About Bounties
Bounties is a marketplace on Replit where anyone can connect with and contract top creators on Replit to complete software development tasks.
Many Replit developers specialize in JavaScript, Python, web, and bot development. All payments are processed through Stripe and converted to Cycles so that vetted Bounty Hunters can purchase compute resources on Replit and convert their Cycles to local currency if they are eligible.
About the Bounty Poster
Owen works on the content team at Deel, a Series D payroll and HR startup that helps customers hire and pay their workforce located anywhere in the world.
Deel's team and product have seen explosive growth over the last 2 years, recently going from an ARR of $1M to $100M in 20 months.
Project Needs
Owen and Deel's Content team needed an internal tool to search their blog articles. They knew their problem could be solved with a simple internal website using the Algolia API to index their content.
Deel is a startup in growth mode with multiple, mission-critical priorities on every team's plate. Neither Owen's marketing team nor their engineering colleagues had the bandwidth to create this internal tool.
They needed a short-term, talented web developer that could build, host, and transfer ownership of the project quickly and within budget (< $2,500).
Owen got early access to Replit's Bounties platform and created a task that went out to Replit's community of top developers:
Finding the right Bounty Hunter
Working with someone with web development experience that would be fast and remain within budget was top of mind for Deel. Once the Bounty was posted, multiple pre-approved members of the Replit developer community applied. Ultimately, Owen was paired up with Ray, https://replit.com/@rayhanADev, a Replit site moderator who has been a prolific Replit community member for two years.
Most notably, Ray recently developed a scanner that uses native Replit APIs to find and invalidate exposed secrets found within Repls published to the community.
Why did you want to take on the Bounty?
"To me, the first bounty seemed like a lot of fun! I always like a challenge, and I've known for a while now that Algolia is a great tool to use but never had a reason to learn or apply it to one of my projects. I saw a lovely learning opportunity in this bounty and a chance to help someone out and build connections with people, and getting cycles paid was a great plus!"
https://replit.com/@rayhanADev / Bounty Hunter
How Ray helped
Ray used Replit for their full pipeline from prototyping to prod. They also had access to Replit's AI code assistant, Ghostwriter, which sped up their development process and suggested optimal ways to implement features.
"Using Generate Code to create components was also rather useful, along with UPM (the packager) and Nix to customize my environment and make package management a breeze. Easy hosting was also essential since this was a web project, I could create and test the website with a simple flick of the run button!"
https://replit.com/@rayhanADev / Bounty Hunter
Once the project was completed, Ray shared the Private Repl link with Owen. From this link, Owen and their supervisor were able to review the code and run the project that was all hosted on Replit.
Once they were satisfied with the results, they forked the Repl to their Replit account, paid Ray in Cycles, and used Cycles to make the hosted Repl private again on their account.
As far as future Bounties are concerned, Owen’s team was impressed by Ray’s speed and quality and how simple it was to collaborate through Replit. The site is still used internally.
What's next for Deel & Replit Bounties Network
Deel has seen incredible growth over the last two years as workforces become more remote and mobile and look for ways to compliantly hire and pay their international teams. Allowing all their teams to ship products and deliver on key performance goals will be essential as they continue to lean into this growth period for their company.
Replit Bounties will continue providing an option for top developer talent to work with Deel and other company partners to build important but non-mission-critical software without interrupting their developer bandwidth.
Feedback on Bounties Experience
"Overwhelmingly positive, Ray was professional and enthusiastic about the project. Read the deliverable, worked async, and knocked it out of the park — perfect for a remote team like ours. Exceeded all expectations. Easy to set up and host on Replit too."
Owen Yin / Content at Deel
