There needs to be something like, "I tried, but found it to be overwhelmed with low-quality, low-bid experts-at-everything offshore body shops and astroturf/sockpuppet-portfolio-inflated accounts, which disgusted me and so gave up on it." Ie, horrible signal-to-noise ratio. A cattle call.
Does anyone else think the way freelance work is allocated is ripe for change?<p>Seeing the positive response to sites like <a href="http://tinyproj.com" rel="nofollow">http://tinyproj.com</a> and <a href="http://weekendhacker.net" rel="nofollow">http://weekendhacker.net</a>, it seems like highly competent freelancers would benefit from a middle ground between the somewhat impersonal market of eLance/oDesk and the inefficient method of seeking work via personal networks. Something like a "hackers guild" of people who have been vetted for quality work. Projects could be semi-automatically assigned to single or multiple individuals based on the importance of the project as measured by the dollar value attached to it and the skill of the individuals as measured by their historical feedback ratings.<p>Maybe this is just my naive impression as an undergrad approaching graduation who would prefer freelancing to a 9-5 or even a startup but hasn't come to terms yet with the fact that inefficiency in the matching process and initially low rates are unavoidable. If not and you'd be interested in building or using such a system, I'd like to talk to you. It also relates to emerging things like the "reputation graph" and transitive delegation that can enable these sorts of systems, and are going to be huge (see <a href="http://blog.hyperarchy.com" rel="nofollow">http://blog.hyperarchy.com</a>, <a href="http://liquidfeedback.org" rel="nofollow">http://liquidfeedback.org</a>, <a href="http://rglabsinc.com" rel="nofollow">http://rglabsinc.com</a>).
I use oDesk to find Python/Django work. Although most of the work hasn't paid as well as gigs away from oDesk, it's worked well for me while I build up to properly paid gigs: I've just got my first one for years, after focusing mostly on moving to the US from the UK, living in an Ecovillage and raising my now-four-year-old. It took a while to get used to the oDesk tool taking a screenshot every few minutes - I found it quite humiliating at first - but after my wife pointed out it's no worse than having people glance over your shoulder in an office, I sucked it up. I like knowing I have access to the arbitration that oDesk offers if you use this tool. The automatic time tracking helped me overcome bad habits, too. I like the detailed time logs, and I like being paid weekly.
For what it's worth, I wrote up my experience and advice for hiring on oDesk and Elance, here: <a href="http://sivers.org/how2hire" rel="nofollow">http://sivers.org/how2hire</a><p>Some good advice in the comments, too.
I did some work for Rent-a-coder (nowadays "vWorker"), my experience summarized here: <a href="http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2007/04/21/doing-some-work-at-rentacoder/" rel="nofollow">http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2007/04/21/doing-some-work-at-r...</a> and also here: <a href="http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2007/07/14/more-about-my-rentacoder-experiment/" rel="nofollow">http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2007/07/14/more-about-my-rentac...</a><p>One thing that pisses me off about these sites is that there's so many of them. See, reputation is worth a lot, and it's not transferable between sites :( You work hard to gain a high score on, say, vWorker, but then at Odesk you're a fresh dev with 0 experience, unlikely to get any piece of work that can really bring normal pay.
If I'm <i>really</i> desperate, I'd go back to vWorker, but I'd have to be very, very desperate.<p>I haven't tried out eLance or oDesk but I did check them out around the same time I used vWorker and found no real difference. It would'nt be worth the time I spent on the sign up process.<p>Tinyproj looked promising but by emails stopped sometime the other week. If anyone can do a Stack Overflow to these sites then I'd reconsider, but not until that day.
BTW: It would be awesome if someone could start a site with projects for BEGINNING Freelancers or for people with less experience than usual.<p>It could make sense for smaller projects and could even feature something like more experienced "buddys" who watch over the process? Just some ideas :)
I've learned programming on a website similar to elance (rentacoder, now known as vworker). Started with simple logo design jobs, advanced to simple php scripts, then c++, java, etc..
