{"slug": "ask-hn-what-are-independent-software-contractors-doing-now", "title": "Ask HN: What are independent software contractors doing now?", "summary": "Independent software contractors are reporting a sharp decline in opportunities, with one contractor noting that leads dropped from one or two per week to none for several months, attributing the change to clients using AI instead of hiring developers for pet projects.", "body_md": "| ||||||||||||\n1 point by |\nThe amount of opportunities I've found doing independent contracting for people in the last year or two has went from easily being able to find one or two leads a week to none at all for several months. It seems with AI people are just not willing to hire devs for their pet projects anymore? | |||||||||||\n|", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-hn-what-are-independent-software-contractors-doing-now", "canonical_source": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49357853", "published_at": "2026-08-19 06:52:56+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-19 07:13:28.141692+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-tools"], "entities": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-hn-what-are-independent-software-contractors-doing-now", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-hn-what-are-independent-software-contractors-doing-now.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-hn-what-are-independent-software-contractors-doing-now.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-hn-what-are-independent-software-contractors-doing-now.jsonld"}}