The last few months I’ve been completely swamped with work. Combine the contract work with my own software development and work on my new web site and handling sales and support e-mails and it’s the reason that the new versions of Tasks Pro™ and Tasks haven’t been released yet.

I’m already turning down work and I’m probably going to raise my rates just a little, but the main problem is that I have too many interesting projects that I want to work on. One solution I’m considering is bringing on an intern to help out.

Here are some of the things I think an intern could help with:

Support E-mail

Handling support takes a lot of my time each day, having some help here would be great.

QA Testing

It isn’t sexy, but knowing how to QA your own product is an extremely valuable skill for a developer to have.

Bug fixing

Fixing bugs is a great way to learn what not to do.

Prototyping/Proof of Concept Development

There are lots of things I’d like to try for future features that keep getting put off because I don’t have time.

Performance Profiling

I’m sure there are various areas of my code than can be more efficient.

Stand-alone Projects

I have lots of little projects that I could hand off.

New Ventures

I have several web sites and projects I’d like to get started on; the intern could take the development lead on one of these.

I think this would be great, varied experience for an intern. I’d like to bring on a Soph. or Jr. in college then after the first year or so, promote them into a paid position. Ideally, I’d find someone who is interested in starting their own little development shop and I could send them say 50% of their business the first year.

Has anyone tried this? What kind of success have you had?

If you’re interested in applying for the potential internship position, please let me know.

UPDATE: I’m looking for 10-20 hours a week for this position.