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?

Comments

There have been many

[DogDude]

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.

Re:There have been many

[LynnwoodRooster]

I use Upwork (formerly oDesk). I've hired domestic and foreign contract engineering labor. For a server I needed setup and configured, I hired a guy in Vietnam and for $18/hour (and 5 hours) he had it doing everything I needed. Hired a guy in India to do some custom CSS work for me, for $80. Hired a Ph.D. applied math/physics professor in Russia for some advanced 3D FEA modeling software - he was $35 an hour, but great quality C code from him. Hired several electrical/RF engineers here in the US to do some spot PCB/schematic/RF design work when my team was overloaded. All were between $50-$80/hour.

All turned out really well, did what I needed and when I needed it, and at a price that was reasonable. Having a US IT guy quote $2500 to set up a Windows server with SVN, Wiki, and a few other features was crazy, but I didn't have the time to do it myself. Having a guy in Vietnam do it for $100 was exactly what I needed. And finding a Ph.D. professor with a background in applied math and physics was essentially a needle in a haystack - I got lucky, the fact he was $35/hour was insane (I would have gladly paid 3X that amount). Currently using an MSEE to solve a hairy GSM noise issue on a PCB, and he's worth it at $80/hour.

Moral of the story: if you're doing basic, simple work - you're not going to be able to compete with overseas where there are millions of people who can do basic, simple work for a lot cheaper than you. If you're doing more complex, advanced things, you can most likely charge a lot more and still get work...

Re:There have been many

[SirAstral]

Ok, full disclosure... not a republican but a big fan of free-market.

yes, this is actually just fine and yes I am a Systems Engineer that has more than a decade of infrastructure experience and can code in several languages to varying degrees, though I am by no means an expert in coding, however, I am an expert in infrastructure.

If I bid on a job and they tried to undercut me with a 3rd world labor I would just tell them good luck and wish them well. When they come back with a failed 3rd world job, I will tell them that my rate has gone up. It is nothing personal, but now I will have to overcome the failures or mess those guys left behind. Live and learn.

Quality speaks for itself for obvious reasons. Yes businesses are constantly relearning this lesson, and no... this lesson never sticks... hence folks like you looking for excessive unnatural government controls on everything that will actually cause the opposite effect you expect. The cost only goes up... not down!

Re:There have been many

[Anonymous Coward]

When they come back with a failed 3rd world job, I will tell them that my rate has gone up.

At which point, they will go whining to the government that there are no workers willing to work for $1/hour, and demand that they be allowed to import labor from elsewhere.

Guess what? The government actually listens to the corporations and they get their cheap labor. Then the corporations go around pointing at all of the imported labor and say see there's people here willing to work for $1/hour and if you want a job you had best adjust your expectations.

End result: Lower pay for everyone because the corporations got the government to change the rules.

So as much as you hate regulations. Just remember, the corporations are not free market enthusiasts. Corporations will just as much beg for regulations that screw over workers as workers will beg for regulations to screw over corporations. Only when a corporation does it, the result tends to have much further reaching consequences.

Re:There have been many

[Bruinwar]

Wow. They got people on there (this fucking upwork place) claiming to be able to do what I do for $10 an hour. Right in the U.S. WTF happened to 4% unemployment!? The future's so dark, I gotta wear a headlamp. Retirement can't come soon enough, hope I can make it. Good luck to the younger folks, the lowest common denominator, as in wages, is what seems to be coming.

Re:There have been many

[Aighearach]

A lot of those are going to be new users who are bidding low for promotional reasons because without reviews it is hard to win bids.

Re:There have been many - why did they die?

[anon mouse-cow-aard]

If those cheap people are competent, then it should work out fine, and the sites should flourish. It sounds like they all died. why?

Upwork

[Maddog Batty]

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.

Re:Upwork

[Cornwallis]

Upwork sucks. They fucked me out of thousands of dollars when a 3rd-world programmer lied through his teeth about what he provided me in response to a contract I had with him. I provided proof - screen shots, mail threads and the god damn code itself and they still ruled agains me.

I've hired programmers for decades - both personally and through agencies - and have never had such bad experiences as I had with Upwork,

Re:Upwork

[Aighearach]

So you're saying you poorly specified your needs, and then when you stamped your feet and demanded the foreign worker just redo all the work and make something different than you specified, you were ruled against?

Yeah, you're the real reason that so little tech work gets done in the "gig economy" style; tiny little miniature clients strut around like they're some kind of hot shit, and then try to refuse to pay.

Legwork and knowing the right people...

[b0s0z0ku]

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.

Rent-a-Coder

[iTrawl]

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.

Re: There have been many - why did they die?

[triffid_98]

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.

Requirements frequently *are* the gig

[Nkwe]

...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.

Re:Requirements frequently *are* the gig

[Registered Coward v2]

businesses that don't have dedicated IT or consulting firms are unlikely to have the skills to write formal requirements.

Not only that, but they probably don't understand what it takes to write good requirements document and will balk at the cost of developing one. Add in they probably expect to get thousands of dollars of work for pennies on the dollar and you have a prescription for disaster. As a result, what they get is not what they expect and they are not happy.

Signal-to-noise ratio, transaction costs

[Kjella]

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.

Oh you sweet summer child...

[AmazingRuss]

... 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.

Set up your company with its own website

[mikael]

Set up your own company, create a website listing your past projects (presumably successful) and blog. Write magazine articles.

Re: There have been many - why did they die?

[Tuidjy]

If those cheap people are competent, then it should work out fine, and the sites should flourish.

if p then q does not mean that id not p you can infer not q without more information.

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.