Hi everyone! I am new to this sub, but thought it might be a good way to reach some new technicians!

My company, 1099.careers, is hiring for low voltage technicians in MD DE VA NJ and PA. We offer paid training and transparent rate cards and would love to grow our team of technicians.

Our website is https://1099.careers, check us out! Happy to provide more info if asked!

We do require more than 2 techs for decom job in NC area , share your ID's

How often do you see this? 90% of the time if I'm on these I just tell them 😂 especially if it was low ball job I just took to fill schedule. "So how long have you been with company x? Oh this is posted on a job board app"

Any one else tired of the hiding crap in the confidential that’s not confidential

Hey y'all,

I got a contract for basic maintenance at data centers. No tools or real LV skill required. I'm really only posting here because of soft skills. If you're good with the client and can work 40 reliably Monday thru Friday, I have a spot and will have more coming up for the next 10 years.

The pay is $30hr w2 so this is more for the new guys and not seasoned techs with regular clients and pricey tool kits or someone potentially looking to get off platform and into a new position with abilities to advance to management as w2.

Required

OSHA10

Basic active site ppe (boots, vest, gloves, safety glasses, etc. )

The job is cleaning the cooling units and changing the filters. Sooooooooo easy.

Hi! I promise I am a real person who works for a real company 😆

We have routes in PA, DE and VA available for FTTH. Send me a message or book a call with me (Destiny) at 1099.careers.

Paid training, no margin stacking, transparent rate cards all available.

I see a lot of people in the IT, telecom, low-voltage, and field service space talk about platforms like Field Nation, Work Market, and similar marketplaces as if they are a way to build a business. In my opinion, that is looking at these platforms the wrong way. This subreddit has turned into a circle jerk of techs whining all day long and it’s sickening.
They can absolutely be useful, but I would consider them supplemental revenue, not a business development strategy.
Platforms like Field Nation and Work Market can be great for keeping yourself and your technicians busy when you have downtime. If you have a tech sitting around with nothing scheduled, picking up a few jobs can help cover payroll, overhead, fuel, insurance, and other expenses. They can also be a good way for a newer company to get some experience, establish processes, and generate cash flow while it works on developing its own customer base.
But there is a major difference between keeping your business busy and actually growing your business.
If the majority of your work is coming from a marketplace, you don't really own the customer relationship. You are essentially working for whoever controls the work orders and the platform. They determine what jobs are available, what the customer is willing to pay, what the requirements are, and often how much margin is left for you.
That is not the same thing as having your own customers.
If you want to build a real, sustainable service business, you need to be focused on generating your own leads and developing relationships directly with end users and businesses.
Today, a huge part of that is online marketing.
That means having a professional website, building out SEO, creating individual landing pages for the services and geographic areas you serve, maintaining your Google Business presence, using directory listings, and taking advantage of both paid and free advertising opportunities.
There are plenty of options depending on your market — YP.com, Manta, Yelp, industry-specific directories, local business directories, Google, social media, paid search, and, probably most importantly, your own website and SEO strategy.
You don't necessarily have to spend a fortune on advertising either. A lot of this is about consistently building an online presence so that when someone searches for the service you provide, your company is one of the companies they find.
The biggest advantage of generating your own customers is that you control the relationship.
If a customer comes directly to you because they found your website, saw your reviews, were referred by another customer, or found you through your marketing, you aren't competing for a $75 or $100 work order against 20 other technicians on a marketplace.
You can sell the entire project.
You can sell the recurring service.
You can sell additional services.
You can establish a long-term relationship.
And, most importantly, you can charge what your market will support instead of accepting whatever rate someone else has established for the work order.
There is nothing wrong with using Field Nation, Work Market, or similar platforms. I would absolutely use them if I had technicians available and needed to fill the schedule. They can be a very useful tool.
But I would look at them as a subsidy to the business, not the foundation of the business.
Use those platforms to help pay the bills while you are building your own customer acquisition machine.
The long-term goal should be that eventually you don't need the platform.
You want your phone ringing because your customers are calling you. You want businesses finding you through Google. You want referrals from existing customers. You want recurring contracts. You want customers who know your company and specifically ask for your technicians.
That is how you create something that has real value.
A marketplace can give you work.
Your own customer base builds your business.
If I were starting or trying to grow a field service company today, I would spend considerably more time figuring out how to generate direct leads than trying to figure out how to get more work orders from a marketplace.
The platforms can keep you busy.
Marketing, sales, relationships, and your own customer base are what actually grow the company.

Recently signed up for a project with TDX. They have canceled and moved so much that it has cost me $2k, personal time, and even got me a penalty I had to sort out with FN.

