268

I'm not looking for a full-time job, but if I saw an interesting short-term job that I could finish in a week or maybe a month, I would seriously consider it.

All the ads on Stack Overflow seem to be for full-time, permanent jobs. I would like to see ads for part-time freelance work. Employers would like to show me ads for part-time freelance work. Therefore, I propose that Stack Overflow work something out to bridge the gap. It seems like it could be beneficial for everyone.

27
  • 18
    "All the ads on Stack Overflow seem to be for full-time, permanent jobs." That's because that's pretty much the only jobs that are listed on the Stack Overflow Jobs site. As far as I know, you are subject to being shown ads according to your preferences; you just won't see any if there aren't any listings to advertise. So the real feature request is getting the SO Jobs team to start soliciting these types of opportunities as well.
    – Cody Gray - on strike Mod
    Commented Jul 9, 2017 at 13:26
  • 43
    I think this could be hugely beneficial to the software industry. UpWork is terrible and I don't know anywhere else to quickly outsource mid-size ($1k-10k) tasks to. This would likely require a new product but I can't imagine the dev costs would be too high, especially if payments are handled off-site with a friendly recommendation to pay per-milestone, with tiny milestones required for new participants. Take my money!
    – SB2055
    Commented Jul 9, 2017 at 17:26
  • 26
    Great idea, but for clarity don't call it a "job", call it a "Task", "Work" or a "To do" on a dedicated site such as todo.stackexchange.com or perhaps stackoverflow.com/todo
    – Bohemian Mod
    Commented Jul 9, 2017 at 19:50
  • 25
    @Bohemian huh? your comment doesnt make sense.
    – TylerH
    Commented Jul 10, 2017 at 1:17
  • 6
    It would be nice to see SO create something that pays, but it is rumored part of the motivation of SO founders was to kill off Experts Exchange, which was for-pay Q&A. It would be interesting to see the site evolve into a place where expert Q&A is still free, but give-me-the-damn-codez and do-my-whole-project-for-me-as-I-change-the-question-requirements could be diverted into a for-pay site structured to reduce manipulation or provide escrow/referee-ing. Furthermore, this is a service where SO could collect a fee. I'd pay if it makes me money.
    – Paul
    Commented Jul 10, 2017 at 1:56
  • 7
    I'd love to see something like this, but it would be an entirely new business; it's only tangentially related to the current jobs/careers product. It would also be a constant battle keeping the quality up. All the crappy freelancers you see on upwork would flock to this as well, and so will the customers who are looking for bottom-dollar labor. If anyone could make this model work it'd be SO, but it won't be trivial.
    – briantist
    Commented Jul 10, 2017 at 2:52
  • 11
    @tyler "job" in SO has the definition of "full time employment". The topic of is post is "short term employment" (akin to how you hire a tradesman to do .a specific task). We should name the kind of employment using a different word than "job" to make it clear. Actually, "job" was a questionable choice in the first place, because in IT a job is a discrete unit of work (a la a "job queue"), similar to the work this question is about.
    – Bohemian Mod
    Commented Jul 10, 2017 at 6:25
  • 15
    I think working 8 hours a day is not productive especially for a developer. I'm guessing most developers simply cannot focus for that long of a time. In general I think jobs should be less hours with more efficiency. Jobs on stackoverflow should have a searchable part time or freelance designation.
    – ykay says Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jul 10, 2017 at 8:58
  • 6
    Try looking through a site like FreeLancer.com, and you'll see the problem with this: too many low-quality offers with unreasonable terms, ethical concerns (i.e. students blatantly trying to get someone else to write his/her thesis for money), legal concerns (requests to help write rootkits effectively), etc. Better off keeping to full-time postings with reputable companies.
    – Cloud
    Commented Jul 10, 2017 at 13:10
  • 3
    I'm with @DevNull. I really don't want to see SO getting mixed up in the freelancing world.
    – Nathan Arthur
    Commented Jul 10, 2017 at 13:24
  • 5
    @Bohemian Where is that definition given? A job is a both a full-time, ongoing employment thing and also a single task (see "odd job", task scheduler "jobs", "The Italian Job", etc). There's no confusion in letting SO Jobs have both full-time and contract work.
    – TylerH
    Commented Jul 10, 2017 at 13:51
  • 6
    @NathanArthur I tried using those sites, and it was the same old garbage: $20k for 8 months of work, requests for help with LD_PRELOAD "tools" (i.e. viruses), requests to write entire masters thesis chapters so some criminal can buy a degree from a reputable university. More than half the jobs listed there are actively making the work worse, and pay terrible as well.
    – Cloud
    Commented Jul 10, 2017 at 14:00
  • 3
    @tyler your last comment supports my comment: in general it's not clear what "job" means. However, here at SO it has been used for "full time employment". For clarity I suggest a different word be used for freelance tasks. That's all. If you disagree, I don't particularly care. Time will tell us if this even gets off the ground, and if it does what terms will be chosen (including just reusing "job").
    – Bohemian Mod
    Commented Jul 10, 2017 at 15:19
  • 11
    @Bohemian No, it is clear what a job is. It's a measurement of units of work. Whether the unit of work is 'ongoing' or a finite number is irrelevant; they're both valid. You want a job? You go to SO Jobs. You want a full-time job or career, filter by that. You want contracts only? Filter by that. Interested in both? Don't set a filter. No ambiguity. It's fine if you don't care that you're wrong, but don't go confusing everyone else with diamond-backed incorrect statements.
    – TylerH
    Commented Jul 10, 2017 at 15:32
  • 5
    @SB2055 The two biggest problems I see going that route is: 1) Crummy postings on freelancer sites are the norm, not the exception. 2) This starts to create a motivation to withhold contributions to the site, and instead post "pay me for the answer". Kind of like Experts Exchange, but individuals reap the reward instead of the site owners...... Actually, I wouldn't mind that one bit. Someone posts a terrible question normally worth vote-closing, and I demand $500.00 on the spot to solve his/her 11th hour coding problem. SO can keep 10%.
    – Cloud
    Commented Jul 10, 2017 at 22:30

