Casual/remote work? In Spain?

Dave!

Hey guys,

Just got the good word today that the company I work for is shutting down their Dublin office, with redundancies for all!

Anyways, I'm trying to decide what to do next, and I've wanted to go away for a few (2–3 probably) months for some R&R, not much travelling - just hang around some nice city and maybe work on some ideas that I had.

I don't have as much money saved as I might have liked, but I do have a little bit. However I'd like a bit of a security net too, so I was thinking I'd go away and try get a bit of casual dev work here and there. Maybe something I could do remotely? I'll be bringing my laptop.

Has anyone done something similar? Any ideas? FWIW I'm a Ruby developer (and some PHP), with pretty much full stack experience (~3 years' real work), and I'm hoping to go to Valencia.

Thanks

SeanPuddin

How would you go about doing the same type of work in Ireland?

I think your best route is local recruiters and LinkedIn.

Best of luck.

bpmurray

Spain might not be the best place - unemployment there is insanely high. Of course, that may not be for tech folk, but I would certainly check before assuming I could pick up bits & pieces.

The Corinthian

Dave! wrote: »

I don't have as much money saved as I might have liked, but I do have a little bit. However I'd like a bit of a security net too, so I was thinking I'd go away and try get a bit of casual dev work here and there. Maybe something I could do remotely? I'll be bringing my laptop.

Has anyone done something similar? Any ideas? FWIW I'm a Ruby developer (and some PHP), with pretty much full stack experience (~3 years' real work), and I'm hoping to go to Valencia.

If you're looking to get, even casually, into freelance development, your first few gigs will be based on personal connections (you have no real personal, commercial portfolio yet, neither a reputation and word of mouth to count on).

Unless you're very well connected in Valencia, I'd not count on getting any work there - you'll be in competition with tens of thousands of well-educated and unemployed locals who will get any work there long before you even hear about it.

Getting Irish work from Ireland, especially at Spanish rates, is an option, but I would recommend you at least get strong leads - if not land the gigs - while you're still in Ireland as selling your services while abroad is very difficult (speaking from experience). You'll have the advantage of the aforementioned lower Spanish rates, but you'll be disadvantaged in that you won't be able to meet clients in person, and that makes a difference.

Overall, I wouldn't hold my breath that you'll get more than one gig while you're away; if even that.

As to how to price and approach work, just remember as a freelancer you won't be just a developer; you'll also be a PM, BA, sales and credit controller. Presuming you have sufficient skills and experience for all of these, you will have to factor these into any estimates; how long for requirements gathering and analysis? Writing a spec? Writing a contract? Time spent selling yourself? Development? Testing and bug fixing? And potentially chasing up payment?

As you can see, development is only part of this and not all of these stages can be chargeable to the client, but at the end of the day your rates and estimates need to reflect even those parts, otherwise it's no longer worth your while to work.

Finally, and most important; have them sign a contract and sign off on a specification. Without this, you are inviting a World of pain that will make your old job feel more like R&R than your time abroad.

John_Mc

I worked with a lot of Spanish developers who've moved to Ireland from Spain for work. I'd say the chances of you finding work over there will be slim judging from what they say. Best of luck though

Atomico

If it were me I would buy a cheap Ryanair flight and head over for 2-3 weeks to sound the place out. Spend the first couple of weeks sussing it all out and then make for the beach at the start of the third week.