5 May 2006 MichaelCrawford   » (Master)

Looking for a Programming Contract

Things seem to be very different than they were a few years ago. The Dice and Craig's List job boards allow one to search for telecommute jobs. I'm finding quite a few that I'm both interested and qualify for.

I'm even finding perm jobs that say telecommuting is OK, and not just a couple days a week, but in which the job description specifically says one can work remotely from anywhere.

That's how I've been working for eight years now, but I've always had to find clients on my own. Neither the agencies nor any of the job boards were ever any help in finding telecommute jobs. I think the difference is that high-tech industries are now prosperous in the way they weren't back in 2002, so employers are casting a wider net.

I've learned enough C# to start some prototype coding for a web application that I'm developing both to help me learn the language (and .Net), and to provide evidence of my qualifications to potential employers. But it's feeling less urgent now after having mailed off a few dozen resumes, all to telecommute jobs, many for C++, which I'm an expert at. I'll keep working on my .Net website though. One never knows when one will be looking for work again.

When I get C# .Net mastered, I'm also going to learn Ruby on Rails and Ajax. I'm seeing increasing numbers of advertisements for Ruby on Rails work, and I imagine it would be more fun than ASP.Net. Perhaps you could recommend some books to me - there weren't many reviews at the Association of C and C++ Users site.

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