Ask HN: Where do seasoned devs look for short-term work?

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.

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

Contractors have to do the leetcode monkey dance for prospects?

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)

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

For others who missed it.. https://www.threads.net/@austinnasso/post/DFLc9-hv4xg?hl=en

That was a sarcastic one, made by a comedian who used to work in tech, lol

Surely it was satire? Surely...? Please

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.

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?

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"

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.

You can remain dignified and poor or become demeaned and rich.

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.

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.

Commerce is demeaning?

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.)

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.

Feeding your family is the more "ethical" thing here

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.