[HN Gopher] Show HN: Side Quest - An aggregator for not full-tim... ___________________________________________________________________ Show HN: Side Quest - An aggregator for not full-time tech jobs Author : ryry Score : 265 points Date : 2021-07-06 14:59 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (sidequestjobs.com) (TXT) w3m dump (sidequestjobs.com) | jokethrowaway wrote: | Great idea! | | I feel like there is a gap in the market for experiences | engineers who want to work for good rates on well defined | projects and occasionally (less than 1 month) and don't bother | with client management. | | I've seen some people charge good hourly rates on Upwork but from | talking to them there is a lot of friction / time spent in | managing clients, chasing payments, filtering out all the low | paid jobs. | | It would be nice to have a platform that does product / client | management for you and just use you for your coding skills. | ryry wrote: | Yeah I actually built this after having a bit of frustration | trying out freelancing platforms. What surprised me is as a | freelancer, on some of them, I have to pay to apply to gigs. I | mean I get it, but it still doesn't seem right. | conjectures wrote: | +1 Just for the name. Side quest is exactly what such a thing | should be called. | ryry wrote: | Thanks! I play a little too much wow during the pandemic. | ourcat wrote: | Hmm.. It'a already the name of quite a popular side-loading | app/store for VR games. https://sidequestvr.com/ | andyroid wrote: | Yeah. It's also used in some RPG games to denote quests which | are done independently of the main quest. | anoncake wrote: | Pretty sure that's the origin. | nitrogen wrote: | It's a pretty generic term, though. | ryry wrote: | I saw this, but not until after I had purchased the domain. I | always get too excited and commit before researching. | takenpilot wrote: | Useful. Bookmarking to watch. | gumbo wrote: | The toggles filters are driving me nuts, as it stands, it unclear | what the checked state is. One would assume that when the | "handle" is on the right side, however, the color coding suggest | otherwise. Congrats on your launch. | the_lonely_road wrote: | I wish you the best of luck and will be keeping a bookmark to | check back frequently. I would love some part time work but | having done the consultant grind for a long time I'm just | exhausted by the process of finding it. I would love a | marketplace I could keep tabs on and pick things up when they | make since. | ryry wrote: | Thanks! And I feel you. Occasionally I've wanted to pick up | some stuff part-time for some extra cash and finding it is few | and far between. | | I created a mail-chimp subscription which I'll get up and | running as soon as I figure out how, but anyone can sign up | now. | | I'm hoping to get a ton more filters though so people can only | get notified about positions that actually interest them. | ashdev wrote: | I really like the name. It immediately reminded of the side | quests in RPG games to get more experience. And this is exactly | that. Good job. | MikusR wrote: | Not to be confused with 1st google result for "side quest": | https://sidequestvr.com/ | sanmak wrote: | Great idea mate! Kudos for building this! | mandelbrotwurst wrote: | Thanks for making this! Would you mind sharing what sources this | looks at, or are you keeping that proprietary? | ryry wrote: | A few I'd like to keep to myself, but if you poke around it's | obviously no secret that stack overflow contributes a fair bit. | | The code is some frankenstein monster of a few failed projects | I've created over the years, but so far it's doing its job! | dang wrote: | If you're using HN Who Is Hiring threads as a source at all, | we ask people to link back to the original posts when they do | that. | | I feel like that's a good and fair practice in general when | copying content on the web, but obviously what you do with | other sources is between you and them. | tomcam wrote: | Love this idea. I just went through a painful search for someone | and finally found a good match (I think), but it would've been | fantastic to have this a few weeks ago. I look forward to trying | it out sometime | prawn wrote: | Always thought that someone should do something like this but for | part-time marketing/comms/content jobs. I'm sure there are men in | the following position too, but in my circles there are loads of | 30-40yo women returning to work after maternity leave and looking | for 2-3 days/week, often in marketing and related jobs. | | On the other side of the coin, there'd be a lot of small | businesses sick of paying an agency but unable to justify a full- | time role. Great match, IMO. | ryry wrote: | I suspect a fair few of the short to long-term contract | positions I see advertised are to cover someone's parental | leave. | | Content though definitely. I