DEV Community: Taylor Veino

Sam Lessin: co-Founder and co-CEO of Fin

Taylor Veino — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 16:12:16 +0000

Sam Lessin is the co-founder and co-CEO of Fin. He also invests in tech startups through Slow Ventures, where he is a partner and early investor in companies like Venmo and Masterclass. Previously, he was a Vice President of Product Management at Facebook until 2014, where he managed several product groups.

In this episode, Teja Yenamandra, CEO of Gun.io talks to Sam about his journey from the VP of Product Management at Facebook to coding boot camp, his "human in the loop" approach at Fin, and the dirty secret about all CEOs.

Sam Lessin

The Frontier Podcast

Your browser does not support the audio element.

1x initializing... ×

How To Become A Software Architect

Taylor Veino — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 18:31:01 +0000

Cal Evans, Developer Evangelist at Gun.io, sat down with Keith Casey to discuss what it takes to become a Software Architect and how to make a career change into architecture.

Keith most recently worked on the Product Team at Okta. Previously, he served as an early Developer Evangelist at Twilio and worked on the Ultimate Geek Question at the Library of Congress.

Keith walks us through his own experience of transitioning to a new career from security to architecture and why everyone isn't fit for the role. We've broken down all of the key takeaways from the conversation here.

How To Improve Public Speaking For Developers

Taylor Veino — Wed, 25 Aug 2021 19:29:47 +0000

Cal Evans, Developer Evangelist at Gun.io, and Josh Holmes, Principal Dev Lead at Microsoft share their 20+ years of public speaking experience in the technology space. This conversation is a masterclass in how to improve your public speaking skills as a software developer, level-up your career, and make an impact in the technology industry.

We've shared the full version for you, but you can find the key takeaways for the best public speaking practices and resources that have worked for Cal and Josh here.

5 Use Cases for Freelancing Platforms: From Real Developer Stories

Taylor Veino — Mon, 26 Jul 2021 16:32:44 +0000

Whether you’re hesitant to make the jump from salaried to contract work, or you’re just having trouble navigating your freelancing practice, going it alone can be overwhelming. The list of pros and cons can be a long and jumbled mess that just leads to more problems to solve and options to weigh. Whatever your pain point is, it helps to see how others in your shoes have found success as independent software professionals.

We asked a handful of Gun.io developers a little bit about how they got into technology, where they were in their career when they joined Gun.io, and why they chose to use a freelancing platform.

Level up an existing freelance practice

The blocker: A self-taught programmer was spending more time on admin and client acquisition tasks than on their projects or with their family.

The goal: Gain support in managing and finding quality clients, outside of the ones they had acquired through social media and Linkedin recruiters.

The outcome: After joining Gun.io, they’re engaged on a full-time basis and are free to focus on their work and balance their personal life at the same time—all while the platform handles client relationships.

Get paid what you’re worth

The blocker: A computer science major had been working in a W2 on-site role, using contract work to supplement their income with an interest in freelancing full-time. They averaged less than 3 freelance engagements per year, all with local clients they acquired through word-of-mouth.

The goal: Acquire clients through more streamlined channels to sufficiently fill their pipeline with work in more competitive markets to freelance full-time.

The outcome: After joining Gun.io and setting their own rate—rather than a rate that was constrained by their local market—they started work on a full-time contract engagement with a client outside of their timezone, significantly increasing their income.

Spend less time vetting clients

The blocker: A self-taught programmer had been freelancing for 5+ years on their own and with a platform, but struggled to engage quality clients they acquired through browsing other freelance platforms and networking on LinkedIn.

The goal: Proactively verify a client’s quality prior to accepting a project to mitigate late payments, poor team fit, and unclear expectations.

The outcome: After joining Gun.io, they’re able to fill their pipeline with pre-vetted clients and offload the additional lift of ensuring timely payment, facilitating communication, and establishing contract details with clients.

Interested in putting these use cases to the test? Learn more about working with our platform.

Should you use a freelancing platform? (A slightly biased take)

Taylor Veino — Fri, 23 Jul 2021 16:54:54 +0000

If you’re reading this, you’re either thinking about un-hitching your wagon from an organization to fly solo or trying to maximize the success of your freelancing practice with the help of a platform. Either way, deciding how to freelance can be overwhelming.

