Where do seasoned devs look for short-term work?
Hello HN
In a short form question: If you do, where do you look for a short time projects?
I'd like to put my skill set to use and work on a project, I'm available for 6-9 months. The problem seems to be for me, that I cannot find any way of finding such project.
I'm quite skilled, I have 15 years of experience, first 3 as a system administrator, then I went full on developer - have been full stack for 2 of those years, then switched my focus fully on the backend - and ended up as platform data engineer - optimizing the heck out of systems to be able to process data fast and reliably at larger scale.
I already went through UpWork, Toptal and such and to my disappointment, there was no success to be found.
Do you know of any project boards, or feature bounty platforms, that I could use to find a short time project?
Thank you for your wisdom :)
Having the right technical skills is only 50% of the requirement (and realistically even less than that). The harder battle is being a good salesman. Push yourself and your services at every opportunity. Send mass emails to friends and old collegues. Write daily puke-inducing posts on LinkedIn. Write blog posts and make toy Github projects with "looking for work" blurbs at the top of each one. Set a goal to post N times a day on X/Threads/LinkedIn/Reddit/wherever else you can think of, and hit those targets. Keep doing all of this for an extended period of time and the leads will start flowing in. Then you need to start putting even more effort into closing those leads and signing contracts.
I think your network is the best place to look for this sort of work. Sometimes people will reach out to me with short term projects which is the best way to get gigs like this. Maybe start looking at your colleagues on linkedin, see what they are up to, and think of ways to contribute to what they are working on. The best people to contact in this scenario are leadership and decision makers. A SWE II isn't gonna help you much but a CTO at an early stage startup might be a good person to send a DM if they are friends with you (or even if they aren't!) :)
I did this a few years ago and the winning recipe was a shameless (i.e. deeply shameful) linkedin post where I pretty much just summarized my skillset and explained that I was looking for a senior engineer equivalent of a summer internship, with no chance of extension.
Got me 3-4 offers. None of the offering companies had ads out for roles like this, so this was pretty much the only way.
Your network is always the best bet to start. Leverage past co-workers who can vouch for you, reach out, let people know you're available.
If you're a part of YC or other similar investor/tech networks, often those are very strong referral networks.
Beyond that, there are various niche job boards and sites like https://www.fractionaljobs.io/, https://www.hirefraction.com/, marketerhire.com depending on the type of work you do.
Sites like upwork/toptal can be good but often are a race to the bottom.
Relevant: I started a newsletter a little while back exploring this space for tech workers
Not to be too much of a recruiter, but I started a software consultancy where we get this kind of work. Typically projects that last a quarter, but with some potential for extending (although they also frequently just last a quarter). I actually have a project in the pipeline right now that I'm looking for a dev for (if I can't find one, I'll end up just taking on the work myself).
Email is in my profile if you want to connect :)
CEO of Toptal here. If you like, I can ensure we review your profile and client matching history to see if there's anything we overlooked. I'm available on Slack or taso@toptal.com. We’ll see if we can optimize your visibility to clients needing backend/data optimization experts.
While we look into this, Opire (an open-source bounties site) has lots of short-term opportunities.
It depends on how badly you need the money. If you really need to get paid you are probably better off finding a full time job and quit after 9 months. Otherwise invest the time in yourself. Work on a passion project or a blog.
In a past startup, we had at least one person apply to our regular job postings with a cover that transparently said "I know this is a full-time, long-term posting, but I really want to be a contractor for a bounded time." Since it was a great fit and they were available right away (and we urgently needed more people), we made the "hire" and ended up working together for a while. Only worked because it was quite transparent and up front in the application though.
Look in unexpected places, like temp agencies.
I was once in a similar position as you. I signed up with an agency that specialized in placing people in temporary jobs in creative companies. (Ad agencies, design studios, architecture firms, etc.). I ended up with a temporary web dev position that turned into a full-scale full-time warehouse automation job.
Once they see you're reliable and can think, many non-tech companies will find places where your skills can be put to use.
Tech is everywhere. Look outside the SV bubble.
Everybody says your network. Is this an US thing? Everyone in my network is employed in bigger or smaller companies. They might search for a full-time hire, but not for project work. Is this different in the EU or is my network too small?
Try former employers.
You've already got context, know the stack, whatever.
They might be happy to have a known contributor solve some problem or project for them.
A lot of people are probably going to reply with "Use your network!" which has always struck me as kind of vaguely incomplete and unhelpful advice. It's like telling an investor "Buy low and sell high." and leaving it at that. OK, thank you, Captain Obvious, that's wonderful, but how?
Maybe it's different in the independent contracting world, but I've found my "network" only semi-helpful in gaining employment. They can give good ideas about companies to try, they can help you refine your resume, and do interview coaching, and if you're lucky they work at the same company you want to apply for so can submit your resume with the "recommend" box ticked, but that's all they seem to be able to do. I've never once had someone in my network who had his hands directly on the "hire this man!" lever at the company.
Publishing articles, etc to demo your skill helps you stay top of mind.
Even if only the 5 people in your network see it, they are the 5 people that need that steady reminder of your skills and availability.
