Ask HN: Where do seasoned devs look for short-term work?
165 comments
·March 13, 2025paxys
Having the right technical skills is only 50% of the requirement (and realistically even less than that). The harder battle is being a good salesman. Push yourself and your services at every opportunity. Send mass emails to friends and old collegues. Write daily puke-inducing posts on LinkedIn. Write blog posts and make toy Github projects with "looking for work" blurbs at the top of each one. Set a goal to post N times a day on X/Threads/LinkedIn/Reddit/wherever else you can think of, and hit those targets. Keep doing all of this for an extended period of time and the leads will start flowing in. Then you need to start putting even more effort into closing those leads and signing contracts.
ryandrake
Ugh. This is probably one of those "Thanks, I hate it!" moments. You're probably 100% right, and this is why I could never be an independent contractor. This kind of self-promotion and lead generation seems so demeaning, slimy, and shameful, and I'd probably die of embarrassment if I ever had to do it. Yet it comes so naturally to some people. It sucks that this kind of skill is required to make it on your own.
kmoser
Independent contractor here. Admittedly, it's not for everybody. But once you've built up a base of clients who need your services regularly, you don't need to keep seeking more, at least not at nearly the same rate. Also, word of mouth will keep people coming to you. The reality is that I almost never have to sell myself. But I've been doing this for decades, and YMMV.
Of course, your ability to do this will be somewhat dependent on your stomach for communicating with strangers who come your way.
ghaff
Yeah. I have a contractor at the moment who has been in business for a long time and inherited the business from his father. He doesn't market or advertise. But he still needs to communicate and deal with someone who comes his way.
ghaff
How else would anyone actually know that you were available? And that they should give you money?
And, even if you get referred, you still need to seal the deal.
And even within a larger company, unless someone like your manager more or less does it for you, "advertising" your accomplishments is pretty essential if you want anyone to reward your accomplishments.
ranger_danger
it's not about forcing yourself to be a good salesman, but rather about showcasing your skills, expertise, and personality in a genuine and authentic way
aaronbaugher
Yeah, it's definitely a separate set of skills, and probably not one that typically fits personality-wise with the typical computer guru set. I was self-employed for a couple decades, and while I usually didn't go hungry because it paid well when I was working, the work that walked in the door on its own never got me ahead either.
No one's fault but my own, but I should have realized a lot sooner that real success would require a lot more proactive "sales" effort; and that if I wasn't willing to do that, I needed to go work for someone else a lot sooner than I finally did.
quectophoton
The way I would describe it is: "How do you like applying to new jobs and doing interviews? Now imagine that being half your job."
patrick451
Contractors have to do the leetcode monkey dance for prospects?
jraph
> Yet it comes so naturally to some people.
Maybe, but I think many (most?) people doing it don't like having to do it, and for many people, it's probably not that natural. It's practice, learned and trained skills.
> I'd probably die of embarrassment if I ever had to do it.
If it's because a lack of self-confidence, work on this, being reasonably self-confident makes life so much more enjoyable.
Otherwise, I believe this embarrassment would be ill-placed, and therefore I would suggest, if you haven't done it already, that you think hard on why. And if you've already done that, I'm quite interested in the deep reasons why you think you'd be so embarrassed :-)
> This is probably one of those "Thanks, I hate it!" moments
Yep, can't agree more xD
doright
I just see it as a "mask" you put on for a specific audience that has the potential to greatly increase your prospects and then take off everywhere else. At a certain point the prospects (not going broke) override any shame you could feel.
I don't think selling oneself is something that reflects on one's character given what's at stake. The important people who know who you really are will also treat that mask of yours as fake. But they could also play up your appeals in the LinkedIn comments section to ultimately improve your chances of... getting a job. Which is all that really matters at the end of the day.
decGetAc
I mean I agree it's a mask but still feels slimy. I can get behind not going broke > overriding any shame.
But I do think that some people are better at lying to themselves that the choices are going broke or make independent contractor work by selling yourself like that.
There's the obvious route which is to just not be an independent contractor and get a 'normal' job where you still have to do some of this nauseating selling yourself but at only a few critical times and way less public.
No shame for those who want to be an independent contractor at the cost of selling yourself like that but just sharing that I can't seem to trick myself into thinking it's a go broke or make it work situation.