Despite being a “middleman” ourselves, we know that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to this decision. In some cases, we don’t recommend using a freelancing platform at all. After working with several hundred freelance developers over the last eight years, we’ve developed a unique perspective on building a freelance practice that is right for you, middleman or not.

TL;DR- We’ve worked (and well, not worked) with thousands of freelancers over the years. In this post, we’ll answer the two most useful questions people ask when considering a freelancing platform. Our goal for this post is to help you determine if a freelancing platform is right for you and if so, to join Gun.io :-)

Do you mind selling, paying accounts receivable, account management, and other critical functions?

Love it
If you’re excited about wearing more hats than the students of Hogwarts on sorting day and want to have a hand in every aspect of your business, using a platform to freelance probably isn’t for you because that’s their purpose– to do that work for you. Having control of your operations allows you to avoid any commission fees, or wondering what stage your application is in when a platform is handling the hiring process with a client. It also means you have to chase your own clients down to get late invoices paid up, rather than having a platform pay you automatically.

Sort of
Thanks to the explosion of remote work in recent years, “sort of” is technically an option since there are countless financial and administrative resources to handle billing and other critical tasks when working on your own like Jira and Quickbooks. That still leaves the most time-intensive tasks: selling and account management. There is no 3rd party software to deal with misunderstandings, problems with a client, or selling your services; that job is reserved for humans. Plus, late payments or bill disputes can make client relationships awkward. If you’re not up for either, it’s time to consider using a platform to help you bring in work and maintain relationships with clients.

I don’t want to do any of those things
Then your decision is simple. Most freelancers use a platform because they have no interest in doing the additional work required for their freelancing practice, or they’ve spent too much time on it in the past. On our platform, we help you manage every engagement you work on by facilitating communication with clients, tracking hours, handling billing, and making sure you get paid on time, so you don’t have to chase down clients and can focus on the role you were hired to do. It’s important to note that being intentional in knowing a platform’s commission fee compared to standard market rates is key to ensuring that you’re being paid fairly by the platform. On Gun.io, you get paid your full rate, and our fees are charged to the client—so no freelancer fees here.

How do you want to split your time between projects and client acquisition/vetting?

Client acquisition, I have inbounds for days
If you’re already set up with an existing pool of quality clients or your DM’s are overflowing with some serious inbound leads that need your attention, using a platform for lead generation probably doesn’t make sense.

50/50
We get it, you want to have your cake and eat it too. From the developers we’ve talked to, client acquisition is more time-intensive than they realized it would be, and finding quality clients is a whole other beast. We’re not saying it’s impossible, but we are saying it’s difficult, especially if you’re planning on freelancing full-time. A full-time development workload leaves little room for cold calling and emails, nurturing leads, and verifying quality while also keeping your existing clients happy.

Projects only
You’re all business, we like it. Luckily, working with a platform allows you to focus all your time on projects without sacrificing the quality of clients you work with. On our platform, we standardize the quality of engagements by vetting every client, company, and role that our talent views or applies to. This allows our developers to confidently apply to roles that are void of low engineering budgets, quick-fix engagements, or shady requirements.

Developer Interview Tips: what clients look for

Taylor Veino — Fri, 16 Jul 2021 18:02:32 +0000

We’ve hosted 283 virtual interviews with freelance developers and prospective clients just within the last 7 months. So, we’ve had a front-row seat to the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to interviewing. We’ve taken notes along the way on the most common things clients look for in candidates, and we’ve distilled these into proven interview tips that helped freelance developers get hired.

Presentation

How you visually present yourself is the first thing clients notice in an interview. It’s a key indicator for how you’ll represent their company and it sets the tone for the rest of the interview. In our experience, we know the minute we see a freelancer’s video how the interview is going to go.

In most cases, If a candidate’s video looks like a cutscene from Dungeons & Dragons with low lighting and a cluttered frame, their interview doesn’t end in a hire.

The most successful interviews we’ve seen are with candidates who:

Position their camera near an adequate light source or window

Already have their audio and video turned on before the client joins

Wear a business casual top (the bottoms are fair game).

Choose a blank wall, clean room, or a professional Zoom background as their backdrop.

The better clients can see the way you present yourself and your workspace without distractions, the easier it is for them to visualize how you’ll fit into their team.

