Ask HN: Have you considered consulting/freelance work since the pandemic? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Have you considered consulting/freelance work since the pandemic?

14 pointsv1l4 comments

I do consulting (engineering) work for startups. And one thing I've observed in the past two years is how much more startups are open to working with freelance/fractional talent, both for ongoing help and specific projects.

I've seen startups generously hire non-full time help for devops, data eng, and full-stack work. There's a definite, visible shift from pre-pandemic days.

Have any of you picked up part-time/fractional/moonlighting work? How was it worked out for you? Would you do more of it?

For context (and disclaimer), I am building brighthuman.com, so I don't deny that I have a selfish interest in learning about what others are doing.

View on HN

I can't speak to a change in this over the pandemic, but after doing this kind of work for over 15 years (helping hardware startups make hardware, often as a consultant, sometimes as an employee) the companies that end up being successful are the ones that are more flexible and have the attitude of securing the right talent (either consulting or direct, full or part time) at the right time and not so much on the details that dont truly matter. It's about finding the right person with the right skillset and then just saying "we want your help, what will that take?" and then doing that. The ones that have preconceived notions of things and then try to put these talented and in demand people into those preconceived boxes don't end up getting anywhere.

Good, smart, successful people who have a track record of delivering have options, lots of options. Your company just needs to be one of the best options. If your not one of the best options, you are not getting the best talent. If you are not getting the best talent you cannot lead your industry. If you cannot lead your industry, it's difficult to compete as a startup against entrenched players who dont need to demonstrate 10x returns to their investors.

Edited - typo

When I was still working full-time back in the Before Times, every now and then people from my professional network would reach out, asking for my take on some technical subject. I would do what I could, of course, offering advice or recommending a resource. Occasionally, they’d become a client.

Among the clients I took on, a pattern developed: early-stage startups with a working MVP that outgrew the outsourced dev team who built it. Typically, these were companies without technical founders. I realized there was a niche market out there that I could help. Even better, the value I could add had nothing to do with code per se; it had to do with disciplines that I, as a young engineer, used to scoff at: client service, change management, Human Resources, etc—subjects I learned to be good at incidentally, after working in tech for 20+ years.

I’d love to target this market and help them either build an in-house team or establish the criteria they need for better partners. The pandemic gave me the courage to freelance full-time; I just wish I was better at marketing!

Yep! I've taken an hourly dev advocate role as well as an interim fractional head of engineering role for a startup to help them bridge the gap between hires. Remote has been the primary driver for startups especially to become more flexible with their hiring practices.

I've discovered there are a good amount of small businesses trying to do what you are, so I think that's probably good validation that this is a strong space heating up. I've also been writing about it at blog.parttimetech.io if you're interested.

I live in Asia, I try to find some overseas part-time work (I mean the one that working on a product with the company directly instead of something like Upwork), I wondor what the different between consulting work and full-time remote or part-time remote?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com