71 karma · joined February 28, 2013
"Your site paid for my Jeep Wrangler."
Most freelance platforms should be happy with ~20 hours/week of consistent work. One freelancer that mainly works with us at that volume had enough stability through Gun.io contracts alone to get a mortgage, which was a pretty big coup for us.
Feel free to shoot me a line at teja at gun.io.
I'd also add a recommendation to spend at least a third of the time you spend doing billable work in building up your own pipeline — regardless of whether you're using a freelance service like us or not.
we're not perfect by any means, but i'm happy to see there's love for what we're about!
i always say think about our site as the equivalent of a BATNA: always find work via referral, but we're here when you can't :)
Try using the sites mentioned within the thread - pickcrew, gun.io, etc. - these sites generally have higher-priced contracts and more interesting work than the classic variants. Use these sites at first to discover what work you like and build long-terms relationships with a few key clients.
1. Remember that the comms overhead with freelance work can be really lumpy and unpredictable. Programming is the fun part - the phone calls and emails can get painful really quickly
2. Avoid hourly pricing whenever possible. Do value-based pricing. Just trust me on this one.
What type of work are you looking for? Part of the problem is you're using freelance sites that have tiny gigs and force you to work within their platform.
I don't want to be a shill, but I can't help it: my friends and I run https://gun.io - we vet freelance clients on your behalf (to have budgets above $10k~ and be serious, etc). After you're introduced, you're free to work w/ that person forever, however you think is best.
My completely unscientific take: I feel noticeably grouchier ever since I've started doing this, but the physical benefits have been pronounced in terms of better performance, recovery, and appearance.
The real answer is there probably isn't a sufficient condition for success, but hard work in pursuit of your own goals (rather a manager's) increases the likelihood of a positive outcome.
Still, I'd have gone a step further. 'Career' is such a false construction. Go do fun shit and get really good at it. Maybe I'm naively optimistic, but if you're really good at something, it's pretty easy to get paid (a lot) for it.
If you want a really cheap city to work in that still has a fairly sophisticated technology community, consider Nashville!
'what is your most significant accomplishment to date' is much more telling.
pg is not hiring for a role, tho. he is trying to assess determination for a particularly difficult lifestyle choice - starting a company
The key thing though as you mentioned is you either gotta have a lot of personal cushion, or you gotta be willing to relocate to a fairly cheap area to temporarily lower your burn...like Nashville ;).
that said, you train hard every day? respect, but jesus, better you than me ;)
there's no 'correct' intensity - just like there's no 'correct' frequency - just depends on the athlete's goals.
what's clear tho, is at the edges of performance, there are gonna be trade-offs between highly frequent and highly intense training - unless you're a pro athlete, of course
for the large majority of peeps, i guess this distinction doesn't really matter, but since hn is about optimizing at the edges, i figured i'd mention!
We've found that it dampens the 'build-to-flip' mentality and lets us all enjoy the fruits of our labor while we're building the company, not afterwards =).
If I may disagree - you're assuming that the 'demand' for software developers is fixed. But, we know that it isn't. In fact, more software developers working on software may actually increase the demand for software talent, particularly if these developers go on to start companies themselves =).
In fact, this is how most successful software companies get their start - right? They begin with very narrow product - a single feature, even. If their hypothesis proves correct, they will grow pretty rapidly in usage and in offerings.
Rather, I believe this slow but steady institutional creep against our civil liberties is mostly the work of independent bureaucrats who realize that by expanding their individual silos of power (i.e., expanding what their departments surveil and parse), they're a) keeping open the funding spigot, b) expanding their personal power and c) solidifying their job security. "National defense," since 1776, but especially since World War 2, has always been a bi-partisan rallying cry, after all.
In practice, the guys who get on TV (also known elected leaders), try as they might, have very little control over what actual policy is implemented in the realm of national security. They're just appealing to our most base instincts to remain elected, I think.
Even with all of the not-so-nice things about remote work listed in your post, you've still chosen to work remotely -- to avoid upending your family. And I assume you would probably quit if your company were to say 'move to the Bay Area tomorrow, or else,' out of concern for your family.
That's, I think, the key point about remote work. You aren't forced to make that choice.
And that alone tells me it's better for workers (and therefore companies). Particularly if you're the best person the for the job (which I assume you are, since you work there!).