There is a new breed of developers who hire their services and get paid online.
This is fast becoming a succesful business venture for independent software vendors who make money on the World Wide Web, in addition to their regular work.
The Web now is teeming with facilitators of this kind who make it possible to bring the software buyers and sellers together through their web portals.
Leaders in this genre had begun modestly, mostly for free, and they are very popular - AskJeeves, AskMe and so on.
Now the new breed of facilitators like Kasamba and Rent-a-coder have successfully turned it into business opportunities for all concerned - facilitators, developers and buyers.
I myself have joined this band wagon, and I may say I have been successful in offering my services to my clients at Kasamba.
Check out http://javanook.tripod.com.