I think some value the independent nature of it and say it's worth the embarrassment that gp talks about. Was just sharing how it's not a go broke or make it work because well it's a bit of a luxury (because normal job is always there)
fragmede
It's totally cringe, and the first couple of times you have to do it it'll be uncomfortable. But growth happens at the edge of your comfort zone and you'd be mistaken that everyone's a born natural at it. Most people have to practice at it in order to get good at one. Few people just born with it. So what, you're not one of them. You weren't born knowing how to program either.
As far as slimy, I mean, yeah, don't break ethical boundaries; don't lie, don't take credit for other people's work; and it'll be fine. The ick feeling comes when we see others do amoral things like that and get ahead, but all you have to do to avoid that slimy feeling is to not lump all self-promotion together, and then just don't do the unethical bits.
3acctforcom
Lying about the true cost of software and taking credit for your employees work is the basis for consulting. Some might term these as Profit, and Reputation. But that's sales for you.
rijoja
Won't you just get shitty clients if you write shitty posts if you excuse my french
sukiorigami
I think your network is the best place to look for this sort of work. Sometimes people will reach out to me with short term projects which is the best way to get gigs like this. Maybe start looking at your colleagues on linkedin, see what they are up to, and think of ways to contribute to what they are working on. The best people to contact in this scenario are leadership and decision makers. A SWE II isn't gonna help you much but a CTO at an early stage startup might be a good person to send a DM if they are friends with you (or even if they aren't!) :)
thekevan
I've found when people ask this question, it's usually because they don't have a network to ask. Or, right or wrong, they just don't like the social aspect of going to their friends for work.
Nextgrid
To be fair, there's a good argument for never mixing friends and business. You wouldn't want a project that goes wrong (which is a risk of doing business and somewhat expected and budgeted for on both sides) to jeopardize an friendship, and similarly you wouldn't want someone exploiting your friendship to get an unfair advantage in business (that they will often not reciprocate if the situation was reversed).
ghaff
Well there are friends and friends and yes the categories merge. But since grad school interviews every job I've gotten has been through people I was friendly with professionally.
em-bee
from one tech friend i learned this, after a failed project of his that cost him a friendship: make friends through business, but don't do business with friends.
limbero
I did this a few years ago and the winning recipe was a shameless (i.e. deeply shameful) linkedin post where I pretty much just summarized my skillset and explained that I was looking for a senior engineer equivalent of a summer internship, with no chance of extension.
Got me 3-4 offers. None of the offering companies had ads out for roles like this, so this was pretty much the only way.
valbaca
> deeply shameful
Your feelings are what they are, but this is the least shameful post I would ever see on LinkedIn. It's someone actually looking for work! and not just posting some super cringe low-IQ engagement-farm copypasta.
Finding work is exactly what LinkedIn ought to be for
ghaff
I certainly don't think it's shameful. But, while that's more or less what LinkedIn was intended for, it's also become sort of a last man standing medium for professional professional posts--or at least pointers to such--unless you can organically drive enough traffic to a subscription or a website.
inetknght
> it's also become sort of a last man standing medium for professional professional posts--or at least pointers to such--
With you so far...
> unless you can organically drive enough traffic to a subscription or a website.
Ahh no, I hope you don't mean to "organically" drive "enough" traffic from LinkedIn to a subscription or website elsewhere? Because that's exactly the kind of thing that's killing LinkedIn for job search and professional networking.
doright
I guess the reality is, what we term "shameful, amoral, slimy and vapid LinkedIn spammers" are actually thousands of relatively like-minded people all saying some variation of "please let me get/keep a job or I won't be able to keep living" in just a creative/repetitive enough fashion that one or more recruiters/persons who know other people will keep them in orbit for the next source of income.
I have been on the other side of this (not doing it) and the effects are fairly straightforward: no more paychecks.
I guess if you're not a recruiter or your job prospects are taken care of, you can safely pretend the LinkedIn social feed doesn't exist - it isn't written for you. Its sole purpose is for people to get what they need to survive and carry on. So I've resolved to not blame others for having to post there so much. This is money - hence life - were talking about here, unfortunately or not.
ge96
OMG there was one about how an engineer in San Francisco is crying about his $2K in salad bills and his Cyber Truck while making like a half a mil a year
Cerium
For others who missed it.. https://www.threads.net/@austinnasso/post/DFLc9-hv4xg?hl=en
angvp
That was a sarcastic one, made by a comedian who used to work in tech, lol
SCUSKU
Surely it was satire? Surely...? Please
racl101
Could not have said it better.
