I've always been craving freelance/part-time/project-based gigs so that I could live with the dream of building my side projects into a real business. Back in my home country, I built a good network of clients/co-workers and it was working relatively well until we relocated to another country and the work visa forced me to become full-time. After a few years, about 2 years ago I was free, so I started from scratch, now in a different country. It didn't take me too long to find out the rules are the same everywhere.
Now, I'm marketing myself as a Fractional Head of Engineering for small teams[1]. This is a kind of generalist hands-on role and a good position for small businesses, but it won't work for large organizations which usually have better budgets.
Regarding finding gigs, as everyone mentioned, networking is the best though it takes huge effort and time IMO. But it's 100x more efficient than applying in generic job boards or freelance marketplaces (which are the worst in my experience). However, some specialized boards have worked well for me. Like HN whoishiring posts for freelancers[2]. I actually built a super simple tool[3] to hunt part-time/freelance/contract jobs from HN. I found one good client using it within two months.
BTW, Though it's rare, I ended up finding another fractional gig by advertising myself in the same HN whoishiring thread.
Now, I'm marketing myself as a Fractional Head of Engineering for small teams[1]. This is a kind of generalist hands-on role and a good position for small businesses, but it won't work for large organizations which usually have better budgets.
Regarding finding gigs, as everyone mentioned, networking is the best though it takes huge effort and time IMO. But it's 100x more efficient than applying in generic job boards or freelance marketplaces (which are the worst in my experience). However, some specialized boards have worked well for me. Like HN whoishiring posts for freelancers[2]. I actually built a super simple tool[3] to hunt part-time/freelance/contract jobs from HN. I found one good client using it within two months.
BTW, Though it's rare, I ended up finding another fractional gig by advertising myself in the same HN whoishiring thread.
[1] https://amirkarimi.dev/
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring
[3] https://fraction.works/