tend to see more short-term/part- | time content creation positions than I do eng ones. | the_lonely_road wrote: | This rarely works in fields where they hire full time salary | employees. The reason being that the part time employee is | still very expensive in a lot of fixed 'per employee' cost | areas like hardware and licenses combined with the fact that | the full time salary person is supposed to be available to get | the job done even it that involves some overtime or just off | hours work, things part time people are notorious for being | unable to do (the reason they wanted part time in the first | place, they are unavailable). | | This really narrows the scope of what employers are willing to | hire part time for. Contractors are usually called instead. | IshKebab wrote: | I think hardware and licenses are minimal costs in most | businesses. Desk space is probably more. But I think even | that isn't the real reason businesses like full time. It's | probably cultural, not wanting to have to hire loads of | people, and the difficulty of splitting some jobs between | multiple people. | uranium wrote: | It's worked for me for the past 10 years, part-time in | engineering at Google, Makani, and Elemeno Health. Not | wanting or being able to work a lot of hours doesn't | necessarily mean not being flexible on hours. I've known a | number of other part-time people at e.g. Google, and they | were generally people I'd trust to get stuff done. Often | they're time-management _masters_ , due to necessity. | | Sure, there's more overhead per working hour. But there's | also more mulling-things-over-in-the-shower time per working | hour, so for creative work, one can be a lot more effective | than you'd think. I also get more sleep and do all my | appointments and errands in non-working hours, which improves | my duty cycle and performance. | prawn wrote: | I'm talking small business. Hardware would be employee's own | laptop. Software in those fields would be a pittance. | | If I was a bastard who wanted value for money, I'd hire those | part-time mums. From what I've seen, they end up feeling | obliged to work out of hours, so you'd effectively get 0.8 | FTE while paying for 0.4-0.6. Roles like social media or | content writing with scheduling involved instantly creeps | into days off. Horrible approach from an employer, but like I | said, if I was a bastard. | stevesearer wrote: | On the flip side, if you want the best part-time moms, pay | well, supply the hardware, and be very flexible with when | work hours happen. | xondono wrote: | This type of site is what always has me considering moving "up" | in the stack. | | Remote work on either hardware or systems level programming | (embedded) is almost non existent. Remote and not full-time is | even rarer. | jlokier wrote: | > Remote work on either hardware or systems level programming | (embedded) is almost non existent. Remote and not full-time is | even rarer. | | The trick is to do such things as your own business, i.e. | freelancing or consulting (t's all in how you present it), | doing projects for clients. | | This can definitely work for hardware and systems level | programming. | | Then you set your own schedule and your own rules, and clients | don't even expect you to come to their office. They expect you | to have your own, and the "home office" engineering consultant | is quite common. | protomok wrote: | SaaS could be a good transition, there are quite a few SaaS | shops using C++ for example. Or possibly backend if you're | willing to do some cloud based side projects. | | Embedded is a lot of fun but IMHO there is more opportunity and | compensation up the stack. | diyseguy wrote: | part-time tech work sounds like a good idea, but it seems to me | most serious tech jobs can't be done part time | ryry wrote: | It's definitely not the norm, but I'm willing to bet it'll | become more common especially after the pandemic. | | That said - it's not just part-time jobs I'm curating, but | full-time contract positions too! | jjice wrote: | Love the concept. I'm fresh out of college, so I'm more than | happy with full time work at the moment, but I'm definitely | hoping to FIRE (or more like FIPT) within 10 or so years if | things go well. Working 20 hours a week sounds fantastic. Enough | to give me something to do on a regular basis, but also enough to | let me do whatever I want to do, whether that be freelance | development, or a new hobby. | ryry wrote: | Best of luck! I spent most of my twenties using all the cash I | had on travelling. I don't regret it at all, but some of my | friends showed me their retirement accounts recently and I'm | definitely a little concerned. | | I'd love if North America would get behind the 4 day work week. | I might even make a category for employers offering that. | tppiotrowski wrote: | I worked for a company once that was