5 ms·

Speaking as an employer: All of these sites have good workers, and all of them have workers who will turn in shoddy work, hoping you won't notice. I've hired f

Speaking as an employer: All of these sites have good workers, and all of them have workers who will turn in shoddy work, hoping you won't notice. I've hired for more than a dozen projects and in no case did the contractor do the job right the first time - because they didn't care enough, not because they were incompetent. I've hired workers in the US, in India, in the UK, and elsewhere. Same sorts of issues crop up. (I was eventually very pleased with the results - it just wasn't as smooth as presented by Tim Ferriss or whoever.) Poor communication and missed deadlines are the rule. Also watch out for bait and switch: for graphics, for instance, the individual who produces a firm's portfolio may not be the same one who will work on your project. Identifying talent, and managing remote workers, is a skill that can only be developed with time and practice. It's much more than a question of picking the right marketplace. The reviews are not trustworthy. If possible, try to get recommendations for specific workers from people you personally know. Because the great workers are out there, among the masses.

Swizec 13y ago
As a remote freelancer: Communication and cost are the main problems. Usually clients have a hard time explaining exactly what they want and our visions might differ. When I turn in results, they are often different than what the client first imagined they'd be, but through iteration and conversation I can help the client clarify what they want or realise something else 90% of the time. Time is another big problem. When you want something done in X time, I will do my best to catch that time. Sometimes this means discussing with the client until the feature list is cut down to a deliverable size. Other times it means sacrificing future flexibility of the code. I always try to get the best balance between "speed - quality - price" for what the client needs, but it's easy to miss. Almost always, clients have an unreasonable expectation of what is possible. I'd say at least 70% of my job is helping the client decide what they even want me to build for them. Disclaimer: I have never worked through any of the sites listed in OP. My main source of clients are HN, my blog, twitter, and past clients.
- RougeFemme 13y ago
  I've worked as a remote (U.S. based) independent freelancer through Elance and Odesk. I've had positive and negative experiences on both. They both do a decent job of minimizing the risk of non-payment on fixed-price projects, but, as you point out, one of the biggest challenges is nailing down the requirements. I understand that requirements can and will change but there have been times when I've spent an inordinate amount of time going back and forth with my point of contact (who often doesn't really know what the primary customer wants). There have been times when I've pulled the plug and just told the client we weren't a good fit. I've also learned when to recognize that the clients are looking for speed/volume vs. quality. I know there are often tradeoffs but some clients just really don't seem to care about quality; they are middlemen who just want to throw something over the fence to the client.
why-el 13y ago
I am about to join oDesk as a freelancer. Coming out of college, I have basically limited experience behind me (internships, personal projects). Any advice you have for me about how to grow in the platform?
- MayankGoyal 13y ago
  Just post a few samples of your work. Maybe build a simple application and link to it, link to your blog, link to github. Just something that proves you know what you're doing. I haven't hired developers, but I've worked with several writers. Quite a lot of the ones I've worked with didn't have previous work experience but they had sample articles uploaded for me to judge their skill and style.
- cynicalkane 13y ago
  Post samples. Charge high rates. Clients that pay you low amounts of money tend not only to be bad for your bank account, but for your professional development... not to mention your sanity.
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  Any advice you have for me about how to grow in the platform? One piece of advice, and just not about oDesk. Do reasonable work, don't silently miss deadlines, and always set expectation and communicate (never hide). I've worked for some big-name Valley companies. If you just follow the advice above, you will be far ahead of the pack. (And that's even more true in the freelance world.) Good luck.
  - troels 13y ago
    I'll second that. If - nay when - you screw up, admit it right away and figure out how to fix it. It really will make a huge difference in how useful you are. Goes for other parts of life too.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- xerophtye 13y ago
wildmXranat 13y ago
As a long time freelancer with a few purchased gigs as well: Quality of the workers or the turned in work is directly linked to the budget of a project. I've had many conversations on both sides of the table, where there was a miss-match and an eventual agreement to either bump up the budget or to lower the expectation. There's still risk in eventually receiving lame work, but I don't think that is the status quo. There is a larger than obvious amount of bot or automatic submitters tainting and lowering the overall quality of the pool. It is very easy to sort them out, but it is noise nevertheless. Quality filters and machine taught spam detection would deal a great boost to overall usability of all of these sites. Now, communication and missed deadlines will deviate wildly because most of the developers are not able to sustain a living doing just elance, odesk or whichever. Honesty and setting expectations at the beginning usually solves this problem. Now, there has been a steady build up of downward pressure from contract owners to expect full availability or a similar version there of. Most of them don't have the budget to back it up. Shit happens. I found and worked with talented folks through 3 of the 4 mentioned sites and I would have to say that it is not an issue. The issue is actually finding them in short time, and that's where buck stops in my point of view. I think there is a large opportunity to impress the market by shaving off the amount of time to find quality devs and firms. I think other sites have began doing something along those lines by curating the offers and doing away with the meat-market environment. Overall, I think the budgets are low, developers pick up multiple gigs, some projects get delayed or rushed and compromise is the name of the game.
- carlosrt 13y ago
  < "I think there is a large opportunity to impress the market by shaving off the amount of time to find quality devs and firms". > Elance could make it easier to find top providers if search results could be sorted by skills test results. For whatever reason they choose not enable that feature.
  - auctiontheory 13y ago
    Elance could make it easier to find top providers if search results could be sorted by skills test results. This would not solve the problem of (1) slacking off - poor work ethic, and (2) bait and switch - putting a less capable person on your job.
mjhea0 13y ago
Agreed. Skills mean very little to me. There's a lot of great developers out there. The top workers finish projects and can communicate. I opt for the niche job boards such has http://www.gun.io http://www.gun.io or http://www.djangojobs.net http://www.djangojobs.net as I can find good talent and it's much easier to screen people when I can hope on the phone. There's a real problem finding devs with softskills and so far it's a pain point that no one has gone after.
- mekarpeles 13y ago
  I agree and finding great developers is a big part of the challenge. However, there's more to arranging a project then finding the right talent, especially for clients who have expectations for security, domain expertise, and quality assurance. Most platforms simply solve the matchmaking component (eharmony style). The solution is a platform which supports engineers' workflows (git, hg, etc) -- or at least this continues to be our philosophy and mission as we grow Hackerlist.net. mjhea0, how do you typically structure projects after you've found someone who is a good fit? Do you use any additional services like invoicing, github/bitbucket, bug tracking, etc?
  - elbear 13y ago
    I've just tried to sign up for your service and it restricts certain characters from the password. Why is that?
    - mekarpeles 13y ago
      elbear, no, there's no specific reason. We're using an arbitrary regex, 4-32 chars, alphanumerics and a set of specials including: !@#$%^&+=_ Let me know which characters you feel are appropriate and we'll happily consider implementing your recommendation. If you have any additional feedback, feel free to reach out to me personally, m<at>hackerlist.net, tel: 415.690.8033. Ultimately, we're building hackerlist for hackers, so we take your feedback very seriously. best wishes + happy hacking
      - 13y ago
richiepear 13y ago
I've hired on oDesk and Elance and agree that managing remote workers is a skill and you need to be on the look out for scammers. I do all my jobs on Elance because they have a good project based setup where you only pay when a milestone is completed. I hire all my freelancers on a project basis 1st and then shift them to hourly if they are reliable. I've also found that Elance to have more US based freelancers to choose from. One thing that bugs me is that none of them have good apps - you would think they would figure that out!