90s_dev
There's literally no shame in this. Jobs are just value exchange. Job applications are a proposal, to say, here's what I can offer you. If you're very honest about that, and about what you're looking for in return, they can make more informed decisions. Everyone's life is vastly different, there's no shame in declaring what you have to offer (edit: and what you're looking for). Everyone is better at some things and worse at others. This is the basis of the economy.
CharlieDigital
> There's literally no shame in this. Jobs are just value exchange.
Pure value exchange. This should be more common.
menaerus
That's a very simple and non-biased model view. In reality, many people might read your job ad as "so, your profile claims you have the skills but how come then that you don't have a job already?" aka "there's something wrong with this guy".
cushychicken
Why’s this shameful, exactly?
There’s no shame in saying you’re available to work.
null
ForHackernews
IMHO selling yourself (selling anything, really) is a bit demeaning. But this is probably a class affectation on my part, not real moral intuition.
jraph
Don't almost everyone sell themselves? Many people, as employees, sell themselves for 5 days per week, every week, except days off.
And everybody buys stuff, and therefore relies on people selling stuff.
The only way I see we could avoid being exposed to selling would be do have a different way to organize the economy / the society.
cortesoft
Selling ANYTHING is demeaning? So you believe the only non-demeaning way to live would be to live entirely self-sufficiently, making and growing everything yourself?
cpfohl
I hear and understand that gut feeling. Whenever I hit that particular feeling, though, I remind myself that it’s only shameful if you’re knowingly selling something that can’t deliver what you’re promising.
amy_petrik
Well it's a couple things - Expectation to be "successful" i.e. social media presents extreme conceptions of success, similar to a supermodel body expectation vs. real life. To say, "I'm looking for work" is to publicly admit failure against such a standard. The fear is that for every potential employer, 10 people you know will see the post and say, "tut tut, what a failure" and then call their 10 friends to share the news of your failure - some people think advertising for work is sleazy (as others mention) - annoying people only to be told no, a sense that you're being annoying
It parallels something like the idea of being say 45, never married, and looking to marry, or being recently divorced at the same age. There is a sense of having failed, or being judged by people as having failed. For men, the sense of being a pickup artist or overly aggressive.
That's why some people struggle with it. And it ought not be shameful, in either case. But it's probably more wise to point out those feelings and work through them, process them, than it is to just say "I do not recognize any valid shame here, does not compute"
jimbokun
You can remain dignified and poor or become demeaned and rich.
hathawsh
I can understand what you're saying, but there's a different way to look at it. Imagine yourself in the future. You're in a position of leadership and people want your advice. Let's say a student asks you how they should get a high level job in a competitive marketplace. What would you say?
Personally, I would tell the student they should be ambitious and tell people what their skills are. They should ask for responsibilities and compensation. They should tell people that they are worth the risk.
If you agree with me about giving that advice, then you should now put yourself in the place of the student. Shouldn't you receive the same advice? Shouldn't you be ambitious and ask people to give you responsibilities and compensation? If so, then you can understand why selling yourself is actually important and there's nothing immoral or slimy about it. It feels wrong sometimes, but that feeling may not be aligned with reality.
scottLobster
Only when you're trying to sell bullshit. If I can actually solve someone's problem, and they don't mind my price, then we're helping solve each other's problems and everyone benefits!
Where things get sleezy is when you're competing with applicants that will bullshit, so you have to bullshit as well just to keep up, or when customers have unrealistic expectations and waste your time.
DrBenCarson
Commerce is demeaning?
baskinator
Good book on the topic of selling - https://www.danpink.com/books/to-sell-is-human/
kragen
Thank you! Your knowledge is very valuable.
ernestipark
Your network is always the best bet to start. Leverage past co-workers who can vouch for you, reach out, let people know you're available.
If you're a part of YC or other similar investor/tech networks, often those are very strong referral networks.
Beyond that, there are various niche job boards and sites like https://www.fractionaljobs.io/, https://www.hirefraction.com/, marketerhire.com depending on the type of work you do.
