What are some other great sites for finding free lance RoR web development work?
I agree that Upwork has some of the stingiest clients around. Guru seems more honest overall, despite having less listings.
Edit: I have seen plenty of RoR jobs locally on Craigslist, so be sure to subscribe to some feeds there as well.
One of the things I've found is that small jobs often become much larger. For example, if a client merely wants a bug or glitch fixed in an existing system, doing a quick job will often get you more work from that client (possibly months' worth).
My average rate in terms of charged fee on those sites is around $22 per hour, so nothing special. At the same time, I'm relatively new to freelancing (despite being relatively experienced at programming), so maybe I just haven't found my groove yet or built enough of a portfolio. The competition in terms of how many people you compete with over low-paying jobs is mind boggling. Having an uncommon niche can be very useful here, which is one of the reasons I recommend using feeds with filters since it can allow you to see any new listings in your specific niches. Overall, being a jack-of-all-trades is a bad idea in freelancing since there is too much competition. At the same time, clients often expect you to be experienced in a cornucopia of areas.
One more piece of advice: Avoid clients whose businesses are obviously based on flawed value propositions. That is, avoid clients who think their product idea is good when you personally know it's not. Freelancing is similar to investment in that you don't want to get involved working for someone who doesn't even know what they're doing in terms of running a business or starting a startup. It may give you work in the short term, but it's going to run dry before it gets you anywhere interesting. This all is assuming you have enough experience to recognise obviously flawed product ideas.