Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Is There a 'Gig Economy' Site For Tech Skills?
"Where I can meet up with people who just need solutions implemented?" asks Slashdot reader datavirtue:
Somewhere people can go when they have a solution designed in-house with documented requirements and are in need of a competent engineer(s) to assist with implementation. Where timelines and price estimates and rates are well defined and enforced. If they like me, and agree to the terms, we can proceed with the project -- expecting solid deliveries at each milestone....
I have been on some gig projects where the relationship was well structured by a third party and it was a lot of fun. I know a lot of engineers who would use a system like this if it streamlines entering the freelance tech market for them. People who would rarely take gigs otherwise. I have looked around but the services feel dead. I have been approached by startups in the past wanting to sign me up their service...but they didn't really go anywhere.
The original submission complains that many projects end up going to consulting firms that just scrounge up candidates from job boards. But what's the alternative? "Am I missing some great online community or website that has already solved this?"
Leave your own thoughts in the comments. Is there a 'gig economy' site for tech skills?
I have been on some gig projects where the relationship was well structured by a third party and it was a lot of fun. I know a lot of engineers who would use a system like this if it streamlines entering the freelance tech market for them. People who would rarely take gigs otherwise. I have looked around but the services feel dead. I have been approached by startups in the past wanting to sign me up their service...but they didn't really go anywhere.
The original submission complains that many projects end up going to consulting firms that just scrounge up candidates from job boards. But what's the alternative? "Am I missing some great online community or website that has already solved this?"
Leave your own thoughts in the comments. Is there a 'gig economy' site for tech skills?
There have been many. What happens is they get flooded with people from 3rd world countries, willing to do the work for pennies an hour. If you want to work as a "gigger" for tech stuff, then you'll be competing against people from Vietnam willing to do the same fork for $1/hour.
I don't respond to AC's.
Somewhere people can go when they have a solution designed in-house with documented requirements and are in need of a competent engineer(s) to assist with implementation. Where timelines and price estimates and rates are well defined and enforced. If they like me, and agree to the terms, we can proceed with the project -- expecting solid deliveries at each milestone....
Have you tried Ask Slashdot? Could you give it a shot and report back on how it works out for you?
Doing cheap, poorly implemented projects without any thoughts of long term support do not benefit you, nor the community at large.
If those cheap people are competent, then it should work out fine, and the sites should flourish. It sounds like they all died. why?
I earn $2k - $3k a month working on jobs brokered via Upwork. This goes nicely with my main work I get locally. I've in the UK but work on projects in the US and India currently. I recommend it though you do have to be selective on who you work for. There are a lot kids looking for their homework to be done and others that are completely unrealistic on what budget is required for the job. Upwork charge 10% + $50 per customer which is reasonable I think especially as they guarantee payment.
wot no sig
The best gigs are found the old-fashioned way, word of mouth...
(1) Do I.T. for small/middle sized businesses on a freelance basis. This gets you connections to do more interesting jobs -- custom app development, databases, etc.
(2) Stay connected to a local university, either by taking classes or teaching as an adjunct. Lots of grad students who want to be the next best startup.
I think you just answered your own question.
I'm not sure what you're asking, but do you mean places like Freelancer (which ate up vWork, which used to be called Rent a Coder)?
If that's what you mean, I don't know many sites like that anymore, and the projects they post are just crap for some reason unknown to me. And you have to compete with 3rd world developers in cost (rather than quality) on those crappy projects too.
Best thing as far as I can tell is getting your recruiter to find you term-limited contracts that suit you.
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
Um...because the more competent devs emigrated to countries where they could get better pay? These sorts of sites are a confluence of cheapskates, pretenders, and unrealistic expectations. That tends to go just about as well as you'd expect. If you go with the lowest bidder you deserve what you get.
...when they have a solution designed in-house with documented requirements... ...Where timelines and price estimates and rates are well defined and enforced.
An issue is that for smaller gigs that would make use of such a service, the requirements are not known or at least not formally known enough to the point where an enforceable timeline could exist. In software development, the hard part is always figuring out what to do, the actual coding is usually easy. It is common to not really know what you need to do until you start doing it (figure it out as you go along). In fact the whole Agile methodology is based on merging requirements gathering with development in an iterative cycle, with an unknown number of cycles necessary to get to what is a "finished" product.
Because of this most companies that (competently) do solutions in house will have both the designers and the developers on staff, those that don't will hire consulting firms to manage the design and deliveyr processes. I doubt either would would want to grab random folks off a job board for temporary work.
Smaller businesses that don't have dedicated IT or consulting firms are unlikely to have the skills to write formal requirements.
Because many were fraud sites with fake projects, charging $5 a year or even per month to be registered there.
Requests to cancel 'subscriptions' got ignored, I had to involve my credit card company to get reimbursed.
I guess after enough such cases the CC companies put pressure enough on them to get them closed.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I've found that some of the skills are absorbed by bundled services for small businesses. For example my friend who is a masseuse is basically a 1 person business. In the past she might have had to hire multiple people for small jobs: A receptionist/admin assistant to book and confirm appointments , a web developer to manage her site, advertising/marketing person, and an accountant/cashier to handle the books. The problem is she should only need these jobs filled for a few hours a week maybe. So she uses Square software which basically takes care of all of those roles for her.
