Ask HN: Where can I find remote or quality oriented freelancing work?
I'm currently working 40h/week as a backend php developer and I think I can put an extra 20 hours every week to increase my earnings. However, I struggle finding remote work or above the average freelancing projects. Basically I don't want to waste my time on sites like freelancer.com where I have to compete against many low-quality programmers who place low bids just to win projects and then they mess them up.
Where could I find jobs like these?
102 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 221 ms ] threadHere are two things that have helped me:
1) Answer the ad within an hour of it being posted. This may be tough if you have a full time job. My response rate when up 100% when I did this.
2) Give them your phone number and offer to talk on the phone. Email generally doesn't work that well to sell yourself, especially now with all of the low-wage competition.
3) get good at selling yourself. They need to know why they should hire you over a $5/hour developer from overseas. Some don't care and only want to pay peanuts.
Freelancer.com is horrible. I used it a few times and got a few potential clients..but most expect things like a turnkey Facebook clone for $100.
Sign up to AngelList and search their jobs. Besides normal jobs, many startups looking for remote contract developers post there.
AngelList also lets you search by technology category, whether it's contract or not. I don't think they let you search if it's part time or not on the website.
Next, I would join Developer focused Slack channels. Some of these have #jobs channels that post positions from time to time.
Here's an article I wrote that lists some of those out: https://medium.com/hackernoon/developer-slack-channels-remot...
Finally, there are also Facebook Groups as well where some companies and individuals go in and post freelance jobs.
Again, an article I wrote that lists some good Facebook groups for remote work: https://medium.com/hackernoon/facebook-groups-remote-job-fre...
Shameless Plug: How do I know a bunch of these places? I run RemoteLeads, a lead generation service focused on remote freelance development work. If you're interested check us out at https://remoteleads.io/
I hope the above links help and let me know if you have any extra questions. Email in my bio. Happy to help!
- Derick
One typo I noticed: on pro page (https://remoteleads.io/upgrade), in 6x leads paragraph, "about" is misspelled
"That's abotu 10x less competition per lead according to our analytics."
Depending on the plan you choose, you'll get approximately 35 ~ 55 leads between 30 - 40 days.
After you receive that amount of leads the paid plan comes to an end.
I set it up this way because if developers are following the application instructions that come with each lead then they'll be landing a freelance position within 30 to 40 days. Most times it's less, but that's the median when talking to customers.
And, if you want to use the service again 2 months later then you're not paying for the time you don't need it.
Let me know if I can answer any further questions, and I'll make sure to update my FAQs as well to make things more clear.
- Derick
I figured I'd start out getting approved as being able to do useful work in a particular CMS in a particular language (Where I expected the acceptance criteria to be low (and the size/complexity of engagements to be low) -- customize a listing of content, build a custom form, customize how content is themed, etc...
After typical screener quiz etc. and a Skype interview, there was a take home challenge that resembled "build a minimalist custom ERP with <such and such acceptance criteria> and <such and such custom business logic> shoehorned inside of WordPress" , probably a good 20 hours of work minimum if you were using an MVC framework with decent developer experience, let alone trying to bang it together inside a CMS without much support infrastructure for such things.
I declined to complete the challenge.
I might have had better results going straight for a language + framework actually suited to creating custom apps, but it didn't give me a great impression.
I also declined.
I have felt myself like inside some stupid adult movie.
Several weeks later I have found a freelance gig (which later turned to be almost 2y job) and the business owner told me he have approached Toptal before me and was shocked by their attitude, fees and especially by something around $50k coder take-away fee. Definitely not freelancing.
I'd suggest looking at Facet (facetdev.com) or Arc.dev as alternatives.
A good portion of the jobs are freelance/remote and pretty up to date.
I hear over and over that freelancers doing work they like with good conditions get most of their work via word of mouth. That seems to be about finding a few good clients and having an established relationship with them and them referring you to other people.
How did that translate into the hourly rate in your case?
If you haven’t done much other than PHP and JavaScript, I’d suggest going through the Seven Languages in Seven Weeks book, and also doing a bit of market analysis; see who’s hiring for which languages.
Personally, I can code in a few languages but I build mostly in JS. I understand why some engineers would not want to work with it and I'm not personally offended by that, but I think ES6+ can provide a great dev experience. And while there's certainly a lot of crappy jobs in the space, there also seems to be really interesting work to be found around Node / React / Vue etc.
