handle the vetting process, source contracts, and continuously work one-on-one with you to improve our tech until it serves your needs. Unfortunately, to preserve high quality, we're unable to accept more than 32 candidates and 6 of these spots are already filled. If you'd like to be considered for Hackerlist, email me at michael.karpeles@gmail.com or submit your github username on http://hackerlist.net http://hackerlist.net Our long-term vision is to create a realtime system (think the intersection of mechanical turk, stackoverflow, oDesk) where trusted freelance engineers can immediately clone a git repo, start hacking on a technical problem, and upon completion, get paid what they're worth. P.S. Suggestions and feedback are appreciated -- we don't want to build something you don't need.
  - mekarpeles 14y ago
    TL;DR - Hackerlist is an oDesk alternative specifically for talented engineers.
    - callmevlad 14y ago
      You should lead with that and put something similar at the top of your website. Edit: Nice, just noticed changes on your site. You guys are fast.
    - Cmccann7 14y ago
      Second, you should use this as your leading title. Makes it much easier to understand.
  - citricsquid 14y ago
    I think I understand what you're explaining, but I'm not sure. Can you give an example how someone would use this website if they're a freelancer and how someone would use this site if they're looking for a freelancer? All I see is an input box for a github username and nothing else to click; not sure if I'm missing something or the site is just a list for now?
    - mekarpeles 14y ago
      Hi citricsquid, you're right -- the website is very plain and not entirely helpful. For our first batch, we will be working directly with accepted engineers, offering them the opportunity to work with several companies who have already expressed interested in the hackerlist network. In the future, we'll provide an interface which is very similar to oDesk. The main difference will be, we plan on changing the process to remove a lot of the pain points that clients and freelancers currently face (vetting, interviews, payment, and all the other time wasting blockers). If you'd like to setup a time to chat, I'd be happy to tell you more about our next steps and would love to listen to your suggestions and needs. (michael.karpeles@gmail.com)
  - EwanG 14y ago
    Couple of concerns here, although I went ahead and applied just in case. First, I tend to keep my programming "persona" separate from my "regular" persona. That avoids issues with places I've worked or may be working. Second is that my GitHub is rather sparse because most of my clients don't want their code shared. I don't think that's unique to the mobile space (Android/Java and HTML 5 primarily) as when I used to do PL/SQL work I don't recall seeing a lot of code out there other than Oracle samples. So just curious how you are planning to make this marriage work?
    - mekarpeles 14y ago
      Hi Eric, your github account has a link to your website where (only if you've made it public) I will take the initiative to contact you. I don't intend on excluding people just because their github account doesn't have 20 projects on it. Moreso, it's just a selector for the target demographic. Also, feel free to be creative and put your linked in url or email in if you think that's more representative of your background. Last, but not least, I'm happy to hear more about your talents if you send me an email (michael.karpeles@gmail.com). Sabalaba and I will be going through each submission, one at a time. As suggested before, we're keeping our first batch of acceptances small so we can better understand the challenges which you face and help you overcome them. cheers!
      - davedx 14y ago
        Hi there, I'm in a similar position to Ewan, so this comment comes as a relief to me. I have a portfolio site that's also limited to only projects clients have approved to be made public. Whereas my LinkedIn has more information on what I've done. I've sent an application with my LinkedIn.
  - ErrantX 14y ago
    FWIW as a freelancer: where trusted freelance engineers can immediately clone a git repo, start hacking on a technical problem, and upon completion, get paid what they're worth The problem needing to be solved in this field is not exactly where you're aiming. I can count on one hand the number of good clients I've had who had a DVCS ready to clone and work on :) The market you mention is probably fairly small, and not hugely lucrative. (as you noted, you are keeping your initial pool of hackers small) But if you want a wider problem to solve: there are many many small companies looking for hackers to come in and get them on the right track (DVCS, proper deployment mechanisms, backups, security, etc.). Just food for thought, good luck with the site!
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
lxpk 14y ago
I need to find skilled Unity game engine coders. It would be awesome to have Unity icons at the bottom like the ones for their other credentials.
- mekarpeles 14y ago
  Howdy lxpk, I might know some programmers who are a good fit. We'll be sure to throw you some free credits when the marketplace officially opens. Keep in touch and email me if you have any questions - michael.karpeles@gmail.com
- EwanG 14y ago