Swizec 13y ago

As a remote freelancer: Communication and cost are the main problems. Usually clients have a hard time explaining exactly what they want and our visions might differ. When I turn in results, they are often different than what the client first imagined they'd be, but through iteration and conversation I can help the client clarify what they want or realise something else 90% of the time. Time is another big problem. When you want something done in X time, I will do my best to catch that time. Sometimes this means discussing with the client until the feature list is cut down to a deliverable size. Other times it means sacrificing future flexibility of the code. I always try to get the best balance between "speed - quality - price" for what the client needs, but it's easy to miss. Almost always, clients have an unreasonable expectation of what is possible. I'd say at least 70% of my job is helping the client decide what they even want me to build for them. Disclaimer: I have never worked through any of the sites listed in OP. My main source of clients are HN, my blog, twitter, and past clients.

RougeFemme 13y ago
I've worked as a remote (U.S. based) independent freelancer through Elance and Odesk. I've had positive and negative experiences on both. They both do a decent job of minimizing the risk of non-payment on fixed-price projects, but, as you point out, one of the biggest challenges is nailing down the requirements. I understand that requirements can and will change but there have been times when I've spent an inordinate amount of time going back and forth with my point of contact (who often doesn't really know what the primary customer wants). There have been times when I've pulled the plug and just told the client we weren't a good fit. I've also learned when to recognize that the clients are looking for speed/volume vs. quality. I know there are often tradeoffs but some clients just really don't seem to care about quality; they are middlemen who just want to throw something over the fence to the client.

why-el 13y ago

I am about to join oDesk as a freelancer. Coming out of college, I have basically limited experience behind me (internships, personal projects). Any advice you have for me about how to grow in the platform?

