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At present I derive all my income from part-time work and side projects. The first thing is to figure out what not to do. You can't work in a field where peop

At present I derive all my income from part-time work and side projects. The first thing is to figure out what not to do. You can't work in a field where people routinely hire full-time employees with ease. So you can't do Java work part-time, for example. (Well I mean you can, but it's like saying you can be elected to Congress. Let's do something easy.) So, you have to start in some field where 9-5ers can't be easily found to fill the position. iOS/Android dev are like that. Maybe there are web specialities that are like that. If you have some deep expertise like machine learning or computer vision or graph algorithms, maybe those specialties are like that. But the operative criteria is to find some field that full-time employees are not easily had. The next step is to filter by projects where time is not the biggest criteria. Because in spite of Fred Brooks and his MMM, ordinary people still believe that if you work more hours the project will get done faster, and will pressure you to become full-time. So you have to find people who are unconcerned about delivery dates, or rather, who have overriding concerns. Quality concerns. Cost concerns. If you find someone who has a fixed budget for his project, for example, if that person can get a better developer at 20 hours/week than he can at 40 hours that starts to look like an attractive value proposition. Because not only does he get a better developer, but with a lower burn rate it's easier for him to get deep visibility into where the money and time is actually going. Those benefits outweigh the benefits of completing the project faster, but only for projects that have these sorts of overriding concerns. There's more you can do, but those two steps are probably all you need to start consistently landing part-time gigs. It's worth pointing out as well, there are a variety of near-part-time deal structures you can negotiate (for example rotating 1 week on, 1 week off). These might be worth exploring depending on your specific motivations for seeking part-time work.

bigtunacan 13y ago
drew here has it right. While it is possible to find money on side projects in more mainstream technologies like Java or .NET; it is easier in specialized fields. Depending on where you are targeting geographically those technologies vary a lot; I personally have seen a lot of demand for iOS/Android, but even more demand for Ruby on Rails. I think that quite a few Ruby on Rails developers left the community and flocked to Node.js as the next shiny thing and that has just made it easier to find Rails contract work. Not only is it easier to find work in a less mainstream technology, but you are able to negotiate better rates since it is more difficult for businesses to locate help. After a certain point you can't scale by taking on additional hours; so your hourly rate makes a big difference. And hourly vs fixed rate contracting should be considered. I will negotiate my hourly rate based on term of contract, but under no circumstances will I take fixed rate contracts any longer. Quite a few of my friends in the contracting scene are the same way. I've seen too many times where this just leads to continual "feature creep" and a strong difference in opinions of if scope of work has been expanded beyond the agreed contract (in all cases it was). I bid a fixed rate contract with a couple of associates against my better judgement. Based on the initial scope of work it should have taken about 3 months. Instead it took over a year and the lead developer on the project walked away making a rate of right around $10/hour. And this point can not be overstated. Network! Network! Network! If you are an introvert you are going to have to get over it. It doesn't matter if you have the raw programming skills of Linus Torvalds or John Carmack; if you can't get out there and make connections you aren't going to make any money. I am very introverted by nature, but I force myself to regularly attend meetups and conferences; and make a point to connect with new people at those conferences. You need to grow your real social graph; not your Facebook/LinkedIn/etc... Nothing makes the same lasting impression as a firm handshake and 5 minutes of conversation face to face.
- piyush_soni 13y ago
  I was just wondering, could one have a contract like this (I haven't done freelancer work yet, but might look in future): "Up to 3 months of development time, I will take a fixed rate. If the development goes beyond that, I will charge hourly."?
  - ghh 13y ago
    If the other party agrees to it, any contract is possible. However, in this case you get more money if somehow the project is delayed over the three month period; so you have an incentive to work slowly or to have the project creep up in scope. That's not a good basis for a contract for your client may complain that you should've worked faster, even if you've put in all-nighters. Given a fixed price, it's easier on the relationship to have the fixed price be renegotiated on basis of objective measurements that you used to arrive at the fixed price in the first place. Examples are the number of pages in a site or screens in an app, the number of revisions of the visual design, or the number of function points [1] if you have data available for that. Mention in the contract that if a client wants more than X screens, Y pages, or Z revisions, the fixed price is to be recalculated. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function_point http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function_point
  - trcollinson 13y ago
    I haven't done a contract quite like what you describe, but as has been pointed out, if both parties agree, anything in possible. I have found more success in a "retainer" model of consulting. We agree on a certain number of hours needed up front, say three months. If they pay a retainer up front, they get a 5%, 10%, or 15% discount (dependent on negotiations). They then burn time against these "retainer hours". At the end of their retainer you can slip into a normal hourly rate billing cycle or negotiate for another retainer at a discount. The client knows more fees are coming as the retainer approaches zero, and thus will very often not allow scope creep to come in. I often try to keep a little retainer left over at the end. Some say I should keep this for "change" orders. However, I will give it back to the client! Why? 9 out of 10 times when I offer to return the leftover they are ready to add it to a new retainer for another project. You can't make a client happier than saying "here's the final demo of your project! It was great right? Oh by the way we came in under budget." Just make sure you are in constant communication with the client, have regular demos, and deliver something amazing.
elwell 13y ago
With that said, you usually want to solve a problem for a client, not write code in language X.
kushti 13y ago
The are so many part-time offers for Java programmer. I had plenty jobs in that field(now I'm Scala freelancer).
- wlievens 13y ago
  Any specific pointers? I'm very fluent in Java and I'm very productive in it, but can't seem to find small freelance projects, and small is all I have time for now.
  - kushti 13y ago
    Have you looked there https://www.odesk.com/jobs/?qs=java https://www.odesk.com/jobs/?qs=java ? I see many small jobs right now.
    - nsxwolf 13y ago
      odesk? I thought that was realistically only for low-cost overseas outsourcing.
      - pmorici 13y ago
        On the surface it seems that way. There are a number of people who comment here every time this comes up though that swear they make a living through oDesk. Though they don't typically specify what "making a living" means to them or where they live. There are higher paying jobs on oDesk they are just a lot harder to find and get. I suspect if you are highly specialized in a small set of popular thing then you can probably under bid the outsourced competition on many of the posted jobs and that is how people who make it there are successful.
      - bigtunacan 13y ago
        Yeah; I would recommend staying away from odesk unless you are overseas and can live off of $10 to $20 an hour.
        13y ago