From a freelance/consultancy niche it's almost ideal. Demand is high, and employers/clients are likely to have relatively simple requirements (i.e. a brochure/catalog site with a bit of a backend, not a huge industrial db that needs to run at planetary scale backed by a devops machine.)
It's not a personal interest but it seems to work well for people who can stand out from the pack, even a little.
My recipe for being a successful freelancer is to write clean, tested, maintainable code, PLUS specialize in some kind of niche. I mean specialize like crazy. I feel that employers like to hire polygot programmer employees because they envision them doing different things over a long period of time. But clients hire freelancers for very specific purposes and they only care about the immediate need right in front of them.
For example, my speciality is improving existing web applications written in python with Django or Flask frameworks. I can talk all day about monitoring errors in production, reducing response times, adding features, or improving app reliability, etc. But if someone asks me to support data science, build a new app from scratch, or an alexa skill, I decline.
You can definitely do well with Javascript, but again, I would be really good at one framework, such as Angular or React. Then I would focus that skill on a particular industry.
1. Go to https://trends.builtwith.com/websitelist/PHP to see websites that use PHP
2. Focus on smaller to mid-size companies (large corporations likely have the tech team and contractors to cover almost of their needs)
3. (Optional) Search for each company on Linkedin and add managers with relevant roles (VIP of sales, project manager, marketing manager, etc.). The goal is to familiarize them with your name so they're more likely to open your email (step 5).
4. Find the email format of these companies with https://hunter.io/.
5. Reach out to the most senior person with a relevant role at each company with a personalized 1-on-1 email.
The key here is to review their website and business and share 2-3 ideas of what you can them build or fix (if there are any glaring issues or vulnerabilities). They may not necessarily use your ideas but the goal is stand out and help them understand how they can put your programming skills to use. Here's a template you can reference: https://artofemails.com/new-clients#developer
There are a lot of businesses out there whose teams don't have the capacity to build everything so they would be keen to have a reliable freelance programmer help them bring some features or projects out of backlog.
Most of this is auto-generated junk based on some keyword scrapping, but given the volume of it, I don't think it's possible to be taken seriously in that niche anymore.
I also get several "personalized emails" per week peddling software developers for hire, management trainings, factories in China, real estate investment opportunities and countless other junk, so I wouldn't count on that channel either. Anything that looks like a cold email goes straight to trash simply due to the volume of it.
IMO, a much better strategy would be to publish articles showing your expertise (i.e. comparing similar technologies, or sharing step-by-step instructions on accomplishing some familiar task), while mentioning that you do consulting in that area. People usually don't mind if you share them on Reddit/Linkedin/Twitter/HN and that can get a you a much better traction than cold-mailing people.
But it would still be possible to get my attention. The average message is something along the lines of Hi {name}. I was at your site {domain} and had some ideas. [the same copy every single person gets]
If instead someone emailed me something that showed that they not only knew what domain they were mailing but understood what our product offered and how maybe they could help I'd probably keep reading. For me that might look like:
----
Hey Paul,
I love what you've built with WonderProxy, this GeoIP testing niche you've carved out is super interesting, I wish I'd known about it years ago! We had this horrible integration that refused to load in Germany but worked perfectly in our office, debugging over Remote Desktop at 3am still haunts my dreams.
Anyways i'm actually wondering if there's a way we can work together. I'm a senior PHP developer and I've got a lot of experience building OKTA integrations. It looks like you've started offering SAML, but let me tell you OKTA is like the secret sauce to get loved by IT departments. Your team is likely capable of building this in-house, but why spend tens or hundreds of hours learning the ins and outs of this stuff when I can build it in half the time with a quarter of the bugs :).
let me know if you're interested
----
I'm not saying I'd hire that gal/guy, but if it was something I wanted we would at least have a conversation. I'd optimize for quality messages to qualified companies, rather than quantity anything.
So, spam them, basically?
I'm not even "the most senior person" and I get tons of e-mails along these lines all the time. I am the asshole mail server admin who blacklists each one of them and submits their spam messages, though. At the least, I can prevent their messages from making it through to other people.
Find a team where you are a specialist, you'll earn a higher hourly rate and probably have a lot less stress.
Try to pair up with a few different groups until you find one that you love, then stick with that one.
Source: I did a lot of freelancing in the 2000's before joining up with a larger consultancy and the latter earned me probably 3x hourly rate, the projects were more interesting for bigger companies, and the coworkers became friends for life.