It was worth for me, coming from a developing country where $200 back then was an average month's salary, but i don't think it's too tempting for western countries.<p>For being successful reputation matters a lot. I was the top result for "android" queries on elance for over a year, and that allowed me to bid over the average, and that helps. I ended up eventually with a more permanent contract that pays better than most jobs on elance, but still not as good as a lot of Silicon Valley jobs.<p>So, that's where elance stands. Perfect if you're in a developing country :)
I'm currently contracted on it on an indefinite contract. I've also done a few small jobs with them and they can work to help make ends meet, but it can be hard sometimes to find something more than just small projects.<p>Aside from finding work, the software that oDesk uses for time tracking can be very annoying. The number of times that it's managed to decide that it can't upload the data to them recently has become a bit of a problem for the team I'm on.
I'm using oDesk for the past 3 years. It just worked fine and we are a 21 people team of developers now (from 2 people). Here's my profile <a href="http://bit.ly/vtv7Vx" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/vtv7Vx</a><p>Pros:
1) The hourly mode worked fine in my case. Get paid for the hours you work.
2) You don't need to send an invoice to the client. oDesk do it weekly and transfer funds to your account.
3) Good amount of money if you are living in a country like India.
4) 80% of time the employer will be an agency who outsource their work. If you are good you'll get their future projects.<p>Cons:
1) Most of the employers need cheap work.
2) Its difficult to find potential longterm clients and big projects.
3) You will face lots of employers who already lost money because of bad providers.
4) A single bad feedback from a bad client can make your profile rating down (the no. of bids you can make depends on the rating)<p>Now my team is working on 3 good startup projects through oDesk.
I think we found a programmer to write some Windows mouse hooks for our java app. Paid him $100 for probably an hour or more of his time, so I guess you can find good developers.<p>If you're cheap, you'll get cheap programmers, that's about as basic as it gets.
I used Elance and it worked pretty well. Be careful though. I posted project specs and had about 15 bidders. I found out once development was done, one of the bidders who didn't get the job liked the idea so much he wrote his own version, based on specs I provided for the bid. He even used the same name. So, on the appstore, I had to rename my app AND had a competitor immediately. Luckily, Apple and Elance took care of it and his product was removed.<p>I really liked the way elance gets you in touch with the developer and handles payment really well. Also, the communication system worked well. Would do it again.
It took me some time to find good offer with fresh account and get used to screenshots, but I liked it. Pay was decent and surveillance helped me to focus on work and separate it from breaks.
I've used oDesk to hire developers & SEO article writers. From a hiring standpoint, oDesk is nice because you can review screenshots of work hours submitted for payment. I've never run into an issue where the contractor was trying to get paid for time they weren't working on our stuff.<p>I haven't tried other freelance sites but I do remember researching a few before settling on oDesk for its payment controls.<p>If you're willing to work within the bounds of the system, I'd recommend giving oDesk a shot.
OP, what about those looking to hire find freelancers? Not everyone here is a dev you know ;).<p>I am currently looking to outsource a little programming MVP job and i would like to know the good place to use.
ODesk worked great for me, stick with very straight forward / easy tasks, I was paying $3/hr for someone to do data mining. I ended up with a great excel doc with over 3000 related sites & email addresses, very useful to my startups initial launch
Elance works fine for Ruby work, and most of the time you can get better hourly rates than your typical full time job in the US. I think having a US flag in your profile also helps a lot.
Yeah..
Spent about 15K on it..
oDesk basically sucks.
The only way to properly outsource work is to pay when everything is delivered.<p>Will never ever do this again.
Just wanted to plug in my start-up. For basic data mining tasks over the web you can use application built over top of the platform <a href="https://excavator.mobileworks.com" rel="nofollow">https://excavator.mobileworks.com</a> and you wouldn't have to hire anyone. More apps coming soon. Email support and we'll be happy to give discounts to fellow HNers.