  Ummm... that's kind of a broad statement. Are you looking for folks who can use Unity to create desktop games? Mobile? Looking for stuff compatible with the web player? Unless you were just using that as an example and don't have a current pressing need.
  - lxpk 14y ago
    We make Code Hero, a game that teaches how to make games and that teach everything else. http://www.primerlabs.com http://www.primerlabs.com The open alpha is desktop Mac/Win/Linux only for now as we use dynamic compilation tricks not available in the mobile build targets till we do workarounds or modify Unity's source code. We're going to release the beta on Steam. We need coders with C# and Unityscript skills sufficient for turning the Unity runtime into an MMO IDE. We're at 4 coders right now plus 3 volunteers. I'm as much interested in having the community highlight Unity game programmers for other Unity game developers with similar hiring needs as I am for our own.
Hansi 14y ago
Put a description on your site... it's basic user experience stuff. Also limiting the slots has no point at all. The whole thing seems like a totally incomplete concept that was created in half an hour. And "a selective network of great freelance engineers"; seriously? It's a single static page with images and a couple of links per person...
- mekarpeles 14y ago
  Hi Hansi, I'm really thankful for the feedback. We'll work on creating a page with additional information (FAQs). You're right about one thing -- the service is very much incomplete. Our philosophy is to continue to talk to customers (hackers and companies) and minimize the amount of building we do without their blessing. In terms of the limiting the network size, we know we're going to encounter problems (we're counting on it!). As a result, we want to make sure we'll have the resources to spend time with each of our customers during early alpha stages. I'd love to hear your feedback on how we can improve the site. Do you hire contractors or are you looking for opportunities? Let me know how I can help.
brandall10 14y ago
I immediately thought of: http://geekli.st/ http://geekli.st/ Just curious how this is differentiated? That it's restricted to users on HN?
- mekarpeles 14y ago
  Howdy brandall, great question. Geeklist is a great idea for building community and sharing. This just isn't a problem we're trying to solve. Hackerlist provide a premium network to match skilled engineering freelancers with companies. It seems like a lot of people currently rely on hackernews freelance posts to accomplish such. Current competitors like oDesk tend to underpay, lack the same quality standards, and don't specialize exclusively in skilled engineering jobs. I think toptal.com does something similar but it is focused on recruiting freelancers rather than providing a useful odesk-like interface.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
stevenj 14y ago
As someone who's hired several freelancers before (and is continually hiring), the process has often been very time consuming and frustrating. I welcome new solutions. For me, the main problems are centered around communication and trust. In my experience, freelancers are difficult to work with because they're hard to communicate with as they may have several projects going on at once, enjoy living a rather unstructured lifestyle, don't like to email, amongst other things. If I have a good spec sheet that details exactly what I need done, when I need it, at a fair price, will you deliver? I find that question to be very hard to answer when reviewing people. Though, I believe a major reason for that is because I'm not technical (my background is in interface design and not backend stuff). I'm aware that part of the problem stems from me. As freelancers are worried about new features being added on later, changes being made, new problems arising, lack of payment, etc. With that said, I've have some good experiences. The best being when the spec I've written is in fact good and not making any changes to it until it is delivered as written, on time. Payment being promptly made. And then discussing changes.
- mekarpeles 14y ago
  I don't think there's one magical solution. The more we work with you guys, the better we will become at reducing friction and eliminating wasted time in the process. It shouldn't take 5 days for companies to vet potential contractors, like is often the case with oDesk. You mention a lot of important issues like trust. I'm hoping by being extremely selective (and limiting the number of accepted hackers initially), we'll be able to keep quality and trust high (or make necessary adjustments).
- delinka 14y ago
  On the other side of this, I've had clients that can't provide needed information, want me to wait for some other contracted individual to finish part of the job or provide information, then can't understand (after the two week project has run to six weeks because of their own delays) why I can't now give them 100% of my attention and blame me for the delays. Now that they've pushed this whole thing so late that it's interfering with other projects, or plans that existed prior to taking Delay Client's project. They had me three weeks ago and chose not to utilize me. Why's that my fault? (not directed at parent - directed at Delay Client)
zackzackzack 14y ago