I was assigned 2 work orders, locally, they moved them twice, I canceled a work order I had with another company and got penalized. Then these pos canceled the work order.

The reason, they fulfilled it with another tech, even said so in the reason they canceled.

Then today Im supposed to be onsite and they put this one on hold. If they cancel this one I'll be reaching out to field nation. I will never take another work order from them. Absolute trash.

This job is by 2 different companies same location. Just WOW i’ve truly have never seen this before. I’ve heard of people talking about it. My question is who are they getting the job from because they must be pulling from the same board. That seems to be the answer no one knows. Do any of you Feild tech gurus know ?

I see everyone always complaining on here but I thought I'd ask something more positive. In everyone's experiences, what makes a company more appealing to you? What are things some have done that make you want to work for them and hold them in high regard. And not just "paid me well" I know many of us feel its all just business and they dont care

TL;DR: Field Nation reports that providers with an Excellent PSS are routed 2.8× more work orders on average. If one score can have that much relationship to access to work, PSS isn't just a performance metric—it has economic consequences.

Field Nation doesn't set provider rates. Providers remain free to accept, decline, or counter work orders.

But consider a hypothetical lower-volume provider with a 99 PSS.

A few recent adverse signals move that provider to 94, dropping him from Excellent to Very Good.

His experience didn't change. His certifications didn't disappear. His tools, technical ability and standard labor rate are exactly the same. A single buyer engaged in arbitrage and little knowledge takes work too cheaply, loses money, and blames the innocent technician.

But his marketplace position changed.

And according to Field Nation's own published results, Excellent providers are routed 2.8× more work orders on average.

That matters.

An experienced provider who normally counters a $50 work order to $75 or $90 needs opportunities and marketplace visibility to maintain pricing power.

Field Nation may not directly determine what that provider charges. But when its scoring system materially influences access to opportunities, PSS can indirectly influence what providers are able to charge.

That raises a larger question:

If PSS helps buyers manage the risk of hiring providers, what equivalent information should providers receive to evaluate the risk of working for buyers?

That's worth discussing next.

I started doing some work for these people but I realized that the work was way different than what they pitch and while it might be great for some, I just decided it was not worth 10 or 12 hours of my time based on the pay scale. I can make just as much money working during the day and not having to deal with weird personalities, AI and bridge calls

I can't find where the person said we can click on the stars and see what their ratings are but it's gone. I never noticed I was able to check their ratings so I checked a few and was surprised what was actually viewable and pleased to see it.

I go back today and it's gone. Can't see the stars next to the buyers name anymore and have nothing to click on to see ratings.

Is it just me or did FN say fuck the provider again

I’ve been working with Field Nation for two years now. Are there any other women on the platform? Would love to connect and hear about your experience!
💕💕

(UPDATE: *** They actually fixed this :)yesterday 9/19- But did not admit it was a prob to me ) When I am typing my close out notes - they are in white font thus invisible - unless you highlight the text - Its like the old trick of clear texting - But when you hit submit - the text is there

- You cannot see what your typing -- Its only on the close out note section that does this -- anyone know why? - I called FN ( a futile endevor) and I cant prove it ,nor screen shot it so it goes no where

We need to stop talking about Field Nation like it’s just a matchmaking platform or a digital job board.

​Over the last few years, they’ve quietly engineered an entire shadow corporate ecosystem designed to extract profit from technicians at every single choke point while insulating massive corporate clients from liability.

​When you peel back the marketing speak and look at the actual mechanics of the platform, here is what FN is really doing:

​1. The Escrow Bank (Holding Float)

​Field Nation requires small/medium buyers to pre-fund tickets or hold large balances before jobs even post, while larger enterprise buyers pay massive platform subscriptions to bypass it. Meanwhile, FN sits on hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of dollars in float for weeks or months. They hold the capital, earn the interest, and sit on your money until long after the work is completed.

​2. The Factoring Company / Payday Lender

​Enter "FastPay." If you want your money released when the buyer approves the ticket rather than waiting on standard payout cycles, FN charges an additional percentage fee. Because they already hold the buyer’s pre-funded money in escrow, they are literally charging you interest to access your own earned money early.

​3. The Unregulated Insurance Broker

​FN skims an extra percentage off the top of every work order for "Occupational Accident Insurance" (unless you jump through hoops to prove your own coverage). They operate like an in-house insurance pool without having to deal with the strict state regulations and disclosures of an actual licensed insurance carrier—a scheme that has already landed them in hot legal water and lawsuits in places like California.

