There are some nice responses here. Even though they're not aimed at me, I learned a lot on what it is to work with a larger team.
But especially useful was Boolean's response, because I can relate to that one very well. I did a lot of work in fixing and reorganizing legacy code. I've started running a blog and posted a port of someone's older code on Github.

I think almost any company that gets several positive mentions on TechCrunch would have happy, enthusiastic developers and a good sense of how to handle projects. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to grow as fast as they did. This is the kind of company that I'm aiming towards. I prefer working in a business where the software being made is the profit center and not a cost center that is delivered to an external client, like most "IT consultancies".

Having talked to someone that's been running his own web business for over 15 years, he says it makes sense, since the majority of the market are small customers and don't want uber-complex websites, companies can't justify bringing more than one developer for such work. As opposed to SaaS development, where they can afford giving more work since the software IS their main source of profit and can be as complex as they need.

There are some nice responses here. Even though they're not aimed at me, I learned a lot on what it is to work with a larger team.
But especially useful was Boolean's response, because I can relate to that one very well. I did a lot of work in fixing and reorganizing legacy code. I've started running a blog and posted a port of someone's older code on Github.

I think almost any company that gets several positive mentions on TechCrunch would have happy, enthusiastic developers and a good sense of how to handle projects. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to grow as fast as they did. This is the kind of company that I'm aiming towards. I prefer working in a business where the software being made is the profit center and not a cost center that is delivered to an external client, like most "IT consultancies".

Having talked to someone that's been running his own web business for over 15 years, he says it makes sense, since the majority of the market are small customers and don't want uber-complex websites, companies can't justify bringing more than one developer for such work. As opposed to SaaS development, where they can afford giving more work since the software IS their main source of profit and can be as complex as they need.

A friend of mine contracted himself as a fractional employee to small-medium businesses and it was pretty brilliant. Basically he took his 40 hour week and sold 1/4 alotments of his time to 5 different businesses ( yes, he over sold ). Basically each company paid about 1/4 the cost of a fulltime coder ( about 60K / 4 ) with a 25-50% premium, so 20-25K each and he guaranteed at least 10 hours a week, onsite if needed and had more hours available on a per hour basis.


So basically he was pulling down about 100K, while 5 companies that couldn't otherwise afford a fulltime developer got a good deal and a consistent face to call on, which is actually a really big deal. Also with the 5th company, it could result in a ton of overtime, although if you get lots of "over the 10 hour" weekly hours, you can make a serious bonus.


It's a pretty interesting and quite lucrative scenario, if you can come up with 4 or 5 contracts to work with, and can manage the overlap conflicts which no doubt arise.