Sites like upwork/toptal can be good but often are a race to the bottom.
Relevant: I started a newsletter a little while back exploring this space for tech workers
leros
I haven't found these fractional sites to be very useful for development work. The rates are low and the few dev jobs already have 100s of applications.
menaerus
I see rates around $100 all the way up to $200. Is that really considered low in the States?
ghaff
Probably mediocre. Even absent being a source of full-time income accounting for the fact that there's going to be a lot of unpaid/dead time, I personally won't take a job for less than $1K for a day+-ish unless it's really interesting or I'm doing a favor for someone I know.
(One of the issues with short-term fractional work as an income source is that you can end up only being paid for a fairly small percentage of your total time. If the rate is good, that may be fine as a part-time job. But in my prior industry analyst stint, we actually had quite good day rates but we spent most of our time keeping up with industry happenings and writing free stuff.)
toptal
CEO of Toptal here. If you like, I can ensure we review your profile and client matching history to see if there's anything we overlooked. I'm available on Slack or taso@toptal.com. We’ll see if we can optimize your visibility to clients needing backend/data optimization experts.
While we look into this, Opire (an open-source bounties site) has lots of short-term opportunities.
ayewo
In addition to Opire for short-term opportunities (aka bounties), there is Algora.
In fact, there are a few of such bounty platforms in my notes, but Algora seems to be the one with the most traction: in terms to new tasks to work on and the bounty amounts being competitively priced.
Here’s an example of a 2-3 month bounty offering up to $20,000 on Algora, for someone with React Native skills: https://github.com/BasedHardware/omi/issues/1944
lokhura
I hope Toptal has changed since I interviewed with them in 2015, because it was one of the worst tech interview experiences I had in a while. The interviewer was rude and clearly inexperienced in the tech stack he was asking questions about. I did a take home excersise and it was clear that he didn't even bother to read the code and just wanted to outsmart me.
dep_b
I quit using Toptal because I was living in Western Europe and got extremely lowballed at a given point. As if I simply had to match the rates of people from Eastern Europe or Northern Africa.
I got a better hourly rate through the platform when still living in Latin America. Before Covid, it was amazing.
hnisoss
I'm doing my last engagement on toptal rn as well. Will quit after. The company I m working for is awesome but toptal part not so much anymore. From staff to FUD. They cut down my rate to 1/3 of what I used to charge few years back. (They still bill client 2x what I get, of course).
rglover
Curious, are there any exceptions to your coding test (I applied back in 2021 or so, not sure if this is still a requirement)?
The test didn't like my solutions/speed (which meant I couldn't move forward), however, I'd say I'm more than qualified to be a Toptal dev (see projects in my HN profile [1]).
sampton
It depends on how badly you need the money. If you really need to get paid you are probably better off finding a full time job and quit after 9 months. Otherwise invest the time in yourself. Work on a passion project or a blog.
prepend
Usually that will burn a bridge with that employer and look bad on your resume.
Much different career wise than having short term contracts that are designed around a specific job.
I know that companies don’t necessarily follow an ethical standard but I find that I can at least follow personal ethics and that’s within my control. I’ve always treated my employers like I would like to be treated, even if the employer was being a jerk.
Over 30 years I’ve found that people remember and it’s surprising how acting ethically sticks in people’s minds and comes back in positive yields. I like to think I’d act the same way no matter what, but it’s a plus that acting properly ends up being better in the long run.
eweise
Ethics are great but so is feeding your family and paying your mortgage.
prepend
In the scenario described it’s not like feeding your family requires you to screw over your employer.
I think ethics are required to feed my family as if I don’t act ethically, my family will end up starving.
magicstefanos
Feeding your family is the more "ethical" thing here
rsanek
You don't have to add it to your resume, right? If you want to mention the work in future interviews, you can easily talk about it as short-term contracting work.
I'm not sure what's wrong ethically about it though? Is it that you wouldn't have provided enough value to the firm in 9 months?
prepend
A gap on resumes is still a gap.
I invest a lot of attention, time, and resources in new employees and want to attract and retain people for long periods of time. I cover this during the interview process. If someone only wants to work for 9 months, they aren’t a good fit for my org. (Although we do have contract work for shorter term)
If someone lies and says they want to work long term to get the job, while planning to quit after 9 months, that stinks. As they are taking a spot from someone else who would be a better fit. And I’m wasting resources on them when they don’t need it.
