4 ms·

any idea what the success rate on that thread is?

by rmchugh 11y ago

nathan_f77 11y ago
I had one response from the most recent thread, but my rate was too high. Hard to stand out from the crowd with 289 comments, though.
meigwilym 11y ago
I've gotten a few replies from startups in the recruiting space.
MattBearman 11y ago
My biggest client came through one of those posts, and I've had some other work through them as well. Edit: My bad, thought you were talking about the Freelancer / Seeking Freelancer threads
MehdiEG 11y ago
My anecdotal evidence: tried it when I was looking for my first contracting gig in Jan 2014. Got one serious lead (short-term contract for native iOS app development with immediate start required and a very tight deadline). Initial discussion by email went well. Moved onto a telephone conversation, which also went well. Although the deadline was tight, the project appeared to be well-managed and they seemed to know what they were doing. Unfortunately, the person on the phone appeared to be absolutely horrified upon hearing my daily rate (which was the standard daily rate for iOS development in London at the time – I wasn’t trying to take the piss). I followed up by email highlighting my experience and track record in the specific field they were targeting as well as the value I would bring to the project but never heard anything back. I got an excellent offer from a person in my own network a few days later so I didn’t give the HN thread another try. Incidentally, I’m now looking for my next gig. Anyone looking for a talented Lead .NET developer / Architect in London (UK), with both startup and Fortune 100 experience, feel free to contact me: http://mehdi.me http://mehdi.me
- harkyns_castle 11y ago
  I guess the supply/demand thing is going to differ between cities and places in the world. Where I live (Australia), plumbers and electricians often have a higher rate than quite senior developers ($200 call out rate with minimum hour charge and then $200 or so each hour on top etc), yet companies look aghast when you ask a similar rate, despite it being quite an intensive game to wrap your head around. Then they hire someone that thinks node.js is a sensible idea, and end up paying double to have things fixed up when that ends in disaster, so perhaps it works itself out in the end.
- merpnderp 11y ago
  I'm curious, do you bill yourself as a .NET dev for iOS via Xamerian? Or are you also highly skilled in Obj-C?
  - MehdiEG 11y ago
    No - I've never worked with Xamarin (although I'll be looking at it in the coming days / weeks for a personal project - it looks quite sweet now). But I've got loads of experience with both .NET and Objective-C / Cocoa. Most of my experience has been on the .NET platform and primarily on the backend / distributed systems side of things. However, between 2010 and 2013, I was co-founder and CTO of a tech startup where our main product was a fairly sophisticated native iOS app. Being a bootstrapped startup, I had to do all the tech work myself. So I got a lot of experience with Objective-C / Cocoa that way. On the back of that, I got a contract to develop a native iPad app for the BBC, providing me with some additional experience building an app for an external client. When I landed on the job market in January last year, I was therefore happy to take either an iOS contract or a .NET one. I ended up taking a .NET contract. And to be completely honest, large-scale software systems / distributed systems is really where my heart lies. So I'm now pitching myself as a .NET developer only as this is the type of role I'm most keen on. I'd actually be really happy to take on a role that uses another stack as well. But as a contractor, it's not really realistic to expect a client to pay you to learn a new language / stack :)
    - merpnderp 11y ago
harkyns_castle 11y ago
I don't know, but the one thing I will say is that they're often interesting, or at least some of them. I tried one, and I've seen it since, which is a challenge i.e. they'll present you with a basic page saying "Try JSON", or something of a similar ilk. Then you have to follow the rabbit hole (automating a solution in a scripting language generally) until eventually you're met with a page with actually how to apply to the real job. I like companies that do that. The one I saw the other day was a grid of dots (say 300 or so), with some filled in. They gave you one second to count the dots and submit the form, so the trick is parsing the HTML in < 1 second and responding within the session. Edit: You'll have to switch up the game now hehe.
s_kilk 11y ago
It's only one data point, but my latest gig was found through that thread.
thirdtruck 11y ago
Found one job through it so far.
J_Darnley 11y ago
Since others have reported anecdotal evidence of 100% success, I will state that it has been 0% success based on the anecdotes I have.

any idea what the success rate on that thread is?

by rmchugh 11y ago

any idea what the success rate on that thread is?

