Built by Freelancers,
For Freelancers
By Guido Kerger, Founder, TechBaro · Published · Last reviewed
TechBaro is the IT freelance market barometer we always wished existed—honest, transparent, and completely free of corporate BS.
🤔 The Problem We Solve
As freelancers ourselves, we were tired of asking the same questions in Slack channels and LinkedIn DMs:
- • "Is it just me, or is the market slow right now?"
- • "How many opportunities are you seeing this month?"
- • "Should I be worried about the next few months?"
Job boards show open positions, but they don't show the reality on the ground. Recruitment agencies have their own agenda. Corporate reports are months out of date.
We needed a real-time pulse check from real freelancers. So we built it.
👤 Who runs TechBaro
Guido Kerger
Founder, TechBaro
TechBaro is written and run by one person: an independent software developer who builds the data collection, sets the publication rules, and writes the rate research on this site. There is no editorial team behind the byline, and pages here are signed rather than attributed to a house name, because a site whose whole claim is methodological honesty should say who is accountable for it.
What that means in practice
- ✅ No VC funding, no investors, no corporate owner setting a growth target
- ✅ No commercial interest in recruitment, staffing or job boards — nothing here earns a placement fee
- ✅ No data sales. Individual responses are never published or shared, only aggregates above the threshold
- ✅ One accountable name on every page, with the date it was last reviewed
It also means the obvious limitation: this is a small project, the index does not exist yet, and it will only exist if enough freelancers decide it is worth thirty seconds a fortnight. Reach the author at hello@techbaro.com, or read the publication rules that govern what appears on this site.
⚙️ How TechBaro Works
1. Recurring Check-Ins
Freelancers share their current reality: workload, opportunities, and market outlook. Individual responses are never published.
2. Aggregation
Individual responses are immediately aggregated and anonymized. No individual data is ever exposed.
3. Published Market Views
TechBaro publishes a directional index and breakdowns only when the relevant recent sample meets the stated threshold.
4. Community Benefit
Everyone gets access to the same data. No premium tiers, no paywalls, no gatekeeping.
⭐ What Makes TechBaro Different
No Job Board Scraping
Every data point comes directly from a real person sharing their experience. We don't scrape job boards or parse LinkedIn posts.
Private by Design
Signed-in contributors provide an email for account and spam controls; anonymous reports use limited anti-abuse metadata. Individual responses are never visible.
No Monetization
No ads, no premium features, no data selling. TechBaro will always be free because we built it for us—the freelance community.
Transparent Methodology
We show our data sources, sample sizes, and confidence intervals. If the data is uncertain, we say so.
Community-Owned
The data belongs to the community. We're just the custodians keeping the servers running and the spam out.
🎯 Our Principles
- 1. Transparency First: We share our methodology, show sample sizes, and admit when data is limited.
- 2. Community Over Profit: No VC funding means no pressure to monetize or "exit."
- 3. Privacy By Design: Minimal data collection, immediate anonymization, and no selling or sharing of your individual report — see the privacy policy for the analytics we do run.
- 4. Real Data Only: Every submission is from a real human. No synthetic data, no scraping.
- 5. Always Free: No paywalls, no premium tiers. If you contribute, you get access—just like everyone else.
💡 Why We Built This
Freelancing is unpredictable. One month you're drowning in work, the next you're wondering if your network has dried up or if the entire market has slowed down.
The problem? You can't see the big picture when you're stuck in your own bubble.
Here's what we were missing:
- • Is my slow month a personal issue or a market-wide trend?
- • Are other developers seeing the same number of opportunities?
- • Should I be worried about the next quarter, or is optimism justified?
- • How does my region compare to others?
TechBaro answers these questions with real data from real freelancers. It's the barometer we always wanted—and now it exists for everyone.
🎯 Who Should Use TechBaro
✅ Perfect For:
- • Independent IT freelancers & contractors
- • Developers, engineers, product managers
- • Anyone who wants honest market insights
- • Freelancers planning their next 3-12 months
- • People considering going freelance
❌ Not For:
- • Recruiters looking for leads
- • Companies trying to benchmark salaries
- • Job boards scraping for data
- • Anyone looking to monetize the data
- • Corporate market research firms
🤝 How You Can Help
TechBaro only works if freelancers like you contribute. The more data we have, the more accurate and useful the insights become.
Submit Weekly
Share your market view once a week. Takes 30 seconds.
Spread the Word
Share TechBaro with your freelance network. More voices = better data.
Give Feedback
Found a bug? Have an idea? We're always listening to the community.
🚀 The Future of TechBaro
We're keeping it simple. No grand plans, no "Series A" dreams, no pivot to recruitment.
Our roadmap is straightforward:
- → Improve data visualization (better charts, regional breakdowns)
- → Add historical trend analysis (compare to 6 months ago, 1 year ago)
- → Refine spam/fraud detection (keep the data clean)
- → Listen to the community and build what freelancers actually need
What we won't do: Ads, premium tiers, selling data, recruitment partnerships, or anything that compromises our core mission.
Join the Movement
TechBaro is powered by freelancers like you. Together, we can create the transparency the freelance market desperately needs.
Questions? Feedback? Email us at hello@techbaro.com