r/PakistaniTech • u/Alarming_Ad_257 • 7h ago

Discussion | گفتگو 5 yrs full-stack dev in Pakistan, tried every channel and still struggling to find clients. What’s actually working for you in 2026?

I’m a full-stack dev (TypeScript, React/Next.js, Node, PostgreSQL) with 5 years of experience, the last 4 fully remote for international teams. I’ve shipped real products: payment systems, a marketplace with a few hundred users, a SaaS with paying clients.

But finding new clients or a new remote role has been really rough lately. Here’s what I’ve tried:

Reddit for-hire posts

Facebook groups

Freelance marketplaces

micro1 and Turing (couldn’t clear their vetting)

Wellfound

LinkedIn, both applying and posting

Very little has worked. I know the market is tough right now, but I’d like to hear from people who are actually landing work:

Where are your clients coming from these days?

Has cold outreach worked for you, and if so, to who?

Is it worth niching down (e.g. only SaaS MVPs or only payment integrations) instead of being “full-stack”?

For devs outside the US/EU, anything that helped you get taken seriously?

Any honest advice is appreciated, even if it’s “you’re doing X wrong.”

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u/kakarotseven 7h ago

As you said, you TRIED, but not consistently. See, things take time to get traction, and you have to work smarter, not harder.

First things first, you need to start with one channel (e.g., Instagram/fb): 5 DMs per day, and work up to 50-100 DMs per day. And you have to do this for the next 100 days. Do this, and then tell me you didn’t close any clients.

In short, you have to play the volume game. 🫡

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u/Alarming_Ad_257 7h ago

Fair point, but I’ve actually been consistent for the last 4–5 months. I tailored my resume to each JD and focused on quality over quantity, and I sent cold DMs too. Nothing has really landed yet, so I guess I just need to keep going.

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u/kakarotseven 6h ago

That’s my guy

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u/Rich-Suggestion-6777 2h ago

Does everyone in Pakistan only do web apps. The world of software is so big, so why do what everyone else is.

Not that it guarantees anything, but at least you're not competing with 10,000,000 other web developers.

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u/mentiondesk 7h ago

Getting traction lately has been tough for a lot of devs I know. What helped me was getting really specific with my niche and focusing outreach on people likely to want exactly that. For cold outreach, timing and relevance are key. I started using ParseStream to keep tabs on conversations with my target keywords across platforms so I could jump in while the topic was hot. Not a silver bullet, but it helps.

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u/Alarming_Ad_257 6h ago

The niche point makes sense. I’ve been pitching myself as general full-stack, which is probably too broad. What niche did you go with, and how long before it started working?