Hey HN!<p>I'm a CS student and also a web developer on my free time. I've been freelancing for several companies with modern PHP frameworks (Laravel) and some other companies that use Ruby (on Rails) for the past couple years, mostly backend and API work.<p>I've been getting most of my jobs from oDesk (yeah..), which is a major PITA. Even when the client is decent (which is hard to find but possible) I still have to deal with a 10% pay cut and that stalker tracking software that doesn't even work properly on OS X.<p>There's an huge offer for full-time jobs listings and I was wondering if:<p>a) Is there a listing for people looking for part-time only?<p>b) If not, are there enough companies and freelancers looking for part-time jobs/people?<p>I'm currently running out of work and I'd be up for creating a simple website (similar to http://nomadjobs.io to give you an idea) for this specific situation if there's a need for it.<p>TL;DR: CS Student. Finding part-time dev work is hard. Should I create a website for people in my situation?
The problem with these sites like oDesk is it ends up turning you into a marginalized commodity and its hard to stand out from that view point of the usually numb-nutted clientele that trolls there. You want to get in front of dollars, not squalor, yah heard me (hands up).<p>What worked for me is instead create an open-source project or even mini-project like some JS plugin, make a LinkedIn account, get your StackOverflow account, make sure each refers to the other, then (drum roll), you'll get offers flying in and you'll have to fend them off or start ignoring them as they will get annoying and that's a better problem to have.<p>The funny thing is, if you create that site, you'll probably get great offers because of that rather than a listing itself but beware of making another odesk that marginalizes its workers and try to attract big dollar companies to look at that rather than chump-changers.
Creating a site like that is straightforward enough, and lots of people have done it. The hard problem is the market - how do you filter/rate clients by who can come up with a reasonable, practical project and will pay market rates without being overly difficult about anything? How do you filter developers by who can execute a project in their advertised languages and frameworks, estimate it accurately, and finish it on-time and on-budget to professional quality standards? I wouldn't bother unless you have some practical-sounding idea for how to fix that.
Creating a social site is not easy.<p>It's hard to attract jobs without candidates and even harder to attract candidates without having open jobs. Worst of all in your case is that you content(job post) has a short lifespan.<p>It's possible but don't do it unless you're passionate about it.<p>Try these for PT work.
<a href="http://gun.io" rel="nofollow">http://gun.io</a>
<a href="http://codementor.io" rel="nofollow">http://codementor.io</a>
<a href="http://meetup.com" rel="nofollow">http://meetup.com</a><p>Assuming you live in a major city, there are lots of Meetups hosted at co-working offices. These spaces are brilliant for someone like you looking for work because they are flush with bootstrapped companies who only need a little bit of work. They have a little bit of cash, motivated, and potentially right on the verge of launching/reaching scale.<p>Once you're in the office space, find out how to get invited to whatever messageboard they use for internal communication. You will use it to advertise your services. After you get signed up into their chat system, just walk around the meetup and start introducing yourself.
I think that it is a great idea. It might be already served by a site like <a href="http://www.internships.com/computer-science" rel="nofollow">http://www.internships.com/computer-science</a>. I say this because really what you should be doing as a student is doing an internship. If you didn't want to treat it as an internship, and build your own site, you do still need to provide some way for prospective employers to see your school transcript. I think this company provides such a service: <a href="http://www.ellucian.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ellucian.com/</a>. See
<a href="http://www.ellucian.com/News/Ellucian-and-National-Student-Clearinghouse-Alliance-Enables-Cost-Effective-Touch-Free-Electronic-Transcript-Processing-and-Delivery/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ellucian.com/News/Ellucian-and-National-Student-C...</a>. I assume that using their API has a fee, so your students are either going to have to pay to enroll in your service, or you are going to have to have the capital to pay for the API calls.
Hey, I work at Hired and we are adding contract and potentially part-time work into the product. I'd love to meet up (if you are in SF) or hop on the phone. Feel free to reach me at matt.pierce@hired.com to get something scheduled.<p>Cheers,
Apply at <a href="http://www.toptal.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.toptal.com</a> and please say I referred you!<p>You'll have some challenges to solve in order to enter but IMO it's worth it
I would love a site like this! I find consulting through agencies which works but that limits me to what they happen to know about. There are finally some remote-working job sites appearing but they still focus on employment over part time or contracting which is what I prefer.
A service like this would be great. I recently had a spike in expenses due to some home repairs and some part time work would have been great to deal with it.