A job search takes months. Why come out the other side with nothing to show for it? Allocate a few hours a week, partner with someone else who's also between things, and ship something small. Keep it in a box so it doesn't overshadow the main goal — which is still getting the job.
Put me in the queueI'm Jeremy Nay. I'm a senior engineering leader (most recently Director of Data Engineering at Expedia Group, leading a 37-person global org) and I'm in the middle of my own search.
I started Job Search Side Hustle because the waiting is corrosive, and because I didn't want to finish the search with nothing to show for the months it took. A side project is the obvious answer — but a side project alone is lonely and easy to abandon. A side project with one other person who's also between things is a different thing entirely. It has a deadline, a witness, and a reason to ship.
That's all this is. I read every application. I make the matches by hand. If we're a fit, you'll hear from me personally.
Searching for a job is lonely, slow, and mostly invisible work. Most advice is noise.
The highest-leverage thing you can do between roles is build something small with someone complementary. A prototype, a case study, a tool, a written teardown. Something that exists at the end of six weeks.
We don't run a course, a community, or a platform. We hand-match pairs. That's it.
You're a senior IC or leader between roles. You have 3–5 hours a week you'd rather spend building than doomscrolling. You want a teammate for six weeks, not a co-founder for six years. You'd rather ship one small real thing than talk about a big imaginary one.
You want free labor. You're recruiting. You want a community to lurk in. You need this to pay you. You're looking for someone to build your idea for you.
This is my side hustle while I run my own search. The search comes first. That means this stays small on purpose — so it stays useful instead of becoming the thing I do instead of getting a job.
No platform. No fees. No Slack. Not even any cookies.
I'm trickling hours into it as I find them. You'll see the site change and improve over time. What you see right now is what there is. Even the status below is updated by hand — triggered by me sitting down to read the inbox.
If it ever outgrows the box, we'll figure that out then. Until then, small is the feature.
If this sounds right, tell me a bit about where you are. I read everything that comes in.