[LRUG] Who are those super short-term contractors?

[toby privett]

I sometimes do short jobs that usually involve finishing up an outstanding
piece of work. As a freelance who enjoys working in small chunks for a
variety of clients, this can be a good way of getting more work down the
line.

Before taking on the work, though, I'll always ask to see the code. Alarm
bells will ring if there are no tests or the code is complex and hard to
follow.

An important point, for me, is why the client needs the work done. I'd be
keen to know why the previous developer is no longer available.

If there is a fairly standard rails stack and it's hosted on heroku, for
example, setting up an environment need not take long. For 2-3 weeks work I
think it's fine to spend a day or two getting up to speed.

Btw, I have a couple of weeks free if anyone has any short-term / remote
jobs that need doing?


On 20 November 2012 13:39, Priit Tamboom <priit at gitlab.eu> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> About super-short-term contracting[1], I haven't solved a puzzle about
> clients who are looking for super short-term, say 2-3 weeks custom
> development contractors. I mean seriously?
>
> Usually our team politely ignore those requests but occasionally we still
> stumble up here and there.
>
> Therefore I wonder who are those contractors who are willing to jump into
> a domain and hack there only for few weeks or even few days? It looks
> immensely wasteful for a developer to set up a new environment, learn all
> the project specific requirements, new work-flow tweaks, new people and new
> goals. Just for a few weeks, can't be productive!
>
> Do I missing the point? Are those short-term fanfare just for testing
> waters for both sides in order to commit into long term relation later on?
>
> Puzzled,
>
> Kind Regards,
> Priit
>
> [1] For background, our team mostly operates in Nord Europe region and we
> have requirement for at least 6 month contract before we decide invest into
> client and their goals seriously. So far this has yield best outcome for
> both sides.
>
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