Ask HN: Good places for short coding term gigs? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Good places for short coding term gigs?

1 pointkingofspain4 comments

There seem now to be a lot of decent places for full-time jobs and even bigger projects (SO, Hackerjobs etc) but I'm more looking for something shorter term to fill the gap between bigger projects. A fix here, some new feature there, a mockup etc. My skills range from PHP dev to mobile & design, so anything in those areas.

The likes of oDesk/Freelancer etc have proved fruitless given the workload to likely compensation ratio. Fiverr is also out, as I'd like a bit more than a fiver (greedy?!).

Is there anything out there? And not restricted to the US?

Flip, right now, I'd even take a chunk out for commission if someone can point me right way! :)

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Elance and Odesk can actually pay pretty well. I regularly find jobs which I know exactly what's required but are quoted really high by people who don't really know what they are bidding on. I think what happens is that one bidder comes up with a number pulled out of thin air and then the rest of the bidders use that as a starting point and just bid a little lower. In this case I just bid the average of the top bids and then I'm usually able to get the job because I know the problem so well. A job under $500 is still a good one if you are able to knock it out quick and hit $100 / hour. The problem with this is that it takes more time to find the diamonds in the rough.

One of my friends (here in the UK) uses http://www.peopleperhour.com/ and has had a lot of success (despite his constant whining about how some clients are hard to nail down specs with). It seems like it might tick the non-US and non-slave-rates boxes.

Ah, I just came off a frustrating weekend of PPH! Should've mentioned that above. 2 different bids interested, both then tried pushing bid down and disappeared, re-listing at half the price later (re-listing 4 additional times in one case). It could get better but right now I'm not confident!

I suspect it's worth another try. My friend has had similar complaints but ultimately has made good money and gotten good reviews from it. I believe one of the clients turned into a more permanent thing recently so he doesn't use it so much now. I'll see if I can get him to post his comments on here later, perhaps.

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