This is a monthly "Ask HN" thread for July 2026 where freelancers seeking work and those seeking to hire freelancers can post. Posts must start with "SEEKING WORK" or "SEEKING FREELANCER", include location and remote work availability. Small agencies are allowed, but recruiters and job boards are off-topic.
Background
- This is a monthly "Who is hiring?" style thread on Hacker News (HN), a tech-focused social news site run by Y Combinator. Unlike the main hiring threads for full-time jobs, this one is specifically for freelance/contract work.
- HN's community skews heavily toward software engineers, startup founders, and tech professionals, mostly in the US but with a strong international contingent. These threads are a well-known, DIY alternative to platforms like Upwork or LinkedIn for finding technical freelance gigs.
- The post is dated July 2026 — HN often titles recurring threads with a future date as a convention; this is the active thread for that month.
- Commenters typically post short self-introductions with their tech stack (e.g., React, Python, DevOps), whether they're remote, and their rate or availability. The thread serves as a low-friction, reputation-driven marketplace.
Max Weinbach says he had early access to OpenAI's new model GPT-5.6 Sol, calling it his favorite model by far. He highlights that it never gives up and will keep reasoning until it's done. OpenAI announced that GPT-5.6 Sol, along with Terra and Luna, will launch publicly on Thursday, with preview access expanding globally now.
The US government ordered Anthropic to suspend access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models for all customers, citing a potential jailbreak technique that involved asking the model to review a codebase for vulnerabilities—a capability Anthropic says is available in other public models. Access was abruptly cut off on June 12.
Andrej Karpathy announces the release of Claude Fable 5, the same underlying model as Mythos but with added safeguards. He calls it a major step forward, particularly for long problem-solving sessions on difficult tasks, and describes it as state-of-the-art on nearly all benchmarks with exceptional performance in software engineering, research, and vision.
Roman Storm warns that the legal theory in his case could set a precedent making open-source developers liable for how others use their code, potentially criminalizing the mere publication of privacy, messaging, or crypto tools. He notes that developer Michael Lewellen cannot publish lawful code due to prosecution fears, and argues this chilling effect extends beyond any single case.
Meta's engineering culture is deteriorating under Mark Zuckerberg and Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, who have introduced keyboard tracking, reassignments to data labeling, and AI-centric performance metrics. Critics argue this incentivizes performative AI use, drives away experienced engineers, and contributed to a major Instagram hijacking incident caused by AI-written and AI-reviewed code.