"How can I step away from this work without completely leaving them in the lurch?" A. Announce a date in advance that you'll be leaving. That will make the con

"How can I step away from this work without completely leaving them in the lurch?" A. Announce a date in advance that you'll be leaving. That will make the contractor serious about finding a replacement. Let the contractor know that if they can find a replacement before you will help get the next coder up to speed. If you're nice you can make that exit date a reasonable amount of time to find and train a replacement. Also there's nothing wrong with actually saying that you didn't expect a 4 month project to turn into 4 years.