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2023-01-31
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On that topic. If I’m looking for a part time software development job, I expect that getting into contracting is the way to go. Will I actually be able to find things that work like that?
It'll probably depend on location and the type of software development you're hoping to do. A lot of the cheap "body shop" sites (like Upwork etc) provide opportunities for part-time work in mainstream languages -- but you'll be competing with very low-paid developers around the world. If you're offering direct contracting services, you can certainly try to offer limited hours but you'll be more at the mercy of how urgent the client considers the work -- as well as having to generate your own business. Back when I was contracting, I tried to organize my clients so that I did 20-30 hours a week and had plenty of "time off", but keeping up a pipeline where you can live comfortably on that is not always easy -- clients can be a bit like buses: none for several months then six all wanting work done immediately 😕

Here in NL most companies offer 32 hour/week contracts. I myself have 30h/week and work 6 hours/5 days. Less than that it might get more difficult, but YMMV of course

I’m also trying to do the part-time thing. My impression is that the part-time contracting world is large but hidden: most gigs are found through people’s networks and don’t really appear “in the labor marketplace”. That said, I found some good resources on how to break in: • https://www.parttimetech.io/p/work-part-time-as-a-software-engineer is a pretty good overview of where to start looking (there’s other good stuff on his blog too) • https://www.freelancersunion.org/ is not a union, but has some good resources for freelancers • And of course, hit up your network. It’ll take as much as getting seen by 1000 people for each job, so having a wide and strong network is necessary if you want to get off of the upwork et al spaces. Linkedin can be good for this. The biggest takeaway for me is that ultimately it doesn’t take all that many hours to pay rent, so for example I could probably make as much as I did when salaried working only 20 hours per week. Of course, not counted in that is the time spent finding jobs, managing contacts, etc. etc.
