uTask – hire a freelance coder

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#1

I’ve been working in freelance software development for over 10 years… on both sides of the table. I’ve hired coders and I’ve been a coder, myself. In December 2016, I even wrote a book called The Software Engineer’s Guide to Freelance Consulting. Throughout the years, I noticed that the most reliable way to hire someone good was to hire them for a small task and then if they over-delivered in terms of communication and code quality, then hire them for increasingly larger projects.

I took this vision and concept and unrolled it into a website, uTask.

I’ve been driving traffic to the webpage and I’m finding that most of the people who post reasonable assignments are having tremendous success finding a coder. However, I’m having trouble clicking in with the user base of people who are nontechnical. My latest ‘epiphany’ is to split the user interface for posting a new task into two interfaces: one for people who are technical and one for people who are not. But, I don’t know how to design the interface for nontechnical people… e.g. how to guide them through the inputs.

For example, should I ask them to post ‘user stories’ for how someone would interact with their app? Should I ask them about their business…? Or if they’re an entrepreneur, about their product and market hypothesis?

Let me know if I’m explaining this problem clearly. I have a lot to learn about this market…

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#2

Hello, what is URL of your website?

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#3

https://codefor.cash

https://codefor.cash/utask

#4

May I ask you, why you encrypt the address of the service you created and, obviously, would like people to know about?

#5

Do you see any patterns in the types of challenges your non-technical users are having?

For now, maybe the non-technical user interface is a phone call with you. You can use the call as a “done for you” service which you can delegate or ditch after you figure out an automated approach.

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#6

There is a psychological phenomenon where things that people have to work harder to interpret end up being more memorable, but that’s definitely not the angle I’m going for.

I don’t mean to encrypt anything. The forum software is preventing me from sharing the link in an easy to use way. I know they have this an anti-spam technique, but it’s like CAPTCHA: ultimately annoying.

#7

phone call can be combined with remote desktop session

#8

@DeleTaylor @startrinity

Yes, this is a good idea. What I could do is: after someone posts their task, I could send them a Calendly link to schedule a call to talk about the best practices for completing their project. I could also update the user interface for “post a task” in order to have a button for scheduling a phone call. Thanks

#9

We don’t get any posts from non-technical users unfortunately. All of the tasks that get posted end up being tasks that technical people delegate to fellow technical people.

#10

I added the URLs! Apparently I’ve generated enough karma to add links to posts.

#11

I have used odesk.com/upwork.com for a long time. I see that your website is missing some important features that I appreciated:
here https://yo.utask.org/u/gunn I’d like to see more details about developer’s experience. Is this profile not complete? Also I liked financial information that upwork gives (developer’s current rate per hour, his past rates per hour, amounts he earned previously for fixed-price projects).

I checked more developers on your website and I don’t see information about their experience. Just an attached CV doc file would help

#12

one more idea is to make a search over multiple websites like upwork. same thing as what https://www.trivago.co.uk/ did for searching hotels

#13

Hey @utask I am actually just creating an upwork job posting for one and I’m non-technical.

In fact, I came here to see where might be another place to find developers besides Upwork and saw your thread.

Perhaps I’m the ideal person to help solve your roadmap? And you can help me find a developer ha.

Let me know.

PS. Site looks great

#14

Hey Kelvin, this is precisely the use case we’re looking for. I’d love to find you a developer. Could you describe your project here please?

https://i.codefor.cash/new_utask

Once you post, I will follow up with you via email to help you with the process!

#15

We currently search over 50 freelance programming jobs sites, so in that way we are like Trivago. [1]

In terms of finding a developer, there’s usually enough talent directly within the community so we don’t need to cross-post elsewhere. However, rarely, there is not enough response to a job posting. In that case, we post to Craigslist, other freelancing sites, reddit, IRC, mailing lists, social media, and so forth.

[1] Adzuna, AuthenticJobs, Behance, Beincrypto, Betalist, Career Builder, Careerjet, CommerceHero, Craigslist, Cybercoders, Dribbble, Drupal, FreelancerMap, GenuineJobs, Goremote, Indeed, JobMote, Jobisjob, Jobspresso, Kijiji, LaraJobs, Latitude.work, News.YC, NoFluffJobs, Randstad, Reddit, Reed, Relocate, RemoteFriendlyWork, RemoteOK, Robert Half, RubyNow, Rubyjobs, SimplyHired, SmashingMagazine, StackOverflow, TopRubyJobs, Unicorn Hunt, WFH, WPHired, WeLoveAngular, WeWorkRemotely, WordPress, WorkInStartups, iHub, With new markets being added all the time…

#16

Hey Sergey, thanks for the feedback. You offer a very clear action item, make sure the developer profile contains a CV or resume. This is something that multiple people have asked for. I will definitely prioritize adding this to the interface. Thank you!

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