For people who are already doing part-time dev work, do you find that people are curious and/or suspicious about why you're doing it part time? ie, "If you're actually good at this, why aren't you a full time employee or consultant?"
Ask HN: How to find part-time developer work?
31–40 of 122 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to find part-time developer work?
#32I have had some luck finding part time work over the HN monthly freelance thread and through developer email lists (NYC.rb specifically). In the case of the email list it was as easy as sending an email to the list describing myself and my past experience and saying I was looking for part time work. A handful of people reached out to me.
If you have a minute, could you go into a little more detail about finding developer e-mail lists? Not sure what you mean here.
Thanks!
Re: Ask HN: How to find part-time developer work?
#33At 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 eas…
The are so many part-time offers for Java programmer. I had plenty jobs in that field(now I'm Scala freelancer).
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.
Re: Ask HN: How to find part-time developer work?
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
The are so many part-time offers for Java programmer. I had plenty jobs in that field(now I'm Scala freelancer).
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.
Have you looked there https://www.odesk.com/jobs/?qs=java ? I see many small jobs right now.
Re: Ask HN: How to find part-time developer work?
#35I do about 350-500 hours per year of freelance work ($100 per hour usually) in addition to normal full-time job. It is all through people I've worked with in the past who contacted me. If you have previous employers or co-workers, maybe ask if they have any extra work or side projects they need completed.
Re: Ask HN: How to find part-time developer work?
#36Best way is to get a full time job that you really enjoy. After months of drought, the offers for high-payed consulting work (that you can't take) will suddenly flow in.
Oh so true.
Re: Ask HN: How to find part-time developer work?
#37Depends what you mean, I guess. I am "normally" employed with one company, not a freelancer, but I work "part-time", i.e. 30 hours/week. Getting that type of gig is likely different from getting the freelance/consultant type work. (For what it's worth, the way I got mine was that I was hired for full-time/40 hours, did that for about nine months, then went to the manager and said "hey, how about I only work 30 hours?…
Your situation is exactly what I'm looking for. Being hired by a company but only working part time. Consulting is difficult (for me) because it is a huge time investment.
To fill my experience out a bit more, it wasn't something I was planning to do when I got hired. From a personal standpoint, I had a kid, and my wife got a higher-paying job so my salary became less important. From an office standpoint, there were a couple people already doing a similar schedule (I do three 10-hour days T-W-Th), so I wasn't going completely out on a limb. It really did fall into place pretty easily.
(I work for a very large company which HN would probably scoff at, plus I work with very uncool things like Java and Oracle.)
My situation has me fall in-between for a lot of HR things -- my pay has always been given in terms of a yearly salary, and usually as what it would be if I were full time. I just get 3/4ths of it. And I'm technically paid hourly, which helps keep any requests to come in on my days off to a minimum, since they actually have to pay me for it. I accrue 3/4ths of normal vacation time, but I still get all the other standard benefits. And I get to spend two extra days a week with my now two children.
Really the only "bad" thing is that I know it'd be difficult to get into this situation again, so if my job stagnates, it would be hard to go out and try to find a new job, unless I am ready to go back full-time.
Re: Ask HN: How to find part-time developer work?
#38email us at jobs@fcflamingo.com
Re: Ask HN: How to find part-time developer work?
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Have you looked there https://www.odesk.com/jobs/?qs=java ? I see many small jobs right now.
odesk? I thought that was realistically only for low-cost overseas outsourcing.
Re: Ask HN: How to find part-time developer work?
#40email us at jobs@fcflamingo.com
Are you a recruiting agency? You dont even know what stack the developer uses...