Apparently it tries to pre-load every job listing, including YouTube videos for everything? I appreciate what you're trying to do here but the site is pretty painful on a slow connection. Maybe don't load the listings until you click on one..?
Thank you einr. I have not optimized for preloading (I have a lot to learn). I did just archive a few hundred expired listings though, so hopefully that helps a bit with loading.
You're right in that load times were abysmal. I have since removed the Product Hunt-like popup modal on the landing page. While I personally enjoyed the aesthetic and UX, my no-code pop-up was loading all of the images/videos for 100+ job listings upon load. No wonder it was so slow.
The new simplified experience (and many would argue, improved UX) goes directly to a full page listing AND reduces load times by >90%.
I have been operating this job board in beta for a couple of months and never had a complaint about load times (maybe it is all of us gamers that are used to download 12 hour game patches). I owe a great debt of gratitude the HN community for surfacing the issue.
Overall very nice (and useful for someone like myself), but if I may bitch for just one second :)
(I was browsing in incognito mode, if that's relevant)
Navigation seems really broken. I can select a job listing to get details, but the back button on my mouse doesn't work as expected. It takes me back to the page before the home page, not the home page itself.
Clicking on the scroll bar while viewing a listing makes the detail view disappear.
Bookmarked for future use anyway. Thank you !
Edit: a filter for part-time/contract work would be very useful
I use no script and there is a lot of weird functionality with this site as well. I would click on one specific ad, and it'd link to the one right above it. Also I tried highlighting text but again, a similar issue, it'd highlight like a paragraph above where I was. When I just allowed all javascript on the page though it worked fine.
Thank you for surfacing this issue. To better understand (and replicate) your UX, is this the No Script chrome extension?
I'll have to look into a solve for this in Webflow (my no-code builder). Otherwise, it may have to wait until if/when I (likely contract to) rebuild with custom code.
I'm actually on firefox. It also loads very slowly right now so I'm not sure if that's what's being loaded on our end or on the servers end either. I have tried it from the falkon browser as well and the slow loading existed there also.
I enabled workwithindies.com, have ajax.googleapis.com, gstatic.com, vimeo.com, vimeocdn.com, and youtube.com enabled when I encountered my highlighting and clicking issue.
Thank you so much for finding these issues! I've been clicking outside of the pop-up to close and never thought of using the back button. And yes, the scrollbar is currently included on the click-to-close function (again, I've been scrolling with my mouse and didn't notice).
I'll look into fixing both.
Also, working on a filter for part-time/contract and remote (you can currently search for remote/anywhere) for the next update.
As with any industry, there are both good and bad. One of the reasons that I have created this job board is to highlight best practices and raise standards across the indie community (through creating awareness of other jobs, how they communicate to potential candidates, the benefits they offer, etc. that were previously hidden on the jobs pages of 1000+ indie developer websites).
In general, I would anticipate pay and benefits to be less than you would receive in your well-funded tech company or startup. There is upside in joining a studio that has a hit game where you not only receive a salary but a % of revenue.
Work life balance is generally favorable as many developers escape to indie games in order to get away from the crunch and routine layoffs that you often see at larger publishers and developers. And indie games on the whole appears to be a more inclusive and diverse part of the game development community. (Of course, there are exceptions.)
There are some fantastic indie studios out there that really care about their people and pride themselves on creating a safe haven for game developers.
A couple of things that I would look for when evaluating a potential indie game employer (if pay and work life balance are of concern):
- A job description or about us page that speaks to these issues, that includes a benefits/perks section, that puts in the extra effort to recruit you into the job/studio. Those are likely the studios that are going to understand that you have value and choice. They are the studios that are thinking about their people, job satisfaction, and retention. Not all indies, particularly those that are just starting up, have taken the time to think through how to be a company/employer and may simply be focused on shipping their first game (again, there are exceptions).
- A studio that has shipped a few successful games, which signals that they might have the financial stability to both offer a healthy compensation package and have had to grow/retain employees through multiple projects. If a studio is brand new, you then might want to look at who is on the team and if they have shipped successful games in the past.
- Of course, I would then look to reach out to current and former employees to gather first-hand insight into what it is like to work at those studios. You might be able to find those people on LinkedIn or in Team/About Us pages. For actual communication, instead of a LinkedIn DM, most everyone in indie games is on twitter.
Another thing of note is that there is a decent amount of contract work in indie games, which would allow you to have greater control over your own compensation and work life balance requirements.
I would say similar to the startup world, it is going to be hit or miss (mostly miss). The potential is in being part of a small team (<10) that ships a game netting tens of millions of dollars in revenue. There are also a small handful of indie games with > $100M in revenue, those that get bought by Microsoft and Epic (i.e. Minecraft and Rocket League), and those that turn into the next Rockstar (they all had to start somewhere).
All that said, most don't go into indie games looking to strike it rich. They go into indie games because they are looking to make something unique and creative, away from the bureaucracy of the larger studios/publishers, with the potential for a nice "lifestyle" income.
The first thing I do when hitting a job board is to try to filter it to jobs which are Remote or in my location. Everything else is just noise. This would be a lot more useful if you added a location filter (city and country - I live in NL, which is small enough that the city doesn't always matter)
I would think the number one reason to join an indie game studio is because they have an interesting game you want to work on. Recognizing not all studios have material for that but... I would try any information about the game itself front and center before you click into the role.
Nate is amazing and I can't say anything but good things about Work With Indies. Hack Club posted a job with them and we've gotten so many great applicants.
It was also one of the best experiences I've ever had posting a job online. They took my GitHub gist, formatted it, found our logos and pictures of students online, and put together a beautiful page to spotlight the job.
I couldn't believe it. One of the best experiences on the internet ever.
FYI a lot of these pages appear blank to me (not all) and are returning HTTP ERROR 510. Congrats on the launch though - looks like you have decent traction already.
I can barely even hit the site. It also takes forever to load. Also I can't view a listing my middle click. It just takes me back to the home same screen as linked.
Apparently it tries to pre-load every job listing, including YouTube videos for everything? I appreciate what you're trying to do here but the site is pretty painful on a slow connection. Maybe don't load the listings until you click on one..?