At least I take comfort in knowing that it's not all just down to my searching ability! Out of curiosity, would your previous employer work around their client's specific requests (e.g. use Node in the backend? Use X database?).
Indeed. I still feel like there must be some sort of agency somewhere that will do this type of work though. It might cost a pretty penny, but it can't be impossible to find..
Probably one of the more relevant usernames to comment on my post :)
I have the feeling that you're right; there just isn't a market for it. The alternative would be to try and filter through the army of Fiverr, Upwork & Freelancer - but I fear the risk of spaghetti code or copypasta is high and there isn't much accountability on these platforms once the job is considered 'done'. Maybe I'm wrong though.