bigtunacan 13y ago

drew here has it right. While it is possible to find money on side projects in more mainstream technologies like Java or .NET; it is easier in specialized fields. Depending on where you are targeting geographically those technologies vary a lot; I personally have seen a lot of demand for iOS/Android, but even more demand for Ruby on Rails. I think that quite a few Ruby on Rails developers left the community and flocked to Node.js as the next shiny thing and that has just made it easier to find Rails contract work. Not only is it easier to find work in a less mainstream technology, but you are able to negotiate better rates since it is more difficult for businesses to locate help. After a certain point you can't scale by taking on additional hours; so your hourly rate makes a big difference. And hourly vs fixed rate contracting should be considered. I will negotiate my hourly rate based on term of contract, but under no circumstances will I take fixed rate contracts any longer. Quite a few of my friends in the contracting scene are the same way. I've seen too many times where this just leads to continual "feature creep" and a strong difference in opinions of if scope of work has been expanded beyond the agreed contract (in all cases it was). I bid a fixed rate contract with a couple of associates against my better judgement. Based on the initial scope of work it should have taken about 3 months. Instead it took over a year and the lead developer on the project walked away making a rate of right around $10/hour. And this point can not be overstated. Network! Network! Network! If you are an introvert you are going to have to get over it. It doesn't matter if you have the raw programming skills of Linus Torvalds or John Carmack; if you can't get out there and make connections you aren't going to make any money. I am very introverted by nature, but I force myself to regularly attend meetups and conferences; and make a point to connect with new people at those conferences. You need to grow your real social graph; not your Facebook/LinkedIn/etc... Nothing makes the same lasting impression as a firm handshake and 5 minutes of conversation face to face.

piyush_soni 13y ago
I was just wondering, could one have a contract like this (I haven't done freelancer work yet, but might look in future): "Up to 3 months of development time, I will take a fixed rate. If the development goes beyond that, I will charge hourly."?
- ghh 13y ago
  If the other party agrees to it, any contract is possible. However, in this case you get more money if somehow the project is delayed over the three month period; so you have an incentive to work slowly or to have the project creep up in scope. That's not a good basis for a contract for your client may complain that you should've worked faster, even if you've put in all-nighters. Given a fixed price, it's easier on the relationship to have the fixed price be renegotiated on basis of objective measurements that you used to arrive at the fixed price in the first place. Examples are the number of pages in a site or screens in an app, the number of revisions of the visual design, or the number of function points [1] if you have data available for that. Mention in the contract that if a client wants more than X screens, Y pages, or Z revisions, the fixed price is to be recalculated. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function_point http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function_point
- trcollinson 13y ago
  I haven't done a contract quite like what you describe, but as has been pointed out, if both parties agree, anything in possible. I have found more success in a "retainer" model of consulting. We agree on a certain number of hours needed up front, say three months. If they pay a retainer up front, they get a 5%, 10%, or 15% discount (dependent on negotiations). They then burn time against these "retainer hours". At the end of their retainer you can slip into a normal hourly rate billing cycle or negotiate for another retainer at a discount. The client knows more fees are coming as the retainer approaches zero, and thus will very often not allow scope creep to come in. I often try to keep a little retainer left over at the end. Some say I should keep this for "change" orders. However, I will give it back to the client! Why? 9 out of 10 times when I offer to return the leftover they are ready to add it to a new retainer for another project. You can't make a client happier than saying "here's the final demo of your project! It was great right? Oh by the way we came in under budget." Just make sure you are in constant communication with the client, have regular demos, and deliver something amazing.

elwell 13y ago

With that said, you usually want to solve a problem for a client, not write code in language X.

kushti 13y ago

The are so many part-time offers for Java programmer. I had plenty jobs in that field(now I'm Scala freelancer).

wlievens 13y ago
Any specific pointers? I'm very fluent in Java and I'm very productive in it, but can't seem to find small freelance projects, and small is all I have time for now.
- kushti 13y ago
  Have you looked there https://www.odesk.com/jobs/?qs=java https://www.odesk.com/jobs/?qs=java ? I see many small jobs right now.
  - nsxwolf 13y ago
    odesk? I thought that was realistically only for low-cost overseas outsourcing.
    - pmorici 13y ago
      On the surface it seems that way. There are a number of people who comment here every time this comes up though that swear they make a living through oDesk. Though they don't typically specify what "making a living" means to them or where they live. There are higher paying jobs on oDesk they are just a lot harder to find and get. I suspect if you are highly specialized in a small set of popular thing then you can probably under bid the outsourced competition on many of the posted jobs and that is how people who make it there are successful.
    - bigtunacan 13y ago
      Yeah; I would recommend staying away from odesk unless you are overseas and can live off of $10 to $20 an hour.
      - 13y ago