So on her website powered by Square you can look at her open schedule, book an appointment, and get text alerts when it is coming up. When you pay it is linked to your appt (whether you got a 30/60/90 massage) and whether you paid for a bundle of appts etc.
Technically she doesn't need to know anything about HTML or database integration or mobile APIs or billing . All of that is seamless to her and she can focus on massages and not on the many tiny things she would have had to do as a business.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Lots of unrealistic projects with terrible specifications meets barely literate lowest-bid outsourcing, what could possibly go right? I just looked through a few projects, it's not worth my time even trying to find a reasonable project proposal. And if there was one, would they find me in the pile of junk responses they get? No. And if you get ripped off one way or the other, you'll be stuck in a dispute resolution process on your own dime. Basically if you find someone qualified it's a huge advantage to just use them again. That's not a gig economy, that's a market for temp workers. The initial work should basically just be risk money to test them out before you offer a real contract. And in most cases I'd switch from a fixed price to hourly rate for any decent developer, unless the scope is very specific.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Have you considered just dressing in drag in the shady part of town with a sign hung around your neck saying "free lube provided?"
... what you ask for doesn't even exist in established companies.
People are dumb, don't know what they want, don't appreciate it when you build it for them, and don't want to pay. This is almost universal.
Good luck with that
The same way your mom would. Oh, snap!
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Set up your own company, create a website listing your past projects (presumably successful) and blog. Write magazine articles.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Only if you apply enough lube.
I tend to rant.
... oh and learn to do something other than just tech, it opens your perspective quite a bit, and allows you to understand problems much better (and vice-versa for non-techies!).
If you can be empathetic with your customers, they'll contact you for anything and everything, and have no problem paying your price, as long as you're reasonable and do quality work. Don't gouge, and understand that the costs you give them come off of their bottom line, same as yours if you need stuff done. Understand that, and so will they. Nobody works for free and small business owners generally respect that.
The odd greedy asshole here and there? Fuck 'em. Unless they're extremely valuable to you in the long run as a customer requiring constant updates/maintenance, then you should tolerate them, but only to a point. Let them find out on their own what they get for what they want to pay and happily accept their business when it all comes crashing down. No need to gouge them out of spite either, all but a few of them will have understood how the tech world can be.
My old employer charged $100/hour for most work, 9-10 years ago, and people were willing and ready to pay it because he would take the time to walk people through the work, and explain preventative measures so they don't have to come back in a couple weeks with similar issues. Everyone wins, and he's still as busy as ever today, serving a fairly small population. Good service counts!
I tend to rant.
If you accept "if p, then q" you can conclude "if not q, then not p".
Applying that to the original quote results "The sites are not flourishing, thus the cheap people were not competent." I think that this is exactly what the poster meant to imply.
What you're quipping is correct, but irrelevant.
No good deed goes unpunished...
Or, to be profitable they used industry averages in their predictions, and then they drive the prices down in their own market segment so they can't make what they need, even when they have the number of users and contracts that they predicted.
For the same reason cheap A/V gear from China has practically destroyed the market for what USED to be the "sane" mid-high end... gear by companies like Denon, Matsushita/Panasonic/Technics, Pioneer, etc. In the 80s, "good" stuff wasn't insanely more expensive than "shit" stuff, and sounded a LOT better. Now, "shit" stuff is almost free, but "good" stuff is WAY more expensive... and the quality differences themselves are a lot harder to objectively quantify (digital electronics are good at hiding scores of design sins that would have been painfully-obvious fatal flaws on analog gear).
So... companies WANT good, settle for dirt cheap, end up disillusioned, and instead of saying, "we need to hire the more skilled, but more expensive, candidates" (from ANY country), they just give up.
The fact is, there are lots of good, smart people in Vietnam, India, etc. And for the most part, they cost as much -- or MORE -- as their American & European peers. Most of them eventually get tired of trying to stand out from the rabble & emigrate to someplace where their value is appreciated.
The fact is, India & Vietnam (to name two examples) are cheaper than the US overall, but the cost of living well in Mumbai or Hanoi really isn't much less (if it's less at all) than the cost of living well somewhere like Cleveland, Dallas, Charlotte (NC), etc, regardless of how cheap it might be to live in a shack out in some godforsake rural area where reliable electricity without daily rolling blackouts is still a novelty.
The OP is asking for a top notch project team who only needs someone to help with implementation. I've been doing IT for 20 years at this point and my experience has been that well scoped, managed and executed projects are the exception to the rule. More often than not there is at least some, if not major amounts of "making it up as we go" taking place.
Any team that is competent enough to lay the groundwork already has people lined up to do the implementation.
If those cheap people are competent, then it should work out fine, and the sites should flourish. It sounds like they all died. why?
They aren't. The people buying the work aren't competent, either. I wrote some articles for someone through Upwork, fulfilled the requirements, and they were less than happy with the results but weren't willing to pay enough for better. They wanted 100% English fluency, but were only willing to pay enough to get a foreigner — and not one with excellent English skills, either. That person could make a lot more doing something else with those skills, like translation. Most people going to Upwork to get something done are looking for cheap work, done cheaply.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's not really about cost savings. It's about destroying the middle class.
Is Upwork.com not good?