Hi guys,
I am looking for a freelancing website where I could do work.
I have signed up for Upwork, but my profile keeps getting declined. I am still trying to find the reason of the problem but in the meantime it’s always good to have Plan B.
Freelancer.com has too much competition and you can get easily underpriced.
Is there an alternative site where I could do the work?
Thanks!
Uh, this site.
You are likely to often use “gentleman agreements”, though since unity doesn’t have an escrow service, but it is possible to get contracts here.
I mostly used vworker in the past, but it is now gone (has been gobbled up by upwork).
Also, do not try to undercut the competition. The better idea is to stick with price you find just, rather than fighting hordes of “will for for a month for $5!” programmers.
@elmar1028
@neginfinity is right, stick to your price. Those “hordes” of cheap programmers often produce bad results, which teach future clients that cheap != quality, and they will skip those guys later. Because no one who respect his own time and experience, isn’t going to work for low price.
In my case i often refuse clients for bad expectations and show them this picture. He can choose only two options…
Thank you guys for replies!
However, note that freelancers from countries like India can afford to be paid less than those who live in UK or US because their cost of living is lower and so the quality may not differ at all, which is what worries me.
I have applied for Freelancer as well and see what’s gonna happen but in the meantime I would need to know alternatives!
My friend keeps telling me to check out r/gamedevclassifieds on reddit.
It is pretty legit tbh. Not a whole lot of programming jobs though.
It is true, however the reason why people from countries with lower income try freelancing is because they want salary they wouldn’t be able to get (easily) in their local region.
A freelancer from a country with lower income may aim at, say 2x or 4x time of regional average or simply at an equivalent of a local really good salary. Meaning… a skilled indian programmer will not be asking for an indian salary online. They can get it in their region by a normal job.
So, it means that when you see someone asking for an extremely low payment, they’re may be new to it (and are building a portfolio), and they’re very likely to be not very competent. Someone who got burned by a cheap contractor is very likely to avoid them in the future. So, bidding too low, will reclassify you as a “cheap programmer”, and legit clients may get suspicious about your rates even if you are meaning well.
The main problem with low rates is that not getting paid enough negatively affects your mood, which increases chances of a mess up and may get you depressed, which may also impact your health. Juust don’t do it.
The problem with this picture is that somewhere on the web there’s a guy (or a girl) that qualifies for all three factors at once, yet can’t get any clients because nobody believes that he or she is real.
surprised no one suggested https://connect.unity.com/
Connect seems to have a lot of people on there… over 60,000 people in fact when I just checked. But I’m not sure how you can actually find anything. I went just to browse around and see what kind of services people were offering and never did find anything other than a search box and searching for this and that didn’t bring back much.
It sure seems like a lot of people like it but I find the forum to be way easier to work with. Just click over and browse or post a new thread. Hard to get any simpler than that.
Connect seems to be all mixed up with some kind of ‘Project showcase’, not to mention that everyone’s profiles follow an extremely similar, highly uninformative ‘insta-format’.
I like the idea, but I’m not surprised that it’s not getting the job done, the way it is now.
I get about 3-5 emails every time I post programmer for hire on r/gameDevClassifieds.
Only 1 or 2 of those at most will be solid leads. But at least it’s consistent.
If may have some bad news if you’re relying on that.
“The Commercial: Jobs, Commercial: Job Seekers, and Non-Commercial Collaboration. subforums will be closed to new posts beginning on October 31st. Until that time we recommend users cross-post any existing job seeking, hiring, and seeking collaborator threads on Unity Connect.”
Here’s hoping Connect gets more usable.
I heard that someplace around here about the forums going away in a month. I don’t really use them anymore (already have several artists contact info in email from previous work) or even Unity for that matter. I just hang around here for the discussions. Just checked it out because I’ve seen it mentioned a few times now.
In time I’m sure Connect will be an awesome thing just take a few iterations to get there. 
This is 100% true. In my branch (3D artist) i often competed against people from India. When i see very low bids, i go and click on their portfolio. It is usually very bad portfolio, and they also have very bad ratings (on platforms like Upwork and freelancer, where clients can rate you). But i also know some extremely good 3D artist from India. I don’t know their rates, since they don’t need to use upwork and similiar, people come to them. One of them like to travel a lot. Europe, Asia, etc. Very expensive places and he can stay long time there. He is making some good money when he can afford it. So, he cant be cheep.
To become good it takes time. When time pass, if you are good you are going to realize it very quickly by number of clients contacting you for work, and by rates they are willing to pay you. So i will say without many doubt, if you are good you are going to charge accordingly, regardless of place where you live… There is only one “loophole”. If you are lucky to find someone dedicated and talented, who yet didn’t realized his/her potential. But there is very narrow window of opportunity to find such people, between those who work bad, and those who are good but charge accordingly. Cause they will realize how good they are soon (if they truly are good).
The only difference between those who live in cheep countries and expensive, but with same level of quality will not be rates. It will be what you will do with money. In cheep country like India, if you make several K $ a month, you will have nice savings very fast. Therefore, depending on what type of person are you, and what are your ambitions, you will either save to invest in your business, or you will have more free time to spend for fun and travel.
That being said, there is another factor to consider. If you can live good upper middle class life with, say 1500$ a month in India, your incentive to push yourself more to improve on all aspects is (in general, but again, depends on your personality and ambition), but in general it is much lower then someone who have same type of quality but live in US. 1500$ a month is barely above poverty line in most of US as i understand. So, if you want to have family and to improve your situation, you will have much higher incentive to push yourself more then those in India… Therefore, higher quality, dedication to work, professionalism etc can be expected in general from people who live in highly developed countries. This is just the way it is.
Well, as they say “it too shall pass”.
If forums go away, and connect isn’t a suitable replacement, it’ll be time to start looking for a different place for seeking contracts.
If anything, the thread made me wonder if I should team up with someone for purposes of freelancing work.
I don’t see how that’s a problem. If they’re fast and good then they don’t need to be cheap, and shouldn’t be under-selling themselves anyway.
BTW, have anyone passed the Unity test in upwork? I failed miserably at the first quarter of question 
(means that there are about (cmiiw) 100 or so questions and at 25th question my mark are so bad that I got rejected…
OTOH, I got top 20% on Game programming concept test ;), but yeah, they still reject my profile…
The problem is when the girl/guy in question doesn’t yet know they’re good, can’t get the clients because they’re cheap, so they’ll have a strong reason to give up and become a carpenter instead.
Meanwhile people on the forums complain how they paid few thousands USD upfront to an unverified contractor, patiently waited for a year while no work was done, and because of that all freelancers should not be trusted, ever.
Unless something changed there, I’m considering avoiding upwork completely. Their desktop app takes your photos, screenshots of your desktop and monitors your keyboard usage to prove the employer that you’re there.
I’m not willing to put up with this level of distrust and bullshit at the moment.
I’ve heard of this kind of thing before. It has to be for some kind of hourly contract employee arrangement, right? Otherwise it makes no sense at all. When I did contract work (and the people I hired to do contract work for me) the person just does the work or does not do the work. Hit the milestones or do not hit the milestones. That is all that matters. All the information the employer needs is right there. Nobody cared when someone was actually doing that work because it was irrelevant.
Just seems very weird to me all around. I get what they are trying to solve by doing this but I don’t think it is the answer. Like you, this kind of micromanagement would drive me nuts. I’ve always pushed back against it even as an employee in companies. IMO there is no need for it and makes it pretty obvious the manager, etc is just a control freak with some major trust issues. And who wants to work for someone like that?