(Of course, as a freelancer you are running a small business, which may or may not be something you enjoy).
> One of the biggest advantages of freelancing would seem to be the flexibility of working hours and the amount of work you take.
Agreed. You have to find the right shop. Basically you are looking for a smallish consultancy (probably 10 - 40 people) that has a steady stream of clients but variable workload and needs people that can come on and off projects on demand. San Francisco had a lot of these types of places in the 2000's. Probably rarer in other places, but I imagine a decade later with the improvement in remote work technologies there might be a lot of these globally now.
From the site: “Who can apply?
- 50+ people on the company’s team;”
Courious to know what your experience is and if a price conscious buyer would be willing to accept the trade-offs.
Not every client needs delivery at breakneck speed.
You'd join an elite network of the world’s top talent, connecting the best and brightest in business, design, and technology.
This will give you a chance to work top organizations from anywhere in the world, on your terms. All Toptal clients are thoroughly vetted. Only those with the budget, skill, and intent to hire make the cut. You get paid on time, every time as Toptal handles all billing and invoicing directly with clients, letting you fully focus on your engagements.
I'm sure you'll appreciate that since you have a full time job and don't want to waste your time going through action races to the bottom, competing against armies of coders.
However, Toptal has a very rigorous screening process to identify the best. Toptal looks for great problem solvers with passion and drive — the types of people they want to work with (and learn from) themselves.
(Full disclaimer: I've been with Toptal for over 6 years now, and our mission, from day 1, is to enable great talent work on great projects through our platform.)
As for you, good for you that you made it there, but it's definitely not a freelancing platform.
I don't see how you being part of a different platform, makes any difference to them.
It's like saying "Hey, I interviewed at Facebook - so everyone has to immediately hire me".
It is a freelancing platform and there are thousands of freelancers in their community, I'd suggest attending one of their events where you could meet & greet them, and talk about their experiences. As far as I can tell, they find it valuable to be part of it, so much that they dedicate their own time to spread the news, and work on Toptal's recognition.
The process is very similar to the interview processes at companies like Google, Facebook, Palantir etc.
Yeah, you're expected to do a project, as did every individual that made it through the screening process.
I really don't see how, with so many years of experience, you could possibly claim that they have hundreds of people (weekly) complete their clients projects? For free?
And,they've done it for years? Seems ludicrous to me mate.
So, you're essentially saying that the next time you apply to join a company (say Google), you should not go through whatever interview process they have because you worked at Facebook, and they should take your word for it? So you should not be going through whatever tests they subject their applicants?
The advice here sucks. Don’t give up on this idea. I make my living freelancing and a fair portion of that income is from Moonlight.
If anybody is considering using it - email me (philip@moonlightwork.com) and I'm happy to provide positioning advice on your profile.
We launched a feature this year called Broadcasts where you can share what kind of work you want, then we'll match you to hiring managers. The goal is to decrease the number of applications you need to do!
https://www.moonlightwork.com/
Some developers have set up contracting entities in Estonia or the USA to get access to Stripe, too.
Where are you based?
At various points throughout my career, I've fantasized about quitting Full time work and freelancing. I gave up on the idea after a few potential clients wanted me to work for peanuts.
Close as I got was a few short-lived negotiations where I refused to work for pay similar to what I made as a teenager bagging groceries.
Maybe I should start a lawncare business? It would be more lucrative than freelance software engineering, and at least it ought to be immune to offshoring.
Freelancing is a numbers game - you need to have a funnel of work in order to keep a stable income. We try to screen out bad clients as much as possible on Moonlight, but you'll run into them and need to know when to just say no. It's the same challenges most small businesses have anywhere in the world.
Finally, if you want to get philosophical, Gresham's Law in economics is really illustrated here - "bad money drives out good". Basically, the people who are trying to pay below-market are constantly looking for workers. People who pay fair wages are not having turnover, so not hiring as often. It's just something to keep in mind - that the cross-section of people looking to hire does not accurately represent the transactions of the overall industry.
Go to their past projects and offer a high price to fix the mess
Although it's not a traditional software development job, I've found it to be a welcome change of pace to have a job that is separate from the stress of maintaining a codebase or crafting software all day which I find can be pretty draining.
If this is the kind of thing you (or anyone else reading this) might be interested in, send me an email and I would be happy to talk further about it! My email address is in my profile.