It’s also that they wouldn’t have provided enough value as there’s a ramp up time in a position and I think it takes at least a few months to get going. So if there was ledger of ins and outs, after 9 months it’s still going to show a deficit.
Nelkins
Not to be too much of a recruiter, but I started a software consultancy where we get this kind of work. Typically projects that last a quarter, but with some potential for extending (although they also frequently just last a quarter). I actually have a project in the pipeline right now that I'm looking for a dev for (if I can't find one, I'll end up just taking on the work myself).
Email is in my profile if you want to connect :)
liammoore
A lot of the advice here about networking and marketing yourself is solid, but I want to address this part of your question directly - “Do you know of any project boards or feature bounty platforms to find short-term projects?”
I’ve faced a similar issue with traditional freelancing platforms, so I ended up building a platform where experienced engineers can work with agencies to manage and deliver projects. It’s a different model from traditional outsourcing, where you can either bring your own projects or get matched with ones based on your skillset. You’d be in a technical leadership role, helping build and manage a team of developers to deliver the project. You can also have as much hands-on involvement with the coding as you choose. It could be a good fit for you given your situation and experience. I’ve written a blog detailing the idea in more detail, feel free to check it out and reach out with questions - https://sourceror.co.uk/blog/how-tech-leaders-can-gain-exper...
em-bee
this looks interesting. but i am missing steps for engineers to join the talent pool. the frontpage only addresses projects and agencies looking for people, but not people looking for work. there i no way for engineers to sign up.
zetazzed
In a past startup, we had at least one person apply to our regular job postings with a cover that transparently said "I know this is a full-time, long-term posting, but I really want to be a contractor for a bounded time." Since it was a great fit and they were available right away (and we urgently needed more people), we made the "hire" and ended up working together for a while. Only worked because it was quite transparent and up front in the application though.
aylmao
There's plenty of comments about searching one's network, but I was looking for a comment that mentioned this. Startups do tend to prefer permanent full-timers, but hiring the right person takes time and startups also very much like getting the work done.
At one point I was unsure about joining a startup and it was them who suggested doing a temporary contract as a way to test the waters. In that case it was only a week but it was also enough for me to decide to join full-time. If joining full-time is a possibility you'd consider, I'd also mention that to the startup early on.
zhs
You could check out https://www.gofractional.com, it's built for this kind of thing.
_ink_
Everybody says your network. Is this an US thing? Everyone in my network is employed in bigger or smaller companies. They might search for a full-time hire, but not for project work. Is this different in the EU or is my network too small?
lnsru
In Germany freelance work is killed by “Scheinselbstständigkeit”. Authorities will eventually require to pay some taxes afterwards if you have only one client. Both from freelancer and the company. Companies don’t want that and shady body leasing agencies are thriving. The people from these agencies have separate offices and companies go sometimes too far to separate real employees and rented staff. Network does not help much.
creer
Bigger or smaller companies is exactly who hires consultants and contractors (yes, medium too).
A few companies aim for full time only - but I don't feel that's many. Some companies have overall contracts and outsource to specific services companies - and will rarely consider individuals (both US and Europe).
Your network is not people who will necessarily hire you for a project. They are people who might at some point know something.
Your network should also include other consultants and contractors who are likely to be over- or under-worked at any time and could use your help.
murph
Try former employers.
You've already got context, know the stack, whatever.
They might be happy to have a known contributor solve some problem or project for them.
Hello HN
In a short form question: If you do, where do you look for a short time projects?
I'd like to put my skill set to use and work on a project, I'm available for 6-9 months. The problem seems to be for me, that I cannot find any way of finding such project.
I'm quite skilled, I have 15 years of experience, first 3 as a system administrator, then I went full on developer - have been full stack for 2 of those years, then switched my focus fully on the backend - and ended up as platform data engineer - optimizing the heck out of systems to be able to process data fast and reliably at larger scale.
I already went through UpWork, Toptal and such and to my disappointment, there was no success to be found.
Do you know of any project boards, or feature bounty platforms, that I could use to find a short time project?
Thank you for your wisdom :)