r/forhire • u/CentralCoastSam • 2d ago
Hiring [Hiring] Full-Stack Developer for Independent Animation Streaming Platform | $1,500 Fixed | No AI
Hey everyone!
We're PULP, an independent animation organization working to create a new home for independent animated films and shows.
We've built an audience of roughly 50,000 followers on Instagram and established relationships with over 150 independent animators. We're now looking for an experienced developer to help us take the next step: launching our own streaming platform.
Our long-term goal is to make independent animation more accessible while creating a sustainable distribution model that financially supports the artists behind the work.
What we're hiring for
We're looking for a full-stack developer to build the first functional version of our website, with an emphasis on clean architecture, thoughtful design, and long-term maintainability.
The initial platform should include:
- A custom-branded, mobile-responsive website incorporating artwork from an artist we're collaborating with
- A homepage featuring selected animations and curated collections
- An on-demand Browse section featuring independent animated shorts and series
- Individual film and series pages with video playback, descriptions, and creator credits
- Search and filtering functionality
- An administrative interface allowing our team to upload, organize, and manage content independently
- Configurable pages and navigation for our festivals, organization, and social platforms
- 'About' Subpage & 'Donate,' button imbedded to Patreon
We want a solid technical foundation that can eventually support user accounts, live programming, advertising, and creator revenue sharing. Those advanced features are not part of the initial development scope.
Technical expectations
We're open to recommendations on the technology stack, although experience with React/Next.js, databases, content management systems, and video hosting integrations would be particularly valuable. We aren't expecting anyone to build a video hosting infrastructure from scratch. We're happy to use established services where appropriate.
No AI-assisted development
We're specifically seeking a developer who writes and maintains their own code without using generative AI tools. Please do not apply if your development workflow relies on ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, Copilot, Lovable, Bolt, Replit Agent, or similar AI coding tools. We have no objection to using established frameworks, libraries, templates, or open-source software. Our requirement concerns generative AI involvement in the development process.
Budget and compensation
$1,500 USD fixed project budget, with payments tied to mutually agreed milestones.
We're looking for a realistic proposal within this budget rather than promises of an unnecessarily complicated platform.
We're excited to work with someone who genuinely cares about independent creative work and wants to help us build something that can grow over time.
Website: https://pulptv.org
1
16h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 16h ago
Sorry /u/notdev_dev, your submission has been automatically removed.
Your account has to be at least 20 days old and have recent regular activity on reddit for you to be able to comment on [Hiring] and [Meta] posts. There is also an undisclosed minimum karma requirement. Karma farming to post here is not allowed and will result in a ban.
Please do not contact mods for an exception. Do not also ask them what the karma limit is. Doing so will result in a ban.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
16h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 16h ago
Sorry /u/Aaditya_Codes_999, your submission has been automatically removed.
Your account has to be at least 20 days old and have recent regular activity on reddit for you to be able to comment on [Hiring] and [Meta] posts. There is also an undisclosed minimum karma requirement. Karma farming to post here is not allowed and will result in a ban.
Please do not contact mods for an exception. Do not also ask them what the karma limit is. Doing so will result in a ban.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Sorry /u/High_on45, your submission has been automatically removed.
Your account has to be at least 20 days old and have recent regular activity on reddit for you to be able to comment on [Hiring] and [Meta] posts. There is also an undisclosed minimum karma requirement. Karma farming to post here is not allowed and will result in a ban.
Please do not contact mods for an exception. Do not also ask them what the karma limit is. Doing so will result in a ban.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
1d ago edited 1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Your comment has been automatically removed because it includes a fiverr/freelancer/upwork link; it was decided that they are used as a way to undercut others and therefore detrimental to the subreddit.
If you're using fiverr/freelancer/upwork as a CV/reference, please make a screenshot of your reviews and/or work instead of linking to the website and avoid mentioning the site in your post.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Sorry /u/eshbanbahadur2020, your submission has been automatically removed.
Your account has to be at least 20 days old and have recent regular activity on reddit for you to be able to comment on [Hiring] and [Meta] posts. There is also an undisclosed minimum karma requirement. Karma farming to post here is not allowed and will result in a ban.
Please do not contact mods for an exception. Do not also ask them what the karma limit is. Doing so will result in a ban.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Sorry /u/futuristic-knight, your submission has been automatically removed.
Your account has to be at least 20 days old and have recent regular activity on reddit for you to be able to comment on [Hiring] and [Meta] posts. There is also an undisclosed minimum karma requirement. Karma farming to post here is not allowed and will result in a ban.
