Hi Charles,

eBay used to have a service like you're describing, but for a much broader spectrum of services than just programming. They had sections for just about every kind of IP or engineering service you could imagine. I looked into it as I was offering PCB design and assembly services at the time, and now I can't even remember the name of their service. I remember that it was initially too expensive to join (vendors paid for the priviledge of bidding on jobs), and later when they lowered the prices it was clear that it wasn't worth the bother.

I remember another web site, similar to the one you're talking about, that was exclusively for the PCB industry (which is now defunct so it doesn't matter that I can't remember its name). I tried to use that one, but as you suspect it wasn't very profitable. The jobs that were bid on that website were going for less than it cost me to run my machines. Okay, maybe that's just a bit of an exageration, but not by much (and not at all if you throw in my payroll expenses). These jobs seemed to be going to individuals working in their basements with little or no overhead (it's amazing how competative you can be when you don't spend thousands of dollars on your software) and have very low income requirments (Okay, maybe their mother's basements). In general, the only jobs I ever got that were worth getting came by other, more conventional channels.

Of course, that was just my experience in another field. Your actual mileage may vary.