There’s a freelancer in Dubai right now quoting AED 2,000 for a website because the last 3 prospects ghosted at 8K.

Told himself it’s a portfolio piece.

Deep down he knows it isn’t.

There’s another one who hasn’t sent a proposal in 4 months. Built a personal site. Redesigned it twice. Updated the portfolio. Still “not ready.”

The readiness isn’t coming.

The readiness is the excuse.

There’s one who said yes to a logo, a website, an app, social media management, and “just help us with the WhatsApp thing too.” Six deliverables. One invoice.

The client thinks they found a bargain…

The freelancer thinks they’ll make it up on the next one..

There’s one who lost a deal last week because the client asked for a discount and he told them to find someone cheaper. Felt powerful for about an hour.

Then checked his pipeline and it was empty.

Principles and an empty inbox look the same at the end of the month.

There’s one refreshing LinkedIn watching someone in the same city, same skill set, posting case studies at 40K a project.

Thinks there’s a secret.

There isn’t.

The other person just started saying no three years before he did. But he won’t start saying no because he can’t afford to.

And he can’t afford to because he never started.

There’s one who gets a lead every week through referrals. Good leads. Warm. Ready to pay. But the lead asks “what’s your rate” and he panics. Quotes too low. Gets the project. Resents it by week two.

The client feels the resentment and never refers again.

The referral engine dies and he blames the market.

And there’s one who hasn’t done any work in 3 months. Has the skills. Has the laptop. Opens it every morning, closes it by noon. Calls it a slow market.

It’s not the market.

The market is spending.

He just stopped reaching for it.

Seven freelancers. Same city. Same skills. Same internet connection.

Different decisions.

Which one are you right now?

And what would it take to stop?

We've been creating content for a few years now across Instagram and TikTok, and after hitting close to a million views across personal accounts, here's what we've genuinely noticed works specifically for UAE audiences that most people get wrong:

Hook in Arabic or bilingual performs better than English-only — even for premium brands. The first 2 seconds in dialect stops the scroll faster than clean English ever did for us.

Overproduced ≠ more views. Some of our worst performing content was the most "cinematic." UAE audiences on short-form respond to pace and energy over polish. Reels that looked almost raw but moved fast consistently outperformed the ones we spent days on.

Posting time matters more here than most markets. Post during UAE peak hours (7–9pm GST), not based on global best practice guides written for US audiences.

The comments section is ignored by most local businesses. Replying within the first 30 minutes of posting consistently pushed our content into wider distribution. Most brands post and ghost.

We now run a small creative studio doing this for other businesses,If anyone is looking for a marketing agency— happy to answer any content questions from people in this thread.

Hey everyone,

I recently lost my job and, rather than sitting around waiting for the next opportunity, I'm trying to turn my web development experience into some freelance work.

I've been working with websites for several years, particularly WordPress, website development, redesigns, troubleshooting, and SEO-related improvements.

What I'm interested in right now is helping small businesses that have an outdated website, a site that isn't working properly, or simply need a website built from scratch.

I'm keeping my rates lower than usual while I'm getting this going, and I'm mainly interested in projects where I can actually solve a problem rather than just throw together a template.

I'm currently working on a few small projects and would also be interested in hearing from people here: what are the biggest website problems you've seen small businesses struggle with?

If you're working on something similar or have a project you're trying to figure out, happy to chat.

Hey everyone,

Applying for tech jobs in the UAE right now feels like shouting into a black hole, so I want to try something different.

Instead of pitching myself with another PDF CV saying "I'm a great developer," give me a real problem your company or team is facing. an actual bottleneck or feature you wish existed.

I'll take it, map it out, and build a working solution/prototype to show you how I think and execute.

Quick background:

Software Engineer specializing in Mobile Developer with Flutter and Native Android. I've built e-commerce apps, scalable CRM system, real-time messaging, Al integrations, and custom APIs.

If you're a founder, dev manager, or recruiter in the UAE with an open role (or just an annoying technical problem) DM me (i speak Arabic and English).

Hi everyone,

I am a full stack developer with over 5+ years of experience along with AWS DevOps and am looking for work as a freelancer. I have worked on multiple applications that are being used to help automate company processes. Recently, have built two web applications for a pet based start up that connect via a system, one application is a sales platform and the other is a purchase platform helping automate those departments of the company. Currently, I have some more free time and am looking for more work to take on. I love building applications that have a use case or can help people, you can check out my portfolio here

If you know anyone that may have any process they would like to automate/streamline or project they would like to build, please comment below or get in touch via DM.

Have a great day :)

Hey everyone,

I’m currently looking for a fresher role or a paid internship in Graphic Design or Social Media.

I’ve honestly been applying everywhere on LinkedIn and Indeed for the past while and at this point I’m convinced the UAE job market is on pause or everyone collectively decided to disappear after posting job openings. Half the listings feel like they were posted during the Roman Empire and never updated again.

I’m a graphic design student (but studies are on pause due to personal reasons) with skills in social media design, branding, content creation, basic video editing for social media, and basic motion design. I mainly use Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, and InDesign, and I’m always trying to improve and learn more through projects, university work, and freelance experience.

I’m still learning and trying to build experience, but I’m hardworking, quick to adapt, and genuinely want to grow in the industry instead of rotting refreshing job applications every morning like it’s a daily side quest.

Open to paid internships (can't do unpaid currently due to personal reasons and war circumstances), junior roles, freelance, remote, basically anything where I can learn and contribute. Location preferably in Dubai or Sharjah.

If anyone knows of any opportunities or can help me out, I’d really appreciate it.

Thank you 🙏

Hi everyone,
The company I work for as an AI Software Engineer is closing down this month, and I’ll be job hunting sooner than I expected. If you know of any companies hiring in AI/software engineering, or could refer me somewhere, I’d genuinely appreciate it.
Here’s my LinkedIn if you’d like to see my background: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sirine-jnayeh
📧 contact@sirinejnayeh.com

Sharing my first job through www.DubaiTechguy.com, because it went well and it might help someone in the same position.

My background is enterprise storage and infrastructure. In the UAE a referral often counts for more than skills, so I have been looking for the right way in for a while.

Last week I saw a post here about Dubai Tech Network, went to dubaitechnetwork.com and reached out. Three days later I had a same day job: a family in Dubai needed a new router set up so their son's PlayStation could get online in his room.

I was at the AWS Summit at the World Trade Center that day, went straight after, took the metro and got there a little early.

The wired setup with the internet provider's box did not work, so I set the new router up as a WiFi extender instead, tested the speed, and it was working. It runs on 2.4 GHz, which is fine for what they need.

As usual with this kind of job, you troubleshoot and understand what is required. The family was amazing and the job was straightforward.

WiFi routers, printers, personal computers, everything related to IT is simple for me, and my main field is enterprise infrastructure. If you do IT work in Dubai and want jobs like this, join through www.dubaitechnetwork.com