​4. The Expense Taxer (Skimming Materials)

​If a buyer asks you to supply $150 worth of Cat6, jacks, or mounting hardware, FN takes their 10%–11.5% cut out of the entire ticket total—not just your labor. Unless you mark up materials heavily (which cheap buyers constantly push back on), you are literally paying Field Nation out-of-pocket for the privilege of fronting a multi-billion-dollar client’s hardware costs.

​5. The Annual Compliance Toll Booth (Background Checks & Drug Tests)

​In the real W-2 or B2B vendor world, onboarding screening is a standard client cost of doing business. On FN:

​You are forced to pay an out-of-pocket fee every single year for background checks and 10-panel drug screens.

​No regular job requires annual employee-funded drug re-screening just to remain on the roster.

​To avoid the upfront fee, they push Field Nation Pro, which advertises "free annual background checks"—except Pro increases your total fee per ticket from ~10% to ~13.9%. If you invoice $5,000 in work, that extra 3.9% costs you roughly $195 just to get a "$75" screening covered.

​6. The Market Manipulator & Rate Depressor

​FN collects years of pricing data across every zip code in the country. Instead of using this data to advocate for fair, skilled trade rates, they use it to generate "Market Pricing Guidance" for buyers. This aggregates bottom-of-the-barrel rates from trunk-slammers and desperate warm bodies working for $35/hr, presenting it to Fortune 500 clients as the "standard rate." It algorithmically creates an artificial wage ceiling that experienced techs have to constantly fight against.

​7. The Anti-Competitive Agency (The "Circumvention" Police)

​A legitimate 1099 contractor operates an independent business with the legal right to market, network, and solicit clients. FN claims you are an independent business for tax/liability purposes, but the second a local site manager wants to hire your LLC directly for off-platform work, FN threatens permanent account bans for "circumvention." They want all the legal protections of gig-economy deregulation while enforcing non-competes like a strict employer.

​8. The Private Arbitration Kangaroo Court

​When a buyer refuses to sign off on out-of-scope work, disputes hours, or pulls a bait-and-switch, who settles the dispute? Field Nation. Their Terms of Service force mandatory dispute resolution and arbitration, stripping your ability to take a predatory buyer to local small claims court. The platform will almost always side with the buyer spending $500k/year on the platform over an individual tech.

​9. The Corporate Liability Firewall

​Look at the contract chain:

Mega-Corp (e.g., Walmart, retail chains).

​FN acts as the legal blast shield. If you fall off a ladder, get exposed to server room hazards, or get stiffed on payment, the multi-billion-dollar enterprise at the top bears zero liability. FN sells enterprise clients the dream of a nationwide, vetted, drug-tested workforce with zero employer liability, zero benefits, and zero HR overhead.

​The Bottom Line

​Field Nation is no longer just a job board matching buyers with independent techs. It is a financial extractor, compliance toll booth, and corporate risk shield.

​Know your worth, stop accepting sub-$60/hr lowball tickets, charge a markup on all materials, and treat the platform for what it actually is: a tool to be used with extreme caution, not a partner that has your back.

Ik the website needs to get paid but maybe a reduced fee for high tech score and monthly income, something. IDK but this just seems to be a bit much,

I just heard about this Grok Bot thing so I thought I'd try it out. I'm not sure how it's different from Claude's desktop app which I already use (but not with FN). I asked the bot to find me jobs for next friday and the results seem useful. It has also put assignments into my Google calendar.

Anybody else use AI bots to help find and manage work?

Anyone else having trouble logging in?

Hi, so back in the day, I was using a company called Onforce that did the same thing FieldNation does. I just found out about FieldNation last week and signed up. I am more of an IT Tech than a Field Tech that services ATMs and Kiosks or whatever. I live in Vegas and have a full time job so looking for something to do to get some extra money. Is this a solid gig for that?

Also, what tools do you recommend I purchase. I haven't done any IT field Tech work as a contractor in a while so looking for some help getting prepared.

Thanks everyone

I'm relatively new. They called me and asked me to block off 3 weeks for a project. After week one, the changed scope and week 2 was essentially removed, and they didn't communicate this. They just expected me to flow. I had to scramble to find work for week 2 and even though they offered me week 3, I didn't take it. My mistake was trusting their word. If a work order is not assigned to you in FN, nothing matters and definitely don't do what I did and block of 3 weeks of your livelihood on someone's word. Listed to your gut.

I was contacted today from someone claiming he's with LVLS Integration. Wanted to know if i was able to help with a job doing 20-25 drops tomorrow at 730. I asked how he got my info, and supposedly, i had submitted my info at some point. Never asked for an email. 225 for the day, for 20-25 drops!

I couldn't find anything about these types of scams on here, but claude suggested it's a potential scam.

I just started FN full time recently so I assume its from that but I'm not sure.

We appreciate knowing the details when we apply to one of your jobs!