Finding Programming Work on the Side?

vistaconfig wonders: "I work as a developer for a certain fairly small company. I'm very happy with my work/pay and I wouldn't consider changing my job. However, I find myself bored at night since I never take any work home (as per the boss's orders). Since I'm not capable of working without some kind of motivation, I'm trying to find some kind of a side job that pays whatever money, and has deadlines (that's the only way I can work, unfortunately). There doesn't seem to be a website for side jobs. I'm willing to take something on, but I don't know where to go. How do other Slashdot readers deal with finding the side job in the first place? "

Side work website

[czehp]

I'd check out guru.com [guru.com]. It's a good site for finding programming jobs of all sizes and in all fields. I've taken several jobs from the site while in between jobs and on the side.

TopCoder

[USSJoin]

I, for one, would recommend TopCoder: http://www.topcoder.com/ [topcoder.com] . I am a member (blue-rated), and it's an interesting place; half devoted to algorithm competitions, where you have short timed problems to complete, and half to software development. All of it involves money in some way, either as prize or compensation: I suggest you check it out.

Rentacoder et. al. blow and here's why

[QuantumG]

Rentacoder is full of people trying to get cheap work done with a poor idea what they want and no intention to pay at all if they can get away with it. No-one needs Rentacoder to find a programmer. Instead, there should be a site called Rent-a-networker. No, not the kind of networking that involves cables and routers, the kind of networking that involves going to conferences and smoozing. There should be a site where programmers can go, enter their skills and availability and some business guy goes out and finds real customers who need those services. The business guy gets a cut of whatever you make, so he will be trying to find clients that really need your services and are willing to pay top dollar for them.

STFW?

[Rinisari]

You [haikubounties.org] could [limewire.org] always [horde.org] do [voip-info.org] a [google.com] code [bountysource.com] bounty. [launchpad.net]

Rentacoder = Not Good Use Of Time For First World

[patio11]

I registered on RentACoder in hopes of basically freelancing as a summer job and eventually abandoned the idea. The site is extremely popular with overseas coders of varying quality (from worse-than-crud to top-notch), many of whom put in bids which are just ludicrously low if you're duplicating them from a base in the US or another first world nation. Take, for example, a project the complexity of an undergraduate CS lab (not an ACTUAL undergraduate CS lab, although there's no shortage of students using rentacoder to cheat that way): I would assume eight solid hours of effort would get this done. I was thinking of bidding in the $100 range -- $12.50 an hour seemed like a pretty fair valuation for my time for a college student with a specialized skill set working as an independent contractor. Within an hour of the project being posted, there were I kid you not a dozen bids offering to do it for $20. Many of them had the feel of a copy-paste job of questionable English skills, but there were some capable individuals in the bunch. I mean, programming for pocket change beats working at McDonalds, but programming for $2.50 an hour... not a worthwhile proposition I don't think.

Ok, how about this?

[jd]

I'm involved in a number of Open Source projects (covering crypto, multicasting, reconstructions of genuinely ancient games, etc) and volunteer projects (processing archaeological data, mostly) where there is a desperate need for coders who are determined to get results, who can be given assignments & deadlines, etc. I don't know what sort of bounties I could pony up, but if there are coders out there who would like to be given a nice, encapsulated, well-defined project, I would be more than happy to write up a formal requirements doc, milestones, deadlines, etc.

I'm probably not the only person who can provide the structure. (There are a bazillion project sites out there, but sites != structure.) There are an amazing number of projects out there. The problem is that there are simply not enough people to go around, and the lines of communication between coders and projects has traditionally been poor. Proper requirements analysis and project specifications are rare to non-existant outside of the best-of-breed elite institutions, paid or otherwise. Most of this is because geeks are often poor communicators, so the projects that are interesting (ie: geek-run) are the ones people know least about, and the ones with the best PR (run by marketing) often have the least novel or interesting work involved in them. This makes it hard to find out what REAL work is out there.

The right business model for sustained work

[Centurix]

While I think the idea of Rentacoder and other bidding sites is good for getting quantity of work through, it's really the wrong type of business model. Basing a service on discounted labour is a short way to make very little money. Not only that, but it de-values your worth. I've been working as an independant programmer for almost 15 years and I've tried a few different ways of finding new work to do, advertising in newspapers, journals, 'door knocking' around businesses with flyers, but by far the best way of getting ongoing well paid work is by referral.

Getting that first customer is the tricky bit, but once you've done that the rule is simple, when the work is either complete or well under way, ask them for a minimum of three referrals for businesses they know personally who may require work, and ask them to put in a good word for you. Always push for three as it covers the odds pretty well and you're nearly always guaranteed new customers. It's difficult to do initially as it feels awkward asking them for that kind of information, but you have to see if from their perspective, they have a valued service that has helped them and their mates should benefit in the same way. I've never had a customer who was not willing to give me referrals in this way.

Fix a rate, do some research into the going rate for your area, don't undersell, don't oversell. After a while you get used to spotting risks, be they technical (in most cases you have to guage the amount of technical risk involved, this will aid in contingency) or political risk.

Don't be afraid to contract other people into the same job with you, just choose people you know, even if they have flaws it's better the devil you know. You can be fussy about the type of work once you have quantity coming through the door, until that point be prepared to do any type of development work.

The discounting thing is the real point though, don't be tempted to do it. Instead of discounting, reduce your services for the same job. Otherwise you'll find yourself doing the same work for one customer at the discounted rate for 10 years and have a hard job trying to increase your rate.

Getting that first customer though, not really as hard as you think. I try to avoid working for friends and family, but if you can get references from friends and family that's the next best thing.

Know your own process. Understand what it takes to go from the handshake to getting paid from an invoice is very important. It's good to know how to gather meaningful requirements, build your own practical specifications, manage customer expectations, managing variations to work and learning to say no at the right time. It's easy to skim over some of these, especially when you first start doing it by yourself, but after a while you realise why they exist and how they can save you time when done right.

A low priority is insurance, professional indemnity is a good one, cover yourself after a while. Not that you're going to be careless about what you do, but the insurance is there for when you get hit out of leftfield. When you get enough income in to pay for the insurance get a broker and invest.