I think your network is the best place to look for this sort of work. Sometimes people will reach out to me with short term projects which is the best way to get gigs like this. Maybe start looking at your colleagues on linkedin, see what they are up to, and think of ways to contribute to what they are working on. The best people to contact in this scenario are leadership and decision makers. A SWE II isn't gonna help you much but a CTO at an early stage startup might be a good person to send a DM if they are friends with you (or even if they aren't!) :)

Publishing articles, etc to demo your skill helps you stay top of mind.

Even if only the 5 people in your network see it, they are the 5 people that need that steady reminder of your skills and availability.

I’ve also hired people outside my network this way, when I happened to stumble on someone with a great article in the exact thing I’m working on.

As others said - use your network. Making a post on LinkedIn and trying to get your network to reshare it could help a lot.

I did this a few years ago and the winning recipe was a shameless (i.e. deeply shameful) linkedin post where I pretty much just summarized my skillset and explained that I was looking for a senior engineer equivalent of a summer internship, with no chance of extension.

Got me 3-4 offers. None of the offering companies had ads out for roles like this, so this was pretty much the only way.

I've had good luck here, having been contacted based on what I posted on the the monthly Seeking Freelancer post.

I think it's dried up now, but I found some projects from Codementor a few years ago.

Most ad-hoc work I've picked up has been people I've previously worked with/for. Maybe worth reaching out to people you have a prestablished relationship with

I'd believe you're better off working on yourself.

Maybe do toy projects for your potential portfolio, learn an additional skill (AI?), and build many weekend projects until something sticks.

Look in unexpected places, like temp agencies.

I was once in a similar position as you. I signed up with an agency that specialized in placing people in temporary jobs in creative companies. (Ad agencies, design studios, architecture firms, etc.). I ended up with a temporary web dev position that turned into a full-scale full-time warehouse automation job.

Once they see you're reliable and can think, many non-tech companies will find places where your skills can be put to use.

Tech is everywhere. Look outside the SV bubble.

Short term work is more plentiful when money is easy and there’s a lot of entrepreneurial activity going on due to some recent catalyst such as mobile app platforms or the dotcom boom etc.

Right now we’re in the AI boom and some people may be making money peddling agentic solutions but money is tight and businesses are hurting.

It’s also hard to trust a short term dev who doesn’t really need the money. You have no leverage over them. They sort of just do as they please.

Now is not a great time to be looking for this kind of work unfortunately.