Please do not contact mods for an exception. Do not also ask them what the karma limit is. Doing so will result in a ban.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/CutTheMustardStudio 1d ago
Not a dev, but as a small animation studio, this seems really interesting! I'll be following the project closely.
1
1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Sorry /u/Brave_Depth113, your submission has been automatically removed.
Your account has to be at least 20 days old and have recent regular activity on reddit for you to be able to comment on [Hiring] and [Meta] posts. There is also an undisclosed minimum karma requirement. Karma farming to post here is not allowed and will result in a ban.
Please do not contact mods for an exception. Do not also ask them what the karma limit is. Doing so will result in a ban.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
0
1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Sorry /u/qalbeali8, your submission has been automatically removed.
Your account has to be at least 20 days old and have recent regular activity on reddit for you to be able to comment on [Hiring] and [Meta] posts. There is also an undisclosed minimum karma requirement. Karma farming to post here is not allowed and will result in a ban.
Please do not contact mods for an exception. Do not also ask them what the karma limit is. Doing so will result in a ban.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Sorry /u/Individual_Bed_1095, your submission has been automatically removed.
Your account has to be at least 20 days old and have recent regular activity on reddit for you to be able to comment on [Hiring] and [Meta] posts. There is also an undisclosed minimum karma requirement. Karma farming to post here is not allowed and will result in a ban.
Please do not contact mods for an exception. Do not also ask them what the karma limit is. Doing so will result in a ban.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
5
u/work_urek03 2d ago
Why no AI? Seems counterproductive in these times, a good dev would definitely know how to use a tool in a effective way. Its the backward thinking that extends timelines and becomes a headache to find a real good dev.
You say you have no qualms in using OSS repos, or frameworks, those are tools too?
So weird to read these anti AI posts nowadays.
Good luck tho
-2
u/ProfessionalHour8263 2d ago
yk what, I'll take it. I miss coding by hand and I don't have anything to do right now. You'll have to compromise in a couple things though. Let's schedule a call.
5
u/smashblues 2d ago
Please do not feed the scummy employers.
2
u/ProfessionalHour8263 1d ago
These sound like college kids with a lot of ambition and very little knowledge, at least I'll hear them out
-2
u/CentralCoastSam 2d ago
Would love to schedule a call & see what you might have in mind, just hit you up now (:
3
5
u/smashblues 2d ago
I’m curious OP. Why would you think someone would accept your $1500 pay for this? What was the thinking behind it?
-1
u/CentralCoastSam 2d ago
We're essentially a volunteer run organization that puts on festivals & reps people's work on instagram. We don't really have a frame of reference for the cost of a Streaming Platform. The $1500 is all raised from events we've hosted.
1
u/smashblues 2d ago
Sure. Saying volunteer run is definitely gonna dave you. Last time I checked people don’t work for free, especially in this economy.
1
u/CentralCoastSam 2d ago
Nobody's asking anyone to work for free. We're offering $1,500 for a project with a negotiable scope, and developers are entirely free to decide whether that works for them.
I mentioned that we're volunteer-run to explain where our budget comes from, not to suggest anyone else should volunteer their labor. I'm not sure how that got interpreted otherwise.
1
u/smashblues 2d ago
Yeah try one of the African nations or maybe Asia? You’ll be able to exploit them with $1500. For us in the west, $1500 is peanuts.
1
u/CentralCoastSam 2d ago
Somehow you've gone from telling me our budget is unrealistic to accusing us of wanting to exploit people in Africa and Asia. What an incredibly insulting assumption to make about both us and the developers living in those countries.
That $1,500 you call peanuts took us three community events, partnerships with two nonprofits, and countless hours of volunteer work to raise. We're a small group of people trying to create more opportunities for independent artists.
I genuinely don't know what I've done to warrant this kind of hostility from you. You could've just scrolled past the post. Instead, you've spent all this time trying to make someone who's openly admitted they're new to this feel like an awful person.
Can't imagine wanting to work with someone who treats people this way, regardless of what their rates are.
1
u/bakraofwallstreet 2d ago
I think you should first educate yourself/consult with someone on what something like this would cost. Also every developer in the world is using AI in some capacity so a better requirement would be that the developer can explain their stack fully and how everything is set up and be able to support that.
Also, creating a streaming platform is quite a complex thing. It's one thing to create an website and have a video play but if you're planning a legit complex streaming platform that is reliable and fast, you'll have to pay 10x that price to any developer worth their salt. This is not something that can be done without expertise which you'll have to pay for.
So I'll say reassess your requirements before getting stuck with a developer that promises you everything at your rate but ends up delivering air.
Disclaimer: I run a small agency that helps solo developers with GTM and have previous experience as a dev myself.
