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💬 Community Slack

Our Community Slack is the central hub for everything happening at Uplink. It’s where we post all new jobs and official announcements, and where our community members chat about all things freelancing — as well as finance, health, events, and much more.

You can love or hate Slack, but it has proven to be a fantastic hub for our community where everything comes together. All new Uplink members automatically receive an invitation to the Community Slack.

Identity & trust

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To participate actively in our Slack, please fill out your profile completely. Ideally, use your full name and upload a photo of yourself. Avoid using your company name or a company logo as your profile picture.

The Uplink community is not an open platform where anyone can join anonymously — every member has been individually vetted and verified as a freelancer. Since the community also covers very personal topics, our cohesion is built on mutual trust and transparency about who is part of the group.

In our Slack, you’ll find a number of public channels and job channels:

Public channels

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These channels are where you can connect and chat with other Uplink members on a variety of topics:

  • #announcements - Official news from the Uplink team. Only admins can post here, but all members can (and should! 😄) comment on posts in threads!
  • #business - Questions and discussions about all things freelance business — clients, contracts, finances, insurance, registering as a freelancer, incorporating a company, and more. Newcomer questions are always welcome!
  • #taxes - All things taxes — finding an accountant, best tax software, tax-efficient company structures, etc.
  • #events - Organizing an event, meetup, or conference — or planning to attend one? Let the other Uplink members know!
  • #ideas - Post your side projects or ideas to get feedback!
  • #investing - Where to invest your hard-earned freelancer money — stocks, ETFs, crypto, etc.
  • #uplink - Share feature ideas or report bugs to the Uplink team. From time to time, the team also asks for feedback on new ideas and features here.
  • #lounge - Everything off-topic — anything not directly related to IT freelancing.
  • #agile - Discussions about Agile, Scrum, and agile project management.
  • #adventofcode - The Advent of Code takes place every December! This channel is for comparing solutions and posting automatic updates from the Uplink leaderboard.
  • #lang-rust - All about the Rust programming language.
  • #tech-backend, #tech-frontend, #tech-security and all other channels starting with “tech” are dedicated to questions, discussions, and news about a specific tech topic.
  • #tech-general - General tech questions that don’t fit into a specific #tech channel (see above).
  • #city-berlin, #city-hamburg and all other channels starting with “city” are for questions and discussions about a specific city — local IT scene, events, coworking spaces, etc.
  • #rhein-ruhr - Connect with other members in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan area and discuss the local IT and freelancing scene, events, coworking spaces, and more.
  • #marketplace - The place to buy and sell hardware, software, office equipment, and similar items.
  • #fun - Your daily dose of fun — clueless recruiter messages, client fails, jokes, memes, 

  • #climate - Discuss climate change, ClimateTech/GreenTech startups, “Green IT”, the mobility transition, and ways to make a positive impact on the climate.
  • #health - All about your mental and physical health — workouts, workplace wellness, meditation, stress prevention, and burnout.
  • #running-berlin - Connect with other runners in Berlin.
  • #freelance-unlocked-conference - Everything about the annual “Freelance Unlocked” conference.
  • #webinars - Join this channel to be notified when one of our webinars starts, to ask questions during the Q&A, and to discuss ideas and topics for new webinars.
  • #linkedin-farming - Post links to your LinkedIn posts here to drum up some engagement. Don’t forget to like other people’s posts too!
  • #indiehackers - Have a side project or startup and looking for feedback, e.g. on technical topics or marketing? This is the right channel!

Job channels

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Whenever a new job is published on Uplink, it gets posted to one or more job channels. Each job channel covers jobs from one or more categories. Direct jobs and recruiter jobs are posted in separate channels. All members who join job channels receive a notification for each new job and can then apply through the channel.

Job channels let you choose exactly which jobs you want to hear about and which ones to skip! For example, if you only want to see direct jobs focused on frontend or marketing, just join #jobs-direct-frontend and #jobs-direct-marketing.

:::info Heads up

Not every job category has its own dedicated channel! Jobs in categories without a dedicated channel are only posted in #jobs-direct or #jobs-recruiter. So if you don’t want to miss any jobs, simply join both of these channels.

