1d ago

How to find small programming related tasks in the USA

Hi all,

I like programming and do a lot of hobby projects. But I don't really do web development, or android, which seems to be what most work are about.

I like making desktop applications, computational projects, etc. i also like problems where I can solve/automate tasks using programming. I have like 100 projects in GitHub now, and I love contributing to open source community. But it sometimes makes me feel like I could be using that time to do things that could make money instead of working on projects that noone will use.

I'm looking for small jobs, independent tasks I could do for minor income. But if it's in python or rust, I am open to a bit larger projects.

13 comments

I would say that you may consider first getting a clearer idea of what you want. For example
You want some side work to generate some income?
You want to explore doing consulting for a living?
You want to find a project, or projects, that you can work on that produce revenue?
From what you wrote I think the fact that you work on so many things may be keeping you from been good at any of them. I recently saw an interview of the founder of Vercel. By the time he was in high school he was already getting job offers because he became know for been good at what he was doing.
I would suggest to try and get clarity on what you want and also remember that this is not a once in a lifetime decision.. you can say "hey I want to try X..." and then after you actually try it realize is not what you wanted and then move to something else; the may takeaway is that trying to do lots of unrelated things likely will not help you achieve your goals.. unless you could use all those contributions in open source as reference when applying to a job.
I don't have any experience with it, but would fiver be along the lines of what you're looking for?
- Fiverr and upwork are the standard starting places, their policies of keeping contractors on the site are rough, the cut they take is rough, and the competition is rough.
  I've had success identifying specific software vendors with functional deficits and targeting customers of that software
  
  I had upwork account since a long time, last time I tried (was a few years back), it just said "we have a lot of people with your skill, so no" lol
- Thank you. I looked into it. I did make a profile, let's see how it goes.
Open Source bounties would be an option. There are a few platforms out there for finding such opportunities.
- Thank you, something like this would work well, if they are small tasks that help the main contributor because they don't have the time. I do have experience working on those for free :D
  I don't know about the big examples like the one in wiki though
Any local business around you? They have plenty of book keeping and processes that could probably use some tooling.
Don’t have much to offer beyond that. The competition pool for small ones offs grows when trying to get online sourced work.
- I feel like there should be something like that for sure. But I don't really know how to find it or convince people to hire me for a problem they don't know they have. It's be great if I knew owners personally, but I'm not really outgoing type (who reason I got good with programming lol)
Not that good a thing to be doing as each such project potentially balloons into drama, dealing with each new client and their often confused or inexperienced expectations will be its own hassle, etc. Working full time or having a few long term clients is a lot better, as is getting leads through people you know if you have some special expertise in something.
I've heard people suggest looking for bug bounties. I haven't tried that myself so I'm just relaying the suggestion.
Front-end web stuff is its own circle of hell but back-end is just like any other programming, so you could look for that.
I mentioned the "freelancer" HN thread a while back, but it's mostly people looking for work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44434575
I'm almost wondering if I wrote this because it sounds a lot like me. I made a pitch for doing light (to us) coding for several other people last week. I also talked about automation. It's something I really want to do because I like working on many small projects (I literally said I have at least 100 repos on gitlab) rather than monolithic ones. We'll see if they bite. They are going to get back to me tomorrow.
Here's my advice. Keep doing what you are doing. Work on small projects. But for employment, most people want specialists. They aren't going to take you on for one small project for you to just move to something else. Or let you hop between other things within their organization unproven. People are afraid of generalists because there is no way to know if you are just ok at one thing or generally helpful at many things. Why should they take your word for it? Specialization is how they can tell if you are excellent.
You need to pick one thing and get VERY good at it. Better than the average specialist. This doesn't need to be programming, in fact it is probably easier if it isn't. I'm a teacher. By becoming a good specialist at something, in my case teaching, you show you are capable of being great at at least one thing, and it gives you a broad understanding of the organization and then you can make a pitch.
A pitch is something you need to figure out for yourself. You need to convince them your value is addressing the needs of other specialists. Very specifically. You need to be conversational in all of their projects and this takes a lot of people skills.
TLDR: Pick a singular career to support yourself first. If you want your job to be to dabble, be excellent at your job, then prove your real talent is horizontal not vertical
- I do have a career, I am a specialist of (kinda) GIS and data analysis related to hydrology. I'm currently on the path to complete my PhD within the next year. I have been really successful at pitching my programming ideas on non-programming domain. Solve problems for clients, make applications/algorithms that can outperform what they had before. It does sometimes make me feel like I'm a bit too wide on my skillsets related to others in my field, but at least in my immediate circles, I am still as good in the core aspects of my field. But there are so many people that are better specialist than me if I search around.
  But now, due to the current climate, and situation in the USA, I have been thinking I might have to move to another country before I finish PhD, and I might not be able to find a job in another country immediately, so I'm thinking of finding some small gigs I could do for some side income.
  
  Have you reached out to anyone in softwareunderground? I'm sure someone has some industry connections. Even if it isn't hydrology, it's field adjacent and good networking

13 comments