very remote friendly. You | could disappear for a month and then pop into Slack and ask, | what's next in the issues queue? Then work on issues for however | long you wanted, billed hourly at a generous rate. Several times | I disappeared for weeks to travel and climb and was always | welcomed back. | | That company was minting money and wasn't worried about | deadlines. I wish more work was structured this way. | rrggnnlldd wrote: | Wow that sounds great. Were you be able to charge overtime? | | And since you said "worked", what made you decide to stop | popping back to the issues queue at this particular org? | tppiotrowski wrote: | I never hit 40 hours a week. Thirty seemed like a good | balance between work/life. Eventually, working on a CRUD app | didn't peak my interest anymore and I moved onto some other | projects. Company was sold a few years later. | mrkurt wrote: | How did you track your time? I kind of love this idea but | time tracking is a pain in the ass. Seems like maybe you | could use "day" or "half day" granularity? | JoshTriplett wrote: | What was the company? | tppiotrowski wrote: | It was a crypto exchange during a BTC boom period (2016-2017) | vsareto wrote: | Oh good lord, just when I think I've found the perfect job, you | have to go and shatter my comfortable illusions! | tppiotrowski wrote: | There is greener grass to be found everywhere. It tends to | wilt once you find it. | ryry wrote: | Hey all! | | I recently had some personal stuff which made it necessary for me | to cut back on the hourly commitment I could make to work, but | found it difficult to find contract, part-time, freelance | (anything not full-time) jobs through traditional means, so I | built sidequestjobs. | | It's an aggregator, so it gets jobs from various sources and | curates them into part time, freelance, or contract based | positions. I'm hoping to add more sources over the next coming | weeks, but I wanted to post it to get some feedback now. | | Thanks for checking it out! | endlessvoid94 wrote: | This is such a great idea. | ryry wrote: | Thanks! If you have any feedback on what to change/add/remove | I'm happy to hear it! | mtm112 wrote: | I'd probably add geographic filters to the front page if you | can - I'm guessing a bulk of the positions are remote, but | not everyone may have the ability to hire or manage | intercontinentally even in that case. | BoysenberryPi wrote: | This is very timely for me so thanks for making it. Looking to | cut back on my work hours and would like to find something part- | time. | ryry wrote: | I think there's a fair few of us looking to do the same. The | pandemic caused a huge shift in how I approach everything in | life. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | Looks pretty cool. | | Also looks like a lot of companies are using it to find FT | employees. | | If so, you are saving them a lot of money on recruiter fees. | | Good job! | blacktriangle wrote: | Makes sense. Interviewing is a dumpsterfire. The only reliable | way I've ever seen hiring work is to actually work with | somebody on a project while paying them a fair market rate. | Anything that faciliates that type of relationship, like for | example having a bunch of developers working non-full time is | the closest thing to an answer for hiring there is. | runawaybottle wrote: | Interesting, I didn't know big companies like eBay would actually | consider a part time employee. Do they really mean that, or are | they signaling they seek an intern/student? | | The availability of part time work always felt like a package | that included a tiny shop, cheap clients, and insane amount of | cheap international labor competition, and only available through | platforms that promote all three things (upwork, etc). | ryry wrote: | I've got a feeling some of the posts that do mention "part- | time" are just signalling, which is why I have a ton of them | marked "part-time possible" instead of just part-time. | | If you have any better classification ideas I'm open to hearing | them too! | BoxOfRain wrote: | I'll definitely keep an eye on this! Much appreciated. | dreyfan wrote: | Full-time remote jobs don't require a full-time commitment | the_lonely_road wrote: | A lot of us have integrity. We would like part time work but | are not willing to lie and steal from our employer to get it. | dreyfan wrote: | Employers are generally paying for your output not the hours | spent. | readonthegoapp wrote: | I doubt that this is true. | | And I'm not sure workers would want it to be true. | | We know about the warehouse bots hounding humans into | subservience/defeat. | | I'm guessing the other bots are right behind -- just not | quite as popular yet. | [deleted] | anoncake wrote: | That would be awful considering how hard it is to measure a | developer's output. | codegeek wrote: | Depends on the job. If you are in customer