No, there is no stable position that allows it. As mentioned, you might be able to become a contractor, but those are very very very rare.


The only reason we hire contractors is as a try-before-you-buy situation. Some work out well and are offered regular jobs, others do not. They finish up their contract term and move on with no hard feelings.

Programming contractors are rare but they do happen for specific short-term non-game situations, such as writing a bunch of SQL code for back-end tool work or slapping together a web site cheaper than the regular game programmers can. I've seen that about once every two or so years. Contractors generally work on their own equipment off-site or bring in their own laptops and have very limited access to network resources.

In my personal experience, I am aware of exactly one case of specifically hiring a short term programmer for a game. It was a developer who had been employed on the project for about 18 months, left the company, and was brought back for two months when the project was falling behind and was in crunch.