Over the last few months, I've seen a lot of HN members talk about being contractors, and why - designing to bootstrap their business, building an iPhone practice, moving to China to work and live, etc.<p>I'm often on the other side of that transaction, where I need to hire contractors for one or more projects, and I'd like nothing more than to hire from this group of experts, but I don't remember to bookmark every talented and possibly hungry person. I'm sure there are many other people on both sides.<p>So here's a Google Spreadsheet for adding yourself and your expertise so that folks who need to hire have a quick way to find HN folks: include your contact info [if you want], etc.<p>Spreadsheet is at https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlD_6iEb8Ed9dGs3clVJYi0yYVBka181Z0ZKRW9kQ0E&hl=en, I promise to leave it there and hope that nobody's a jerk about it.<p>(If someone has already done this, by all means let me know or add to this thread - I just want the list, not the credit.)
You're better off doing this with a Google form that feeds to a Google spreadsheet automatically. Then, you can publish the spreadsheet read only and not worry about anyone blanking it or corrupting the data.
I love this. So much, in fact, that I made an app for it tonight<p><a href="http://hnhackers.com/" rel="nofollow">http://hnhackers.com/</a><p>Let me know what you think! you <i>should</i> be able to claim your profile using the forgot password link. Email me at rbitar [at] gmail if something doesn't work. I'll get to it in the morning.
Just for fun: quick word cloud visualization of core consulting skills form the spreadsheet <a href="http://twitpic.com/1fe1zt" rel="nofollow">http://twitpic.com/1fe1zt</a>
Are contracting rates really this low? I would have expected $150-$200/hour range for serious programming skills, which most on this list seem to have. Instead it looks like the number is somewhere between $75-$100.
I am going to go on a hiring spree for all of my ideas. It'll be a knock-down drag-out round robin tournament of start-ups. At the end of each week (month?) we have elimination.<p>Survivor: Silicon Valley
Awesome. I am on the other side as well, and the next time I need a contractor, I'm going straight to this spreadsheet.<p>Aside: Best answer to "Why are you doing this" is by cmos: "To support my cat" :)
This might be useful to add under the "Jobs" link on this site. I know that it is meant for people looking for work, but I feel that it could work just as well in the opposite direction.
For anybody who's tracking, we're up to 140+ folks, and the spreadsheet has moved into high-traffic mode. Thanks all - this will be great and I'm happy for it to be linked from a more permanent location.
Someone just blanked the whole table, is there a way to make this add-only? I vaguely recall being able to set up a form with Google docs. Even better: some way of undoing the vandalism?
This is absolutely fantastic! Exactly what I wanted at the right time.<p>I don't have much bandwidth to work on the UI & design side of XP-Dev.com as I'm focusing more on functionality and other products, and in bad need of a web designer <a href="http://bit.ly/9FafRq" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/9FafRq</a>