Interesting thought. Try invoking the Blub paradox here[0]. Who knows who the best hackers are? In some sense, only the best hackers do. On the scale of hacking ability, you can only look down and truly understand what is beneath you. When you look up at people beyond your ability, you have no idea whether or not they are crackpots or 1337 haxors. So, for this website to be effective at all, the people judging and deciding the hackers need to be at the top of the hacking scale to offer any sort of guarantee as to the quality of the hackers listed. Dipping into personal experience and anecdotes, I don't recognize the names of any of the people organizing the site. To me, this means that the site probably doesn't have the very best hackers running it and so cannot guarantee that they have some of the very best hackers on there. But, I suffer from the paradox/curse of Blub as well, so I have no idea if the people running this are skilled in their hacking abilities or whether it is just a few grad students who put something together last weekend. [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html N.B. This comment falls into the same pitfall that the original essay does in that it only considers the field in question to have one dimension. Hackers come in all shapes and colors just as programming languages do.
- mekarpeles 14y ago
  Hi Zack, this is a really great point. I wouldn't claim to be the best hacker in the world and your insight is spot on as to the problems this introduces. I can say that, like most marketplaces, hackerlist will be ever evolving and dynamic. Our objective and our promise is to increase quality over time. This means offering the right tools to help companies and freelancers make educated decisions (rating systems, reviews, programming tests, etc). It having dedicated staff to vett programmers and companies. Specifically in terms of the Blub paradox, I can say that sabalaba and I have used a myriad of different freelance services and have a pretty good idea of the services they are missing. If we are able to curate and nurture a ecosystem with better hackers than any of our competitors, I'll feel proud that we've been able to at least offer our clients a superior service. I really appreciate your points and I admit this is something we're going to simply have to prove. That's why we're not earning any commissions for our first batch and are keeping our network small enough that we can resolve problems one at a time. cheers, Zack!
ZephyrP 14y ago
So you are providing a service like Odesk. There certainly is a huge need for this right now. Just come out and say it. Put a blurb on the site, something like: "Hackerlist allows you to hire a skilled worker without the need to interview them one by one. Join, define a task, price it, and get results from great engineers. Hackerlist works with a pool of some of the best technical talent to deliver what you need. No resources wasted on poor results. Streamline your work process by taking care of finding the niche talent you need to get things done"
- mekarpeles 14y ago
  Thanks for the feedback Zephyr, we'll update the site shortly
- sabalaba 14y ago
  Exactly, I would say the biggest problem with oDesk is that it takes so long just to start hacking. The process should ideally be: 1) Claim a project you like 2) Clone the repo, start hacking 3) Get paid instead of 1) Apply to a project 2) Wait for a response 3) Schedule a skype interview 4) Skype 5) Start hacking, email a zip file (I've honestly been asked to do this) 6) Get paid
wallawe 14y ago
Cool idea, but the UI needs to come up a bit to match the 'world class' connotation being delineated.
Udo 14y ago
I applaud the idea, however vague it may be, but there really isn't anything to see yet. The "application" process seems to be limited to gathering Github usernames with no feedback about what happens afterwards (I assume: nothing). There is no UI, not even a demo or some screenshots, no concept of how this is going to work at all except that it's going to be a marketplace somehow based on reputation. A little more detail and some form of presentation would have been nice. As a rule I try to be nice and constructive when people show their projects, so don't get me wrong: there is a need for a better freelancing portal and it's great you guys are on it. I'm just not sure how I can give any meaningful feedback based on what you're showing us today.
skrebbel 14y ago
Small nitpicky feedback: I dread the tagline. I don't really know what oDesk is, and I doubt I want to know. Can't you just say what Hackerlist is, instead of saying what it's almost? EDIT: And I wonder, are the people listed freelance hackers? They all say they're CEO and CTO somewhere. That sounds like a fulltime job.
BerislavLopac 14y ago
I don't understand this obsession with GitHub. I have a GitHub account, but it's not much used -- mostly for my clients who use it, and for forking some projects I want to play with. But I have much more work on BitBucket, since I use Mercurial heavily for my own projects.
woah 14y ago
hahaha this is noisebridge up in here. hi guys!
timjahn 14y ago
We use github as one filter for developers applying to matchist (http://matchist.com/talent http://matchist.com/talent) but I'm weary of using it as the ONLY filter. Many developers use github as a private repository of code (by choice or by necessity from their clients) or don't use github at all. Does either of these make them a bad developer? Not in my opinion. I understand you have to draw the line somewhere (we do at matchist too) in terms of setting a base qualification but I personally don't feel github is that base qualification.