MayankGoyal 13y ago
Just post a few samples of your work. Maybe build a simple application and link to it, link to your blog, link to github. Just something that proves you know what you're doing. I haven't hired developers, but I've worked with several writers. Quite a lot of the ones I've worked with didn't have previous work experience but they had sample articles uploaded for me to judge their skill and style.
cynicalkane 13y ago
Post samples. Charge high rates. Clients that pay you low amounts of money tend not only to be bad for your bank account, but for your professional development... not to mention your sanity.
auctiontheory 13y ago
Any advice you have for me about how to grow in the platform? One piece of advice, and just not about oDesk. Do reasonable work, don't silently miss deadlines, and always set expectation and communicate (never hide). I've worked for some big-name Valley companies. If you just follow the advice above, you will be far ahead of the pack. (And that's even more true in the freelance world.) Good luck.
- troels 13y ago
  I'll second that. If - nay when - you screw up, admit it right away and figure out how to fix it. It really will make a huge difference in how useful you are. Goes for other parts of life too.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
xerophtye 13y ago

wildmXranat 13y ago

As a long time freelancer with a few purchased gigs as well: Quality of the workers or the turned in work is directly linked to the budget of a project. I've had many conversations on both sides of the table, where there was a miss-match and an eventual agreement to either bump up the budget or to lower the expectation. There's still risk in eventually receiving lame work, but I don't think that is the status quo. There is a larger than obvious amount of bot or automatic submitters tainting and lowering the overall quality of the pool. It is very easy to sort them out, but it is noise nevertheless. Quality filters and machine taught spam detection would deal a great boost to overall usability of all of these sites. Now, communication and missed deadlines will deviate wildly because most of the developers are not able to sustain a living doing just elance, odesk or whichever. Honesty and setting expectations at the beginning usually solves this problem. Now, there has been a steady build up of downward pressure from contract owners to expect full availability or a similar version there of. Most of them don't have the budget to back it up. Shit happens. I found and worked with talented folks through 3 of the 4 mentioned sites and I would have to say that it is not an issue. The issue is actually finding them in short time, and that's where buck stops in my point of view. I think there is a large opportunity to impress the market by shaving off the amount of time to find quality devs and firms. I think other sites have began doing something along those lines by curating the offers and doing away with the meat-market environment. Overall, I think the budgets are low, developers pick up multiple gigs, some projects get delayed or rushed and compromise is the name of the game.

carlosrt 13y ago
< "I think there is a large opportunity to impress the market by shaving off the amount of time to find quality devs and firms". > Elance could make it easier to find top providers if search results could be sorted by skills test results. For whatever reason they choose not enable that feature.
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  Elance could make it easier to find top providers if search results could be sorted by skills test results. This would not solve the problem of (1) slacking off - poor work ethic, and (2) bait and switch - putting a less capable person on your job.

mjhea0 13y ago

Agreed. Skills mean very little to me. There's a lot of great developers out there. The top workers finish projects and can communicate. I opt for the niche job boards such has http://www.gun.io http://www.gun.io or http://www.djangojobs.net http://www.djangojobs.net as I can find good talent and it's much easier to screen people when I can hope on the phone. There's a real problem finding devs with softskills and so far it's a pain point that no one has gone after.

mekarpeles 13y ago
I agree and finding great developers is a big part of the challenge. However, there's more to arranging a project then finding the right talent, especially for clients who have expectations for security, domain expertise, and quality assurance. Most platforms simply solve the matchmaking component (eharmony style). The solution is a platform which supports engineers' workflows (git, hg, etc) -- or at least this continues to be our philosophy and mission as we grow Hackerlist.net. mjhea0, how do you typically structure projects after you've found someone who is a good fit? Do you use any additional services like invoicing, github/bitbucket, bug tracking, etc?
- elbear 13y ago
  I've just tried to sign up for your service and it restricts certain characters from the password. Why is that?
  - mekarpeles 13y ago
    elbear, no, there's no specific reason. We're using an arbitrary regex, 4-32 chars, alphanumerics and a set of specials including: !@#$%^&+=_ Let me know which characters you feel are appropriate and we'll happily consider implementing your recommendation. If you have any additional feedback, feel free to reach out to me personally, m<at>hackerlist.net, tel: 415.690.8033. Ultimately, we're building hackerlist for hackers, so we take your feedback very seriously. best wishes + happy hacking
    - 13y ago

richiepear 13y ago

I've hired on oDesk and Elance and agree that managing remote workers is a skill and you need to be on the look out for scammers. I do all my jobs on Elance because they have a good project based setup where you only pay when a milestone is completed. I hire all my freelancers on a project basis 1st and then shift them to hourly if they are reliable. I've also found that Elance to have more US based freelancers to choose from. One thing that bugs me is that none of them have good apps - you would think they would figure that out!