support, I don't | want you to be working for another company and switch back | and forth if you are full time employee. I want you | focussed 100% on my company and hence you are paid as a | full time employee. | | Also, legally you are bound to work for a company according | to contracts. I don't want you working for another company | on the company's time. It introduces potential liability | and risks especially if you are remote. | dreyfan wrote: | This is HN. It's a bunch of entitled mediocre programmers | copy-pasting from stack overflow or automating the | process via copilot. We're not talking about your average | wage slave. | jlokier wrote: | > Also, legally you are bound to work for a company | according to contracts. I don't want you working for | another company on the company's time. It introduces | potential liability and risks especially if you are | remote. | | Just on this point, what you say is common but it's not | universal. A lot depends on the type of contract. | | I'm working full time at the moment. Yet my contract is | structured to allow me to work on other companies' work | if I want. And I control my time. It's quite explicit. | | That clarity has a real positive payoff for both me and | the company I'm working for. I'm more enthusiastic about | the work in large part because this arrangement is | compatible with me keeping open several research projects | on ths side, and I'm confident if they lead anywhere, | there isn't a conflict - and that the company people | recognise this. | | They wouldn't want me not working on the company's | projects or not acting as a responsible person. But the | whole attitude is to assume I am and support that in an | adult-to-adult way. I really like that I feel we could | talk freely about outside business interests at work. | | It helps a lot that this is a mission-oriented open | source company. | | TL;DR it does depend on the job, but it's not an | inevitable fact that remote work contracts bind a | person's time exclusively, even during hours worked. | ryry wrote: | True enough, but a fair few require at least some commitment | every day. For some that's not as easy of a commitment to make, | but I totally see your point. | codingdave wrote: | Sure they do - even if the workload does not demand that I sit | in my chair in front of my screen all day, I do need to be | committed to be available. If a project hits a crunch, or some | crisis arises, and I say that I'm too busy with other | commitments to do my job, that is a major problem. | Sanguinaire wrote: | They shouldn't, but it's clear we're not at that stage of | societal development quite yet. | jrsj wrote: | I could quite easily do 2 full time jobs simultaneously except | that it would be impossible to get them not to schedule | overlapping meetings. Wish I had a reliable way around that | because I'd love to get paid twice as much for working maybe | 50% more since I typically have a decent amount of idle time | within a 9-5 | soco wrote: | Congratulations, I love it! To me it would be very valuable to | have a filter on location requirements - if you have such | information available of course. Like, who needs office presence | (and where), who is okay part-time, who is offering full | remote... but once again, great thing! | ryry wrote: | Great idea. I'll get on this. Thanks! | rexyg wrote: | Fantastic name | sepbot wrote: | I wish recruitment platforms would start classifying the level of | remoteness instead of a blanket remote allowed statement. | | These days remote often means work from home due to COVID in the | time zone of the physical office. Presumably won't be remote | forever. | | Remote used to mean people would be working asynchronously, and | it didn't matter where you were physically situated and what | hours of the day you were online. Obviously this only tends to | work for places that are results driven as opposed to ones that | care about the number of hours you put in. | gota wrote: | Good point. I imagine there must be ongoing research to define | the most relevant (frequent, desirable) "classes" of remote | work. | | If there's isn't, then large moderated communities like HN and | Stackoverflow are in an unique position to survey folks and | help define these classes. If the "Who's Hiring" threads here | adopted a "remote work classification" catalogue, I think it'd | catch on easily | GekkePrutser wrote: | Lol I thought that this was a spinoff of the sidequest app for | the oculus quest (which is kind of an app store - really the main | none for unofficial content). | | Even though the name is very well chosen, expect this confusion | to come up more... | ryry wrote: | Yep definitely. I'm thinking I'll brand it specifically as | "Side Quest Jobs", and hopefully that'll create enough | differentiation. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-07-06 23:00 UTC)