Alignment

Every interview usually starts with some variation of this prompt: Tell me about yourself. It’s common for candidates to respond with a reiterated version of their resume, but it’s a missed opportunity to win over a client by articulating real-world examples of how you can provide value.

When clients propose that prompt in an interview, they’re looking for answers to a layered inquiry about current experience, interests, and examples of work that they can use to see where you align with their project goals.

The best responses we’ve heard from freelance developers simply use that prompt as a cue to talk about:

The latest project they worked on, and what aspects of their involvement made it a success.

The type of projects they’re most passionate about because of a particular social impact.

The technology they’re currently interested in and how they have implemented it into their workflow.

Interest

When a client views your resume and extends an invitation for an interview, they’re expressing interest in you as a potential candidate, and they’ll be looking for ways to gauge your interest during the interview. As a freelance developer, the best way you can express your interest to a potential client is in the questions you ask them.

In our experience, the most successful freelance developers make a point to ask clients questions about the role, their team, and the company during the initial interview. Leave out questions about pay, billing, or budget for the last interview if you’re working solo, or if you’re freelancing on the Gun.io platform, chat directly with your Gun.io rep about it.

Here are some A+ examples to express interest in:

The role:
Ask: What will onboarding look like?

What the client hears: This role sounds like something I’d be a good fit for! Where can I provide value first?

The team:
Ask: Who will I be working with on the team?

What the client hears: I’m excited to work with existing team members on this project, what will that collaboration look like?

The company:
Ask: What are your company goals this year?

What the client hears: This project sounds really interesting, how will my work directly impact the overall company goals?

Transparency

No one wants their time wasted, so being transparent about your availability and the time you’re willing to put into a client’s project is crucial to establishing trust and marketing yourself as a dependable team member.

We’ve seen freelancers try to overextend their availability to make a client’s full-time project work, while they’re already billing 40 hours per week on another engagement. Ultimately, you’re spreading yourself too thin, and the client you’re interviewing with will be apprehensive to hire you if they know their project won’t be prioritized.

Ready to put these developer interview tips to work? We have tons of clients looking to hire freelance software developers now, and we’ll be there to help you along the way.

Join Gun.io

The Gun.io Telegram Bot

Taylor Veino — Tue, 13 Jul 2021 19:34:03 +0000

This new feature is part of a larger product release we've outlined in our June 2021 engineering update that's improved the way software professionals find, apply, and get hired on roles to seamlessly fit your job searching tools into your daily workflow.

We don’t want to hype our own work up too much, but...

...this Telegram bot is f*cking awesome. We know the job search comes at you fast, so we created a way for developers to integrate job searching with an app you’re probably already using. Here’s a breakdown to get the most out of all the Gun.io Telegram bot has to offer.

How to get started:
Add our Telegram bot, connect your Gun.io freelancer account, and admire that Gunslinger GIF.

That’s it. Now that your Gun.io account is connected, you’re free to sit back and wait for the job matches to roll in.

You can navigate to the main menu via /start to:

Update your availability

We know your availability is constantly changing. Whether you need to edit your hourly availability per week

or adjust your entire availability

You can quickly make those changes in Telegram to update your profile in the app. Plus, you can choose when you want to be reminded to update your availability again. This is key, as the team at Gun.io is pitching you for gigs while you’re actively looking, and we don’t want to land you an interview that you can’t take.

Turn job match alerts on/off:

Cut back on job match noise when you’re not actively looking by toggling your job alert notification preferences.

Edit your skill preferences:

Keep your profile up to date and your job alerts relevant by editing the skills and top skills you’re currently seeking roles for.

You can also add skills you’re not interested in receiving job matches for from the “Ignore Skills” setting.

View and apply to open jobs:

You can browse all open job matches from “Open Jobs”, or just the ones that match your preferences from “Job Matches” on the main menu. Each job post in Telegram will use an “X” emoji for role requirements that don’t match your preferences and a “checkmark” emoji for ones that do to articulate the best match for you.

Note: If you’re seeing an “X” on role requirements that should be a match, verify your role, availability, and skill preferences are correct.

See a job that looks interesting? Apply right from the Telegram bot. Don’t want to see a job ever again? Click “Not Interested” and it’s as if the role never existed—magic!