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
17

After reading the comments above and thinking more about this for the last couple days, let me add a more detailed proposal.

The problem

If Stack Overflow were to add a part-time or freelance jobs/tasks feature, it would need to be much higher quality than the current options on other sites. Specificity, many other sites are bad in the following ways:

  • low quality job postings from employers that don't describe in detail what the job entails
  • unreasonable requirements: asking too much for too little pay
  • requests for help doing unethical or illegal things
  • inability of employers to find truly qualified developers

Four perspectives

Lets look at the needs of the following groups related to this feature request.

Stack Overflow itself

  • needs to maintain a quality site
  • needs to make money

The general Stack Overflow user

  • needs to have free access to browse quality Q&A
  • needs to be able to freely get answers to new questions
  • needs to be able to increase experience and reputation through answering questions

The developer seeking short-term work

  • needs to be able to filter jobs to appropriate tags, pay, and approximate task size
  • needs to be able to understand quickly and clearly the scope and requirements of the task
  • needs to be paid adequately for work done

The employer seeking developers

  • needs to be able to filter applicants to appropriate tags, reputation, and pay
  • needs to be able to understand quickly and clearly an applicant's capacity for the task
  • Needs advertisement and compensation expenses to be viably low

Thoughts for implementation

  • Stack Overflow should make the advertisement fee sufficiently high to keep out very low quality employers and trivial tasks. However, it should not be so high as to prevent, say, week-long tasks.
  • Employers should be required to provide detailed descriptions of the task
  • Only specific tasks should be allowed, not some general call for freelancers.
  • Large jobs should have very specific milestones that are paid when reached. This would allow both the employer and employee to re-evaluate the other's quality.
  • Low quality job postings should be flagable. This could result in employers receiving bans.
  • Low quality applicants who spam employers should be flagable. This could result in applicants receiving bans.
4
  • 15
    "needs to be able to filter applications to appropriate tags, reputation, and pay" - that's exactly where the problems will start. As soon as you couple reputation and quick cash, Q&A will be swarmed by people trying to rep farm in order to gain an edge on the freelancing board.
    – Nathan Arthur
    Commented Jul 11, 2017 at 18:44
  • 5
    I agree with @NathanArthur. Filtering by reputation shouldn't be allowed by employers. Far too often people relate reputation with knowledge/ability, and while there is certainly some correlation, it is better described as a measure of contribution to the SO community. That said, I don't see how that information could be useful to an employer.
    – That1Guy
    Commented Jul 11, 2017 at 21:25
  • 2
    To further emphasize what @NathanArthur is saying: Allowing employers to filter by reputation would add legitimate value (as in monetary value) to SE accounts. I believe we would begin to see users looking to buy/sell accounts with high rep.
    – Ben.12
    Commented Jul 12, 2017 at 15:28
  • 2
    Marketplaces and reputations go hand-in-hand. The reputation doesn't have to be related to SE - it could just be a specialized gigs reputation.
    – SB2055
    Commented Jul 13, 2017 at 15:22
0

I'd suggest that a variant on the bounty system would work well for jobs up to a day or maybe a week.

The employer asks a question stating their requirements, and pays the bounty to StackExchange.

The contractor answers with the solution, or maybe with a description of the solution with a link to code.

If the employer selects an answer, the bounty is awarded.

If not, maybe StackExchange could keep the money, or maybe StackExchange gets a percentage fee and if the employer doesn't award the bounty, it's awarded as bounties normally are when no answer is selected (I forget how that is).

The timeout for awarding the bounty might need to be more than a week.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .