Where are the telecommuting gigs at?

July 28, 2006 9:39 AM

Where can I find a software engineering telecommuting contracts?

I've had a dream for a long time about being able to work from any location and hopefully travel while working. I'm now in the position where I can support myself for short periods of time between contracts. The main problem I'm having is locating telecommuting contracts. I've been approached maybe 2 times in the past 6 years with telecommuting positions. Are there any online resources or maybe good consulting companies that cater to these types of jobs? I already have experience with 1099, making sure I'm insured, etc... so this isn't directed at setting up my own company, just where to find the telecommuting gigs.

I would prefer longer contracts (6 months+), is it easier to find shorter ones?

posted by kookywon to work & money (5 comments total)

No answer here, but my last major contract was telecommute, and I'd love to find more. Being able to work 12 hours straight if you want to get to the bottom of a task is a dream come true.
posted by orthogonality at 9:43 AM on July 28, 2006

Well, craigslist has a checkbox for "telecommuting OK" on their job listings. I don't think they have a way to aggregate such ads across all the cities they serve, but it shouldn't be that difficult for a software engineer to whip out a script that would generate RSS feed URLs to do standing searches for listings with that flag, in the appropriate categories for all the cities they serve.

I'd think that would be a good place to start.
posted by Good Brain at 10:35 AM on July 28, 2006

I've looked into that before. The problem I've found is that the majority of the telecommuting jobs posted on craigslist are crap. As in 'work from home' scam b.s. that you see on flyers on telephone poles.

The other option I've seen is telecommuting searches, like monster, but you have to pay them for the listings. It seems stupid to pay a head hunter for listings that they're getting paid to fill.
posted by kookywon at 12:17 PM on July 28, 2006

I always think of "telecommuting" as being some person in a regular job who's reached an agreement with their employer to do all or part of their work from home.

Surely if you're hired for a particular project, and work offsite, that's not telecommuting, that's just being an "offsite contractor" or some such phrase?
posted by AmbroseChapel at 1:47 PM on July 28, 2006

AmbroseChapel nails it. There's tons of offsite work to be found through the IT contractor search sites like eLance, et al. Of course, you're bidding against highly-skilled, work-for-peanuts programmers in places like India and Bangladesh, so think hard about what competitive advantages you're prepared to offer in exchange for your comparatively higher fee (hint: one of them is spelled "location location location").
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 2:15 PM on July 28, 2006