83 points by mekarpeles 14y ago

What is this? I ask because neither the title nor page give me any indication. [edit] At the time I asked this the HN title was "Freelancing, solved."

mekarpeles 14y ago
Howdy Maascamp, I hope you're having a nice week. Here's a post from earlier which explains the concept (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4710470 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4710470) My co-founder (sabalaba) and I have been working on Hackerlist (http://hackerlist.net http://hackerlist.net) - a selective network of great freelance engineers. This seems like something many of you have been looking for as there are a shocking number of "freelance" posts (from both clients and programmers) on HN each month -- HN ids: 4596379, 4463692, 4323612, 4214767, 4184757, 4053078, 3914001 3783658, 2539892, etc. We admit, at this stage Hackerlist is an experiment. We're only asking for your time and patience -- we'll help you land contracts with top companies, handle the logistics, and you'll keep 100% of your earnings. No catch. We'll handle the vetting process, source contracts, and continuously work one-on-one with you to improve our tech until it serves your needs. Unfortunately, to preserve high quality, we're unable to accept more than 32 candidates and 6 of these spots are already filled. If you'd like to be considered for Hackerlist, email me at michael.karpeles@gmail.com or submit your github username on http://hackerlist.net http://hackerlist.net Our long-term vision is to create a realtime system (think the intersection of mechanical turk, stackoverflow, oDesk) where trusted freelance engineers can immediately clone a git repo, start hacking on a technical problem, and upon completion, get paid what they're worth. P.S. Suggestions and feedback are appreciated -- we don't want to build something you don't need.
- mekarpeles 14y ago
  TL;DR - Hackerlist is an oDesk alternative specifically for talented engineers.
  - callmevlad 14y ago
    You should lead with that and put something similar at the top of your website. Edit: Nice, just noticed changes on your site. You guys are fast.
  - Cmccann7 14y ago
    Second, you should use this as your leading title. Makes it much easier to understand.
- citricsquid 14y ago
  I think I understand what you're explaining, but I'm not sure. Can you give an example how someone would use this website if they're a freelancer and how someone would use this site if they're looking for a freelancer? All I see is an input box for a github username and nothing else to click; not sure if I'm missing something or the site is just a list for now?
  - mekarpeles 14y ago
    Hi citricsquid, you're right -- the website is very plain and not entirely helpful. For our first batch, we will be working directly with accepted engineers, offering them the opportunity to work with several companies who have already expressed interested in the hackerlist network. In the future, we'll provide an interface which is very similar to oDesk. The main difference will be, we plan on changing the process to remove a lot of the pain points that clients and freelancers currently face (vetting, interviews, payment, and all the other time wasting blockers). If you'd like to setup a time to chat, I'd be happy to tell you more about our next steps and would love to listen to your suggestions and needs. (michael.karpeles@gmail.com)
- EwanG 14y ago
  Couple of concerns here, although I went ahead and applied just in case. First, I tend to keep my programming "persona" separate from my "regular" persona. That avoids issues with places I've worked or may be working. Second is that my GitHub is rather sparse because most of my clients don't want their code shared. I don't think that's unique to the mobile space (Android/Java and HTML 5 primarily) as when I used to do PL/SQL work I don't recall seeing a lot of code out there other than Oracle samples. So just curious how you are planning to make this marriage work?
  - mekarpeles 14y ago
    Hi Eric, your github account has a link to your website where (only if you've made it public) I will take the initiative to contact you. I don't intend on excluding people just because their github account doesn't have 20 projects on it. Moreso, it's just a selector for the target demographic. Also, feel free to be creative and put your linked in url or email in if you think that's more representative of your background. Last, but not least, I'm happy to hear more about your talents if you send me an email (michael.karpeles@gmail.com). Sabalaba and I will be going through each submission, one at a time. As suggested before, we're keeping our first batch of acceptances small so we can better understand the challenges which you face and help you overcome them. cheers!
    - davedx 14y ago
      Hi there, I'm in a similar position to Ewan, so this comment comes as a relief to me. I have a portfolio site that's also limited to only projects clients have approved to be made public. Whereas my LinkedIn has more information on what I've done. I've sent an application with my LinkedIn.
- ErrantX 14y ago
  FWIW as a freelancer: where trusted freelance engineers can immediately clone a git repo, start hacking on a technical problem, and upon completion, get paid what they're worth The problem needing to be solved in this field is not exactly where you're aiming. I can count on one hand the number of good clients I've had who had a DVCS ready to clone and work on :) The market you mention is probably fairly small, and not hugely lucrative. (as you noted, you are keeping your initial pool of hackers small) But if you want a wider problem to solve: there are many many small companies looking for hackers to come in and get them on the right track (DVCS, proper deployment mechanisms, backups, security, etc.). Just food for thought, good luck with the site!

