

Ask HN: How/Where can I find a part-time gig so I can work more on my startup? - blizkreeg

I currently hold a full-time day job in San Diego. I'd like to move up to the bay area soon and find a part-time programming gig there so I can work longer hours on my startup idea. Ideally something that requires no more than 20 hours a week.<p>I'm on an H-1 visa and have a valid EAD card (based on a pending GC process) to take up part-time jobs. Money is less of a concern to me. I just need a PT position to stay legal.<p>I've been working far too long in the little spare time I have, sacrificing my social life in the process for more than an year now. I think I've developed something respectable in that time and learned the initial ropes to risk taking a more committed plunge now.<p>My coding skills are centered around C and Ruby on Rails/CSS/Javascript.<p>Any suggestions? How/where can I look? Let me add that I am looking on my own (since some smart asses will I'm sure assume I'm an idiot to not google) but sometimes you're just not aware of a site or a job board.
======
rdouble
Part time programming work in Silicon Valley is hard to come by even when the
economy is good. I'm not sure why exactly, but people here treat employment as
an all or nothing proposition. I found it much easier to do random short-term
and part-time contracts in Boston.

However, there are some niches where companies are more likely to hire part-
time contractors: systems administration, "creatives" (i.e. flash) and
recently, iPhone programmers. Thus, if you can stomach doing systems-y Rails
stuff, I would could check in with the Rails hosting places. EngineYard &
Heroku come to mind. I know people in both crews and they seem like they might
be amenable to a part time thing if you're good. Also, Twitter contacted me
about a systems position last week and the guy on the phone hinted that they
may also be looking for full or part time Rails contractors.

Good luck!

------
10ren
Part-time programming work is reputedly rare, though no one could tell me why.

Nonetheless, I fell into a part-time programming job once (they contacted me),
and I found it tended to take over my thoughts - as programming tends to.

Does it have to be a _programming_ part-time job? It might work better for you
to have a non-intellectual "day job", perhaps a physical one, or a social one,
or just a really brain-dead one. e.g. A housemate had the job of changing
tapes of a mainframe overnight (or something like that).

University job boards are a great way to find part-time work (though usually
only for students).

~~~
kiwidrew
I'd like to second this thought -- on each of the occasions that my thoughts
turned to "hey, I can just do a little bit of paid development work part-time
while I work on my own stuff!", that "part-time" gig somehow managed to take
over my entire day/week. And so all that extra time I had imagined I would be
spending productively working on my own stuff mysteriously evaporated, because
my paid work was taking up all of my headspace.

"Brain-dead" work, on the other hand, tends to make me _more_ productive when
I sit down to design or develop something. So there's probably a continuum
effect here.

My recommendation to the original poster is to find the _easiest_ and most
menial job that still meets the requirements of your visa, whatever that may
be.

------
melvinram
a) Talk to your friends.

b) Great involved with an open source project, which will give others
experience working with you so they can recommend you into a position

c) <http://jobs.37signals.com/>

d) Call Ruby/Rails development companies w/ good code & tests ready to show

e) I don't know if this is ethical or even legal, but you could find a partner
and ask them to pay you minimum wage to solidify your part-time requirement

f) Get creative. Come on man, you're a Ruby guy!

~~~
blizkreeg
Open source will just cut into the already minuscule amount of time I have
working a day job and on the startup nights and weekends.

I'm going to look more into RoR dev companies, hosting companies, CL, and a
few other job boards.

~~~
melvinram
helping with some open source stuff doesn't take as much time as you'd think.

------
blizkreeg
I only know dice.com where PT jobs sometimes show up.

What are job boards that cater towards part-time gigs? Also, if someone on HN
knows of a startup or are looking to hire themselves, I'd be happy to send you
my resume.

------
haseman
I hate to suggest this, but I've had friends who've had a lot of luck with
_cough_ Linked In _cough_ put you email address somewhere easy to read so
potential leads do have to jump through any hoops when trying to contact you.

------
bigbang
Sorry to hijack the discussion. But I was wondering, why do you need a part-
time job to stay legal? Doesn't EAD allow you to work just on your startup and
still be in legal presence?

~~~
blizkreeg
AFAIK, no, I don't think you can work for yourself.

~~~
bigbang
I might be wrong, but I believe you can. Im talking about EAD obtained through
a pending GC process. I guess, the caveat is you need to pay yourself some
salary and your role in startup has to be similar to the one you applied with.
Even with EAD obtained thru F-1, I have heard lot of people working on thier
startup without working anywhere else.

Im sure you must have looked already, but might be worth checking on the
rules. And also post them here :)

~~~
blizkreeg
Huh, that's interesting (and new to me). I think the caveat might be a thorn
-- if that is true, and if you have to pay yourself a salary similar to or in
the same pay scale as the position, then I'm out of luck :)

I'll look around and see what I can dig up on this.

~~~
Dilpil
Nothing a little bit of good old fashion American financial wizardry can't
solve.

Take a $60k cash advance out from a credit card (or other source). Next,
invest $60k into your start up. Finally, pay yourself $60k, and use that to
pay off the credit card.

~~~
Brushfire
You forgot a step: Lose about 20% in credit card fees, employment taxes, and
income taxes.

Still might be worth it, though.

~~~
Dilpil
American financial wizardry is all about forgetting steps.

------
keefe
They post a lot of jobs on craigslist, but be aware that employment posts in
silicon valley is down 55% from last year

~~~
Eliezer
Doesn't _necessarily_ mean there are 55% fewer job openings. Could mean that
jobs are getting filled before they make it to Craigslist.

~~~
keefe
I think this is the article I was thinking of... [http://career-
resources.dice.com/it-job-market/2008-2009/sil...](http://career-
resources.dice.com/it-job-market/2008-2009/siliconvalley-2009.shtml) ... the
bottom line is the market favors employers much more now than last year

------
darwinw
how about being a freelancer, will that violate the visa requirement for part
time job?

if you're talking about bay area, i'd start with craigslist.

------
coconutrandom
[http://lmgtfy.com/?q=part+time+jobs+in+san+diego&l=1](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=part+time+jobs+in+san+diego&l=1)