I’ve also hired people outside my network this way, when I happened to stumble on someone with a great article in the exact thing I’m working on.
I'd believe you're better off working on yourself.
Maybe do toy projects for your potential portfolio, learn an additional skill (AI?), and build many weekend projects until something sticks.
Most ad-hoc work I've picked up has been people I've previously worked with/for. Maybe worth reaching out to people you have a prestablished relationship with
A lot of the advice here about networking and marketing yourself is solid, but I want to address this part of your question directly - “Do you know of any project boards or feature bounty platforms to find short-term projects?”
I’ve faced a similar issue with traditional freelancing platforms, so I ended up building a platform where experienced engineers can work with agencies to manage and deliver projects. It’s a different model from traditional outsourcing, where you can either bring your own projects or get matched with ones based on your skillset. You’d be in a technical leadership role, helping build and manage a team of developers to deliver the project. You can also have as much hands-on involvement with the coding as you choose. It could be a good fit for you given your situation and experience. I’ve written a blog detailing the idea in more detail, feel free to check it out and reach out with questions - https://sourceror.co.uk/blog/how-tech-leaders-can-gain-exper...
As others said - use your network. Making a post on LinkedIn and trying to get your network to reshare it could help a lot.
Sign up for small company at bottom, find things to fix. Set timeline and expectations to leave in 9mo. By then you'll be running parts of the company. You may not actually want to do this long term, or it may be a nice side income. Plan for not continuing to do it, document well, and everyone will be happier
Don't focus on finding work, you'll just be selling your time to the lowest bidder.
If you can afford it, build something for free, blog what you learn, and ship it. Build a portfolio of real working software and technical writing. If your software has users, talk to them and you should find plenty of work.
Write an in-progress book about some niche = lead magnet for this type of work :)
(disclosure: founder of Leanpub)
I find contracts through my network and Upwork, the later became slower last x months, as general investments did.
Play the numbers game. If you have a specific speciality you can use platforms like LinkedIn to reach out to companies that might need your service (through decision makers).
You can also connect directly with digital agencies and let them know you are available if they need to offload some work.
The LinkedIn jobs platform itself feels useless for contract work (at least in the EU) as most contract jobs are employee-like contracts disguised as contract work (full-time availability, no subcontracting/delegation).
Any niche? I mean, possibly large-scale data processing, yet I've seen people go more niche than that. In other words if your resume has 5+ years in one particular industry then that might be whom to target.
I've been wondering the same thing. Been blogging and posting on Reddit + Freelancer Seeking Freelancer threads on HN but nothing came up so far. Don't know if it's because I'm using an old tech-stack (Python + Django) or if my communication needs improving.
It's definitely tough to get even one client these days.
In my area, it's not uncommon for companies to use short term contracts to scale teams up temporarily. These companies often work with local recruiters, and some of those even specialize primarily in short term contract placement.
In short, they're a quick and easy way to expand your network, so to speak, since they're always willing to take your resume even if they don't have anything immediately available.
I'm game to talk to you if you want to ken AT erdosmiller DOT com, we're always on the lookout for fantastic talent.
I offer two services to my clients, consulting/expertise and firefighting. The former pays for food, gas and grass; the the latter pays for everything else including skiing in the Alps and sunbathing in Cancun.
The purpose of business is not to sell but to create a customer...
In your situation, I'd focus on rephrasing my existing skill set in such a way that it emphasizes how I can help solve the current problems with scaling AI deployments.
As for the "where" - keep an eye on growing AI startups that need to scale fast.
My suggestion is talk to small, indie recruiters. Big recruiting firms will not likely have these types of roles. I'm currently doing a 2 month contract, 40 hours a week, for a small tech consulting agency.
Just get a regular job and quit after a few months. Don’t put it on your resume and don’t work anywhere that the burnt bridges matter. They would have no problem laying you off after 6 months
I've had good luck here, having been contacted based on what I posted on the the monthly Seeking Freelancer post.
I think it's dried up now, but I found some projects from Codementor a few years ago.
I the UK I go on job sites and search for contracts.
Though linkedin has eaten a lot and a bunch have merged.
A. Within your circles. Make sure everyone knows you are available.
B. Think of best creative solutions you came up with throughout your career.
Use LLM to write a post every other day (!). Within a month, you have 15 posts, which people will find useful as they search.
At the bottom f each put your contact details and a closing paragraph that you are available for consultancy.
It would seem that marketing was not one of your responsibilities in past roles
I found my current gig using moonlightwork.com but that was over 5 years ago now.
Short term work is more plentiful when money is easy and there’s a lot of entrepreneurial activity going on due to some recent catalyst such as mobile app platforms or the dotcom boom etc.
Right now we’re in the AI boom and some people may be making money peddling agentic solutions but money is tight and businesses are hurting.
It’s also hard to trust a short term dev who doesn’t really need the money. You have no leverage over them. They sort of just do as they please.
Networking with people you know in your career
what's this network people keep bringing up?
Now is not a great time to be looking for this kind of work unfortunately.
behind the wendys dumpster typically