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

lxpk 14y ago

I need to find skilled Unity game engine coders. It would be awesome to have Unity icons at the bottom like the ones for their other credentials.

mekarpeles 14y ago
Howdy lxpk, I might know some programmers who are a good fit. We'll be sure to throw you some free credits when the marketplace officially opens. Keep in touch and email me if you have any questions - michael.karpeles@gmail.com
EwanG 14y ago
Ummm... that's kind of a broad statement. Are you looking for folks who can use Unity to create desktop games? Mobile? Looking for stuff compatible with the web player? Unless you were just using that as an example and don't have a current pressing need.
- lxpk 14y ago
  We make Code Hero, a game that teaches how to make games and that teach everything else. http://www.primerlabs.com http://www.primerlabs.com The open alpha is desktop Mac/Win/Linux only for now as we use dynamic compilation tricks not available in the mobile build targets till we do workarounds or modify Unity's source code. We're going to release the beta on Steam. We need coders with C# and Unityscript skills sufficient for turning the Unity runtime into an MMO IDE. We're at 4 coders right now plus 3 volunteers. I'm as much interested in having the community highlight Unity game programmers for other Unity game developers with similar hiring needs as I am for our own.

Hansi 14y ago

Put a description on your site... it's basic user experience stuff. Also limiting the slots has no point at all. The whole thing seems like a totally incomplete concept that was created in half an hour. And "a selective network of great freelance engineers"; seriously? It's a single static page with images and a couple of links per person...

mekarpeles 14y ago
Hi Hansi, I'm really thankful for the feedback. We'll work on creating a page with additional information (FAQs). You're right about one thing -- the service is very much incomplete. Our philosophy is to continue to talk to customers (hackers and companies) and minimize the amount of building we do without their blessing. In terms of the limiting the network size, we know we're going to encounter problems (we're counting on it!). As a result, we want to make sure we'll have the resources to spend time with each of our customers during early alpha stages. I'd love to hear your feedback on how we can improve the site. Do you hire contractors or are you looking for opportunities? Let me know how I can help.

brandall10 14y ago

I immediately thought of: http://geekli.st/ http://geekli.st/ Just curious how this is differentiated? That it's restricted to users on HN?

mekarpeles 14y ago
Howdy brandall, great question. Geeklist is a great idea for building community and sharing. This just isn't a problem we're trying to solve. Hackerlist provide a premium network to match skilled engineering freelancers with companies. It seems like a lot of people currently rely on hackernews freelance posts to accomplish such. Current competitors like oDesk tend to underpay, lack the same quality standards, and don't specialize exclusively in skilled engineering jobs. I think toptal.com does something similar but it is focused on recruiting freelancers rather than providing a useful odesk-like interface.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

stevenj 14y ago

As someone who's hired several freelancers before (and is continually hiring), the process has often been very time consuming and frustrating. I welcome new solutions. For me, the main problems are centered around communication and trust. In my experience, freelancers are difficult to work with because they're hard to communicate with as they may have several projects going on at once, enjoy living a rather unstructured lifestyle, don't like to email, amongst other things. If I have a good spec sheet that details exactly what I need done, when I need it, at a fair price, will you deliver? I find that question to be very hard to answer when reviewing people. Though, I believe a major reason for that is because I'm not technical (my background is in interface design and not backend stuff). I'm aware that part of the problem stems from me. As freelancers are worried about new features being added on later, changes being made, new problems arising, lack of payment, etc. With that said, I've have some good experiences. The best being when the spec I've written is in fact good and not making any changes to it until it is delivered as written, on time. Payment being promptly made. And then discussing changes.

mekarpeles 14y ago
I don't think there's one magical solution. The more we work with you guys, the better we will become at reducing friction and eliminating wasted time in the process. It shouldn't take 5 days for companies to vet potential contractors, like is often the case with oDesk. You mention a lot of important issues like trust. I'm hoping by being extremely selective (and limiting the number of accepted hackers initially), we'll be able to keep quality and trust high (or make necessary adjustments).
delinka 14y ago
On the other side of this, I've had clients that can't provide needed information, want me to wait for some other contracted individual to finish part of the job or provide information, then can't understand (after the two week project has run to six weeks because of their own delays) why I can't now give them 100% of my attention and blame me for the delays. Now that they've pushed this whole thing so late that it's interfering with other projects, or plans that existed prior to taking Delay Client's project. They had me three weeks ago and chose not to utilize me. Why's that my fault? (not directed at parent - directed at Delay Client)

