Hmm, I'm doing this now & it's been a lot more of an informal process than the top comment. I'm still working with mostly startups who need extra bandwidth on their MVP.

The reason I started is for the flexibility. I'd like to be able to schedule a month or two to travel each year and this seems out of the parameters of most FTE positions. I'd also like to enjoy the outdoors more than a typical 9-5 + commute will allow for.

I actually quit my FTE job at the beginning of the year with the intent of traveling for most of 2020. COVID cut that short, and I decided to contract once we got back for maximum flexibility. I did have enough savings for at least 6 months to start, but only ended up needing to draw down about a month's worth before the contracting income was enough to live on.

I started by tapping my network. I also reached out on hiring platforms and tech communities, and started self-promoting via blog and social posts (though I havn't kept this up at all, perhaps to my detriment).

It didn't take long to secure some small contracts, in the $5 to $10k range for a month or two of work. Doing a good job on these opened me up to further work with those companies. I also kept my ear open on LinkedIn, though the vast majority of people on there and most hiring platforms are looking for FTE.

Every company that I've worked for has wanted to engage me for longer, but I've found that startups are most willing to look to contractors for flexible and part time work.

My most lucrative but least fulfilling contract was 6 months of a mostly-9-to-5, this just felt like being an employee with worse benefits.

Currently, I am working hourly for a couple of small orgs doing some odds-and-ends feature work that's outside of their in-house developers expertise, and I have an 11-day-a-month contract with one of the companies I did project-based work with last year.

This is enough to provide a stable SWE salary with a lot more flexibility. I won't be multiplying the value of my time unless I get into "product-esque" consulting (security, SEO, privacy, accessibility audits), or start working with larger companies.

My workload meets my needs for now, but if I want to grow a business I'll need to refine my offering, target larger companies, and generally put a more professional face forward. I'm not sure this is what I'm interested - I've always been more of an engineer than a business person, so I'm leaning towards working on product with some other people in the free time that my flexible schedule affords.

Some tidbits of advice:

* Get an accountant early on. Money well spent, and will save you a brutal headache when you run into tax questions in the next year.

* I havn't felt the need for a lawyer yet. I suspect if/when I start working with larger organizations, I'll need that next. I have not had much difficulty putting contracts together or getting paid, but I suspect my good luck will come to an end eventually :)

* I did incorporate as an LLC. It hasn't been particularly useful yet, but it might in the future.

* Knowing _why_ you are contacting is important. If you're working with people from the same company 9-5 for months at a time, having a daily standup with them - is that really much different from being a FTE? In some sense, yes, because you can change teams more quickly and easily than FTE, but you take on quite a bit of overhead to do it. You'll need to really work at building a schedule that accomplishes _your_ goals. Everyone wants more of your time!