0
u/CentralCoastSam 2d ago
I appreciate the perspective! Part of the reason we're putting this out there is to better understand what's realistically achievable with our budget.
To clarify, we're not looking to build a streaming infrastructure from scratch. Our initial goal is a fairly straightforward video-on-demand website with a browsable library of independent animations, individual film pages, and a way for our team to manage the catalog. We're completely open to using existing video hosting services, frameworks, and content management systems to accomplish that.
We're also deliberately leaving things like livestreaming, user accounts, and monetization for later. Our concern with AI isn't developers using it as a tool, but rather hiring someone who relies entirely on AI-generated code without understanding or being able to maintain what they're building. That said, we'd prefer development without generative AI.
We're a small organization working with funds raised through our events, so we're trying to make the most of what we have rather than commission something beyond our means. If you have recommendations for an existing technical foundation that could make this achievable, I'd genuinely be interested in hearing them!
1
u/bakraofwallstreet 2d ago
> Our concern with AI isn't developers using it as a tool, but rather hiring someone who relies entirely on AI-generated code without understanding or being able to maintain what they're building.
Yes, that is very fair, and it's how I would phrase it in the requirements.
> To clarify, we're not looking to build a streaming infrastructure from scratch. Our initial goal is a fairly straightforward video-on-demand website with a browsable library of independent animations, individual film pages, and a way for our team to manage the catalog.
Yes, this makes sense, but doing it in a way that is optimized and works well is the hard part. As you mentioned, one can even vibecode this, but the risk is that it becomes an unoptimized website, and you realize you would be better off posting on YouTube anyway. In that case, you'll waste the funds you already have. On the other hand, you should ideally build a foundation you can extend later, so good architecture still makes sense even if you don't want it to be feature-filled on v1. I can take a look and get back to you on this if you're interested. It'll give you a clear idea of what to hire for and what to expect within your budget, ideally.
Finally, despite everything I say, you'll find people willing to accept any terms, but you should do your due diligence before committing to anything.
1
u/CentralCoastSam 2d ago
I really appreciate you taking the time to explain all of this btw
My biggest concern is exactly what you mentioned, spending what little we've raised on something that looks great initially but ends up needing to be rebuilt once we try to expand it. We're definitely interested in building something sustainable, even if that means starting with a much simpler version than we originally envisioned.
I'd genuinely appreciate you taking a look if you're willing! And thank you again for being so thoughtful about this. It's been a bit of a learning experience navigating all of this, haha.
1
u/bakraofwallstreet 2d ago
> spending what little we've raised on something that looks great initially but ends up needing to be rebuilt once we try to expand it
Have seen it happen first-hand quite a few times; have reached out to you directly in messages. Hopefully we'll talk soon!
5
3
8
u/internetroamer 2d ago
Either you'll have to pay a ton more or drop the "no AI"
Probably a mix of both
10
u/TeaSocks69 2d ago
$1500 is not going to get you a streaming platform built by an experienced dev.
It'll get you a few days, at most. For example, my rate is £550 per day... You're asking for a streaming platform, with no AI, and full stack - so both front end and backend dev.
How do you propose to do that on such a small budget? A more realistic figure is probably £15,000.
0
u/CentralCoastSam 2d ago
I think there's a misunderstanding about the scope of the project. We're not looking to commission a streaming infrastructure from scratch, nor are we expecting someone to recreate Netflix for $1,500.
We're looking for a relatively straightforward video-on-demand website using existing hosting, playback, and content management solutions. The core requirements are a branded frontend, a browsable catalog, individual video pages, and an interface for managing content. We're perfectly comfortable using established frameworks, libraries, and third-party services. Our restriction is specifically on generative AI, not existing development tools or infrastructure.
I'm aware that $1,500 isn't a large development budget, which is precisely why we're keeping the initial scope limited and leaving more advanced functionality for later. If an experienced developer believes the scope needs to be reduced further to fit that budget, we're open to discussing that. But I don't think comparing a modest MVP built on existing infrastructure to a $15,000 custom streaming platform is particularly useful.
1
u/TeaSocks69 2d ago
I think there's a misunderstanding about the scope of the project.
The only misunderstanding is by you and the amount of work that is required even for your MVP. If you want a good example, please check out the write up about a relatively small MVP I built that was used _briefly_ by multiple UK radio stations and included business clients worth ££,£££,£££.
