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Comment by codeshaman | Hacker News Reader

Great article, very thoughtful.

But my biggest question is where do you find a client ?

Is there a website (like a jobs website) for contract work, besides elance and the like ? Yeah, I can google it, but it's usually just a waste of time.

Is there any serious place where an experienced developer can meet serious clients ? I mean clients willing to pay for quality work so I can make a living similar to a corporate job ?

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As a very young programmer looking to make some money along his studies in the UK, I want to know where I can find clients, or even start a portfolio that's more than a few open source projects on GitHub.

I posted an offer to HN to build their app for £100. Monetary value is obviously very little, but it's a token gesture that technically gives you freelance experience.

It was great to build my portfolio up; I'd recommend it if possible. It's much easier to land gigs with a freelance portfolio.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6382405

I would have a look around for developer job postings at your university instead of trying to track down and maintain commercial contracts.

Meeting clients is more about freelancing, and some of the meetup groups are useful for networking there. For contracting I'd say the majority of people use jobserve. They advertise fixed term mostly fulltime contracts, usually 3-6months initial contract, and usually with at least 1 or 2 renewals expected if your work is ok.

I do not know anyone who started as a contractor. Everyone I know (myself included) moved to contracting after maturing for several years in the industry, building up a reputation and a network of contacts.

There are such a thing as junior contractors, they tend not to get amazing rates, but they'll still be doing a lot better than what they would on 13k a year, and they can quickly negotiate better rates.

I was perm for like 5-6 years, I think building your skills in perm roles is how it should be, but I'd probably have a lot more money if I'd just became a contractor.

Any idea where junior contractors find work?

Orange Digital now Hiveworks had a few. I never was a jr contractor, thus I'm not super up on how they find them.

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