:::

If you’re only interested in jobs with specific skills, e.g. PHP for backend or React Native for mobile, set up a job search in the member area for those skills! You’ll be notified by email whenever a matching job comes in.

Here are the job channels available on Uplink:

All jobs

Section titled “All jobs”

These channels post all direct or recruiter jobs:

Direct jobs by category

Section titled “Direct jobs by category”

These channels post direct jobs filtered by category.

Recruiter jobs by category

Section titled “Recruiter jobs by category”

These channels post recruiter jobs filtered by category.

Community jobs

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The best referrals come from the community!

For example, if you’re working with a client who needs another freelancer, you’ll naturally look in your own network first — because you can vouch for people you already know and trust. Everyone wins: the client gets help quickly, a community member gets a new opportunity, and you strengthen your relationship with both the client and the community.

That’s exactly what we created #community-jobs for!

Unlike the other job channels, which are more or less automated (only the Uplink bot posts direct jobs and recruiter jobs there), #community-jobs is open for all members to post in! The process is also not automated — it’s up to the poster to handle applications, forward them, and provide feedback.

There are a few rules to keep in mind:

  • Describe the opportunity as specifically as possible (required skills, on-site/remote, etc.), but try to keep the post concise.
  • If you need to share a longer text (e.g. a recruiter’s project description), post a short summary first and put the full details in the first thread reply.
  • If you’re earning a commission on the placement, please mention that in your post.
  • Please don’t use @channel or @here!

:::tip These jobs are welcome

  • A client you’re currently working with (or have worked with) is looking for another freelancer. You can recommend the client and know they pay a fair hourly rate.
  • You’re looking for a freelancer yourself, e.g. for your own startup or a personal project. In this case, be prepared to pay a market rate, typically 80-100 EUR/hour.
  • A recruiter contacted you about a project that sounds interesting but you can’t or don’t want to take on (e.g. due to capacity or because it’s not your specialty). In this case, you should have spoken with the recruiter at least once and confirmed the hourly rate range the end client is willing to pay. Please include the rate in your post.

:::

:::danger These jobs should not be posted

  • Requests from recruiters you haven’t actually spoken with about the project. A conversation often reveals that some requirements in the listing are inaccurate or incomplete, and you can learn more about the end client.
  • Recruiter requests without a stated hourly rate (or range). If it’s not mentioned in the job listing, you can find out by asking the recruiter or end client directly.
  • Please don’t post temporary staffing (“ANÜ”) requests. You can spot these by project durations of 12+ months or a note that only employees with social insurance are eligible.
  • Please don’t post requests for permanent positions or co-founders.

:::

Application channels

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A private application channel is created automatically as soon as a member completes their application for a job in the member area. All further communication about that application then takes place in the application channel.

This only works if the member has an active Slack account at the time. If not, further communication about the application happens via email.

Guidelines

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Here are some helpful articles with guidelines for effective online communication:

Limitations

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Our Slack has a few limitations:

90-day limit

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We’re on Slack’s free plan and can’t upgrade to a paid plan, as it would cost several thousand euros per month.

The biggest limitation of the free plan is that only messages from the last 90 days are visible and searchable.

To prevent older messages — and the collective knowledge our community has shared over the years — from disappearing, we’ve created both the Slack Archive and the Community Wiki.

No email notifications after inactivity

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Slack wants to make sure that members don’t receive email notifications from workspaces where they’re not regularly active.

To this end, members are marked as “inactive” after 14 days of no (or very little) activity in a workspace. If another 60 days pass without activity, Slack stops sending email notifications for that workspace altogether.

The way Slack defines “activity” is very specific — sending at least 10 messages within a 7-day period, or performing at least 9 actions across 3 days within a 7-day period. An action can be reading a message in a channel, switching channels, or creating a post.

So if you suddenly stop receiving email notifications from our workspace, Slack has most likely flagged you as “inactive.” This can happen even if you log in regularly, read messages, or even write messages yourself, since you may still fall below Slack’s activity threshold described above.

The easiest way to make sure your account stays “active” and you keep receiving email notifications is to send yourself 10 messages. Yes, this actually works! (confirmed by Slack support)