zackzackzack 14y ago

Interesting thought. Try invoking the Blub paradox here[0]. Who knows who the best hackers are? In some sense, only the best hackers do. On the scale of hacking ability, you can only look down and truly understand what is beneath you. When you look up at people beyond your ability, you have no idea whether or not they are crackpots or 1337 haxors. So, for this website to be effective at all, the people judging and deciding the hackers need to be at the top of the hacking scale to offer any sort of guarantee as to the quality of the hackers listed. Dipping into personal experience and anecdotes, I don't recognize the names of any of the people organizing the site. To me, this means that the site probably doesn't have the very best hackers running it and so cannot guarantee that they have some of the very best hackers on there. But, I suffer from the paradox/curse of Blub as well, so I have no idea if the people running this are skilled in their hacking abilities or whether it is just a few grad students who put something together last weekend. [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html N.B. This comment falls into the same pitfall that the original essay does in that it only considers the field in question to have one dimension. Hackers come in all shapes and colors just as programming languages do.

mekarpeles 14y ago
Hi Zack, this is a really great point. I wouldn't claim to be the best hacker in the world and your insight is spot on as to the problems this introduces. I can say that, like most marketplaces, hackerlist will be ever evolving and dynamic. Our objective and our promise is to increase quality over time. This means offering the right tools to help companies and freelancers make educated decisions (rating systems, reviews, programming tests, etc). It having dedicated staff to vett programmers and companies. Specifically in terms of the Blub paradox, I can say that sabalaba and I have used a myriad of different freelance services and have a pretty good idea of the services they are missing. If we are able to curate and nurture a ecosystem with better hackers than any of our competitors, I'll feel proud that we've been able to at least offer our clients a superior service. I really appreciate your points and I admit this is something we're going to simply have to prove. That's why we're not earning any commissions for our first batch and are keeping our network small enough that we can resolve problems one at a time. cheers, Zack!

ZephyrP 14y ago

So you are providing a service like Odesk. There certainly is a huge need for this right now. Just come out and say it. Put a blurb on the site, something like: "Hackerlist allows you to hire a skilled worker without the need to interview them one by one. Join, define a task, price it, and get results from great engineers. Hackerlist works with a pool of some of the best technical talent to deliver what you need. No resources wasted on poor results. Streamline your work process by taking care of finding the niche talent you need to get things done"

mekarpeles 14y ago
Thanks for the feedback Zephyr, we'll update the site shortly
sabalaba 14y ago
Exactly, I would say the biggest problem with oDesk is that it takes so long just to start hacking. The process should ideally be: 1) Claim a project you like 2) Clone the repo, start hacking 3) Get paid instead of 1) Apply to a project 2) Wait for a response 3) Schedule a skype interview 4) Skype 5) Start hacking, email a zip file (I've honestly been asked to do this) 6) Get paid

wallawe 14y ago

Cool idea, but the UI needs to come up a bit to match the 'world class' connotation being delineated.

Udo 14y ago

I applaud the idea, however vague it may be, but there really isn't anything to see yet. The "application" process seems to be limited to gathering Github usernames with no feedback about what happens afterwards (I assume: nothing). There is no UI, not even a demo or some screenshots, no concept of how this is going to work at all except that it's going to be a marketplace somehow based on reputation. A little more detail and some form of presentation would have been nice. As a rule I try to be nice and constructive when people show their projects, so don't get me wrong: there is a need for a better freelancing portal and it's great you guys are on it. I'm just not sure how I can give any meaningful feedback based on what you're showing us today.

skrebbel 14y ago

Small nitpicky feedback: I dread the tagline. I don't really know what oDesk is, and I doubt I want to know. Can't you just say what Hackerlist is, instead of saying what it's almost? EDIT: And I wonder, are the people listed freelance hackers? They all say they're CEO and CTO somewhere. That sounds like a fulltime job.

BerislavLopac 14y ago

I don't understand this obsession with GitHub. I have a GitHub account, but it's not much used -- mostly for my clients who use it, and for forking some projects I want to play with. But I have much more work on BitBucket, since I use Mercurial heavily for my own projects.

woah 14y ago

hahaha this is noisebridge up in here. hi guys!

timjahn 14y ago

We use github as one filter for developers applying to matchist (http://matchist.com/talent http://matchist.com/talent) but I'm weary of using it as the ONLY filter. Many developers use github as a private repository of code (by choice or by necessity from their clients) or don't use github at all. Does either of these make them a bad developer? Not in my opinion. I understand you have to draw the line somewhere (we do at matchist too) in terms of setting a base qualification but I personally don't feel github is that base qualification.