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Some freelance/flexible workplace websites: 1) flexjobs - job site offering over 50 career categories and jobs ranging from entry-level to executive, freelance to full-time. http://www.flexjobs.com/About.aspx 2) Elance and oDesk - online employment sites for freelancers/contractors. https://www.elance.com/q/about-elance and https://www.odesk.com/ 3) Mom Corps - offers part-time, flexible work for working moms http://www.momcorps.com/home.aspx Also check out info on http://sites.google.com/site/techcareerreentry about networking and online classes. (It's aimed at tech career re-entry, but also has info useful for your situation.) Linux groups often are good sources for info on work opportunities, often small short-term projects are advertised on the email list for a couple Linux groups I'm a member of.

Men would rather give up some security for freedom, and women tend to prefer the opposite. I won't get an iPhone because I don't like the idea of not having access to certain apps because Jobs doesn't want politically oriented apps, or because women are in bikinis, or because the app might offend some people. The 'Baby Shaker' app was a good example of this - I want the freedom to download whatever I want with this device.

But my wife loves her iPhone, and she's just fine with having a device that's locked down to some degree if it means not having malicious application

There are several things you can do to get started and there are plenty of places where you can make very good money working part-time. Here are some of the important points I've found working both as a contractor as well as an employer who hires contractors.

#1 Learn the business as well as the development.
    You can be a great developer and not make money (see any of the previous "Contracting sucks" posts). Improve your networking skills and just start talking to people, be willing to fail occasionally in order to succeed.

#2 Start with online sites.
    It sounds like you're not ready to make a move from your current job (see #3), so you may want to start with some online sites. I use ODesk to look for potential contractors and have considered using it for jobs. There are plenty of sites out there which help facilitate matching developer skills with company needs.

#3 Be willing to move when the time is right.
    Most of my clients came from full-time contracts or previous employers I had worked with. If you're good, you just need ways for people to see that and you'll never go hungry again :-)

#4 Don't be afraid to raise your rate.
    This is actually a two-way street. If you set a low rate, I assume you suck. You are also not happy b/c after a while you realize 15 hours probably *is* worth more than $150 (before taxes). If you don't know what others are charging, do some research and ask questions. Don't be a jerk, but don't be afraid of the social faux pas of asking money questions. Ask employers what they pay an average Java developer with your experience. Generally, I charge an 80% to 100% premium over a salary for hourly work (i.e., 100,000 / yr = $48/hr. $100,000 salary would instead charge an $86 - $96 hourly rate). YMMV

And finally, try to spend less time reading our posts (loosely known as "advice") and more time building your clientele! ;-)

-geis

P.S. This advice is not for developers who suck. If you suck, unsuck (read, learn, do, repeat) first.

You might try oDesk. I don't know much about them, but the site's been around for at least a year or so, and you seem to be able to choose whatever work suits you. Might be a good starting point, at least.

I know.

I've been looking for freelance work on outsourcing sites and often you get "homework". Considering I've been to uni, I can tell how lecturers write their assignments and all these idiots just don't bother to reword them at all.

But in the long run, it'll get back to them in the end.

I can't see how it would be possible to keep track of all the outsourcing sites, since you seem to set a couple of new ones every so often. People have even asked for projects *ON* freelance sites to build more of them!

The only interesting one around is Odesk, since they have the idea of bringing groups of programmers to a project, rather than relying on a single person or "company".

Ha, you can find me at http://www.odesk.com/users/Larsen-Network-and-Database-Consulting_~~5297873723960428?tot=1&pos=0#overview

I've had three good experiences with RAC. Two have been small Ruby on Rails projects which were not to complicated, but far above scaffolding and one WordPress template. In all of the cases the work product was not quite final. But due to the low ball prices I asked and received, I felt it was fair for me to finalize it myself rather than drag the developers through rounds of revisions. I've felt fine using on personal projects which I'd rather have done than sitting in the working on folder for months. That being said, I don't know if I would rely on it for a business critical project. Instead I see it as ideal for hobbyist type projects.

Also not mentioned is http://odesk.com/ this is a site more geared towards hiring people by the hour, rather than project, there most average hourly wages are over $15.

oDesk (http://www.odesk.com/ claims to be a marketplace and a workplace, and brings together "service providers" and "buyers" (their terms).

Service Providers are techies and developers and programmer, mostly in PHP MySQL, JAVA and a bunch of other technologies. I think they are mostly international, but they have some US and Canada based developers also.

Buyer would be you, or clients that pay the developers.

oDesk connects the parties and let's the buyers manage the developers. There is a FREE DEMO of their service which I checked out. Really awesome.

Go to https://my.odesk.com/ and log in with username "guest" and password "helloworld" (fairly simple). They have a Live Chat options.

I know of a company that recently signed up with them, and right now it's working fine.

Hope this helps

oDesk (http://www.odesk.com/ claims to be a marketplace and a workplace, and brings together "service providers" and "buyers" (their terms).

Service Providers are techies and developers and programmer, mostly in PHP MySQL, JAVA and a bunch of other technologies. I think they are mostly international, but they have some US and Canada based developers also.

Buyer would be you, or clients that pay the developers.

oDesk connects the parties and let's the buyers manage the developers. There is a FREE DEMO of their service which I checked out. Really awesome.

Go to https://my.odesk.com/ and log in with username "guest" and password "helloworld" (fairly simple). They have a Live Chat options.

I know of a company that recently signed up with them, and right now it's working fine.

Hope this helps