We're in a similar space and more companies like yours need to exist.
I'm one of the cofounders at https://turtle.ai/
Our average paid out hourly rates have been lower than yours, but we make it REALLY easy for both sides to work together. We've built our own task manager and chat app that makes customer and freelancer lives easier.
We have a lot of PhD students and full time developers doing 5-15 hours per week on Turtle.
Good luck and we'll be looking out for you! More "alternative work" options need to exist. The 40-hour, butt-in-seat life needs to go (or other options have to at least exist).
Our mission is to help engineers earn what they want, and for some people - that means working more time for more money, but for others that means working just a few hours per week.
I see that Turtle focuses more on web development. I think this is a good way to go about it - but for Moonlight specifically, I knew there was a problem when a friend of mine making $400K/year as a security researcher couldn't find a way to apply his skills in contract work. He wanted to travel and contract for a bit, and was having to look at webdev contracts at $50/hour. So, instead of focusing on building products for non-technical clients, we're focusing on more specialized tasks like dev-ops and algorithms for technical clients.
Our customers are technical and non-technical. There is a lot of web and mobile app development work, but we've had some interesting projects on there already (ML, AI, even an app to stop your cat from locking up your keyboard when you watch movies.... haha).
I really like your focus. It's ridiculous that the infrastructure doesn't exist for a professional making 400K / year to make 100K / year for 25% the time (assuming skill is stagnant. if it improves, rates should adjust).
Drop me a line if you ever want to chat -- vlad (at) turtle.ai
Good luck!
Edit: I thought it was the double-scrollbar, but I now see that Log In is cut-off. We'll fix the responsiveness - thanks!
Hope to hear back!
We don't do much screening on our end except for fraudulent applications - the clients choose from among several contractors and proposals.
We know that we need to engage our community more - so keep an eye out this week for an email update from our team and a Slack community channel (with a stream of incoming jobs).
Rephrased:
Isn't Gigster a seemingly more efficient way to build software? Why aren't there more companies like Gigster? Competitors to Gigster?
There should be. It is a more efficient way to build software. The market will reward Gigster, MoonlightWork, and Turtle.
We're focusing more on microtasks for technical clients. Think - helping the CTO and in-house team gain momentum, rather than outsourcing.
Moonlight is still in its early stages but we are doing thousands of dollars per week in business. Our average hourly rate based on paid contracts so far has been $146.79. We're focusing on more specialized work rather than generic web development from scratch. Early projects have ranged from a custom algorithm for a hedge fund to some infrastructure work to support Tensorflow. The benefit to companies is that they have access to specialized engineers for focused projects, and they can get a match within 48 hours.
If you're interested in short-term projects, you can join at https://MoonlightWork.com/apply - we're working on increasing the number of projects, so sorry if it takes a couple weeks to get a first project match.
We're going though YC's Startup School MOOC, and we did live office hours with Sam Altman a few weeks ago. You can see the video here: https://youtu.be/abtHadERzXU