I had one response from the most recent thread, but my rate was too high. Hard to stand out from the crowd with 289 comments, though.

meigwilym 11y ago

I've gotten a few replies from startups in the recruiting space.

MattBearman 11y ago

My biggest client came through one of those posts, and I've had some other work through them as well. Edit: My bad, thought you were talking about the Freelancer / Seeking Freelancer threads

MehdiEG 11y ago

My anecdotal evidence: tried it when I was looking for my first contracting gig in Jan 2014. Got one serious lead (short-term contract for native iOS app development with immediate start required and a very tight deadline). Initial discussion by email went well. Moved onto a telephone conversation, which also went well. Although the deadline was tight, the project appeared to be well-managed and they seemed to know what they were doing. Unfortunately, the person on the phone appeared to be absolutely horrified upon hearing my daily rate (which was the standard daily rate for iOS development in London at the time – I wasn’t trying to take the piss). I followed up by email highlighting my experience and track record in the specific field they were targeting as well as the value I would bring to the project but never heard anything back. I got an excellent offer from a person in my own network a few days later so I didn’t give the HN thread another try. Incidentally, I’m now looking for my next gig. Anyone looking for a talented Lead .NET developer / Architect in London (UK), with both startup and Fortune 100 experience, feel free to contact me: http://mehdi.me http://mehdi.me

harkyns_castle 11y ago
I guess the supply/demand thing is going to differ between cities and places in the world. Where I live (Australia), plumbers and electricians often have a higher rate than quite senior developers ($200 call out rate with minimum hour charge and then $200 or so each hour on top etc), yet companies look aghast when you ask a similar rate, despite it being quite an intensive game to wrap your head around. Then they hire someone that thinks node.js is a sensible idea, and end up paying double to have things fixed up when that ends in disaster, so perhaps it works itself out in the end.
merpnderp 11y ago
I'm curious, do you bill yourself as a .NET dev for iOS via Xamerian? Or are you also highly skilled in Obj-C?
- MehdiEG 11y ago
  No - I've never worked with Xamarin (although I'll be looking at it in the coming days / weeks for a personal project - it looks quite sweet now). But I've got loads of experience with both .NET and Objective-C / Cocoa. Most of my experience has been on the .NET platform and primarily on the backend / distributed systems side of things. However, between 2010 and 2013, I was co-founder and CTO of a tech startup where our main product was a fairly sophisticated native iOS app. Being a bootstrapped startup, I had to do all the tech work myself. So I got a lot of experience with Objective-C / Cocoa that way. On the back of that, I got a contract to develop a native iPad app for the BBC, providing me with some additional experience building an app for an external client. When I landed on the job market in January last year, I was therefore happy to take either an iOS contract or a .NET one. I ended up taking a .NET contract. And to be completely honest, large-scale software systems / distributed systems is really where my heart lies. So I'm now pitching myself as a .NET developer only as this is the type of role I'm most keen on. I'd actually be really happy to take on a role that uses another stack as well. But as a contractor, it's not really realistic to expect a client to pay you to learn a new language / stack :)
  - merpnderp 11y ago

harkyns_castle 11y ago

I don't know, but the one thing I will say is that they're often interesting, or at least some of them. I tried one, and I've seen it since, which is a challenge i.e. they'll present you with a basic page saying "Try JSON", or something of a similar ilk. Then you have to follow the rabbit hole (automating a solution in a scripting language generally) until eventually you're met with a page with actually how to apply to the real job. I like companies that do that. The one I saw the other day was a grid of dots (say 300 or so), with some filled in. They gave you one second to count the dots and submit the form, so the trick is parsing the HTML in < 1 second and responding within the session. Edit: You'll have to switch up the game now hehe.

s_kilk 11y ago

It's only one data point, but my latest gig was found through that thread.

thirdtruck 11y ago

Found one job through it so far.

J_Darnley 11y ago

Since others have reported anecdotal evidence of 100% success, I will state that it has been 0% success based on the anecdotes I have.