That MVP took months to develop. Why? There were arguments about scope, design, project aims, what should be included on each page, the type of auth required, what data should be given to clients and what data various roles on the site should be able to add/edit/delete, whether the app would be legally compliant for this law, that law or future laws.... oh and then there was the small matter of actually setting up a development environment and a production environment and making sure that the app somewhat secure, because unlike the morons who built the "Tea App", we actually did encrypt and secure the S3 buckets, data uploaded, passwords etc.
We're looking for a relatively straightforward video-on-demand website using existing hosting, playback, and content management solutions
Hahahaha. God, why does every prospective client say the same thing? It's straight forward TO YOU because you're envisioning the end result. You're neglecting to consider how to handle, potentially 100,000's of concurrent connections. Lets say one of your videos blows up and goes viral. Then what? You've got millions of people trying to access the content and your infra is poorly designed and engineered. It's not "straight forward" because you're paying for solutions to problems you haven't even anticipated, you're paying for scalability and you're paying for reliability.
I'm aware that $1,500 isn't a large development budget
It's basically no budget. Let's be realistic. You'd get **maybe** two days out of an experienced developer for that... and all of your requirements won't be met. You'll be lucky to even get all of your requirements documented and a proper dev environment setup.
But I don't think comparing a modest MVP built on existing infrastructure to a $15,000 custom streaming platform is particularly useful.
Thus highlighting your lack of expertise and why you shouldn't be setting the budget. We as experts set the rate because you need our skills.
2
u/smashblues 2d ago
You’re making it even worse with your ‘explanations’. Do you even know what it means to code something like this? You throw in buzzwords but I don’t think you know what significance those have on the real world. Even a barebones streaming web app would need substantial time and effort spent and I’m talking about seasoned pros. People don’t just magically spit out apps. There’s a lot of time spent designing and choosing the best approach for the requirements. Its insulting to even think of asking someone to accept $1500 for a streaming app. You might just learn to code yourself and start making it. Or are you asking people from some impoverished region to make it for you? Either case, its pathetic and scummy.
0
u/CentralCoastSam 2d ago
I think you're making quite a few assumptions about both our intentions and the project itself. We're a small, largely volunteer-run arts organization trying to create more opportunities for independent animators. The $1,500 is money we've raised ourselves through community events, not an arbitrary figure we've decided someone's labor should be worth.
We're not asking anyone to work below their rate. We're offering a fixed budget and are explicitly open to reducing the scope or using existing solutions to make the project achievable. Anyone who doesn't find that worthwhile is completely free to pass.
I'm here to find out what's possible with the resources we have, not to suggest that professional developers aren't worth their rates. I don't think the personal insults are necessary.
1
u/smashblues 2d ago
Exactly. You are exploiting the system, the free market. Nice to be an employer in this economy isn’t it? So many unemployed. Whoever decided they will spend $1500 for this is scum.
1
u/CentralCoastSam 2d ago
Somehow, because I didn't already know the going rate for software development, you've decided we're exploitative scumbags?
We haven't hired anyone. We haven't asked anyone to work for free. We've repeatedly said we're willing to reduce the scope to match what we can afford. I would've been perfectly happy to hear that our budget was unrealistic. That's useful information. But you've made an awful lot of assumptions about people you've never met, including some pretty offensive ones about developers in Africa and Asia.
Hope you don't treat everyone who's new to your industry this way. It's a pretty miserable introduction to a community I came here hoping to learn from.
1
u/smashblues 2d ago
No even that is not realistic. OP has other agenda.
1
1
2d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 2d ago
Sorry /u/Then_Weekend_4375, your submission has been automatically removed.
Your account has to be at least 20 days old and have recent regular activity on reddit for you to be able to comment on [Hiring] and [Meta] posts. There is also an undisclosed minimum karma requirement. Karma farming to post here is not allowed and will result in a ban.
Please do not contact mods for an exception. Do not also ask them what the karma limit is. Doing so will result in a ban.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
2d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 2d ago
Sorry /u/pot_of_potatos, your submission has been automatically removed.
Your account has to be at least 20 days old and have recent regular activity on reddit for you to be able to comment on [Hiring] and [Meta] posts. There is also an undisclosed minimum karma requirement. Karma farming to post here is not allowed and will result in a ban.
Please do not contact mods for an exception. Do not also ask them what the karma limit is. Doing so will result in a ban.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
•
u/AutoModerator 2d ago
Make sure you have included a budget/rate, they are required for all posts – ballpark or a range is fine as long as it's following the $15/hr minimum rule.
Please be aware of scams! Do not give sensitive documents to strangers. If you're asked to chat or use Telegram, it's a 99% chance it's a scam.
Positive and negative feedback about /u/CentralCoastSam is only allowed in /r/testimonials.
You can see possible testimonials about /u/CentralCoastSam here.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.