For 10 years I spoke at every conference, user group, etc. that I could find. I sustained a 9 person consulting company finding gigs through the network of other speakers and attendees that would come up and ask me questions. Every question can be rephrased as “I have a problem you can help me solve”, but you also have to qualify to make sure there is a company with a budget for solving that problem. That takes a little business development.
For conference attendees, you have to have some free giveaway to keep a connection… like a free 2 hour code review of your existing project, or “I’m willing to do this presentation for an in-house user group as a lunchtime thing if you’re interested”. Those little giveaways get you closer to the management and the confidence you know what you’re talking about.
I think that highlights though that a steady stream of decent paying gigs isn't a few hours "after the kids are in bed" sort of thing for the most part. Every now and then I'll do a little (non-coding) consulting for someone I know but my observation--not having looked very hard, mind you--is that anything between having a serious go at it and picking up low-paying scraps is hard to do on a regular basis.
That's a very good point. But at the same time, I do wonder why there aren't more temporary things that are carved out. I think it speaks somewhat to the design of software, because surely people have little pieces, components, libraries, etc. developed that just need some time and eyes on them and don't require onboarding to the full system or long-term commitments or even full-time commitments. But I suppose there's effort in doing that carving out and the way that systems are sort of organically designed and developed doesn't lend itself to that.
I'd think there would be so much coordination and onboarding overhead that it wouldn't be worthwhile unless it was so specialized/unique that your own staff doesn't understand it--and then why are you using software you don't understand and can't maintain.
Where I've had the most experience with using consultants and agencies for short-term/part-time are things like the following:
-- You have a specific problem related to, say, ball bearing design and you really need to consult with an expert specialist.
-- You need a speaker for an event and want a name of some sort
-- You need a discrete project that you could probably do in-house but an agency specializes in that sort of thing
-- You need a fractional share of some specialty (e.g. public relations)
I realized I should clarify “I could find”. I’m in the Washington D.C. Metro area, but I spoke _at least_ once a week everywhere from Richmond to Philadelphia, and occasionally as far as Ohio.
Sounds like you are in my neck of the woods. Trying to get some good side gigs here. Is there any good speaking conferences that you can recommend? Personally, I am much more inclined into govt contracting.
Side gigs don't really earn much. If you've got a friend that you've worked with before and they have a startup or something, ask for some peanuts amount of equity as an hands on advisor. It'll do more for your CV than 20 hour side gigs glueing some libraries together.
Or pick a well known library / framework and contribute. Or rescue a "looking for [co-]maintainer" library out there.
I earn $10k/mo contracting 20 hours per week. Personally, this extra income helped me maximize my day job benefits (401k and ESPP) and provided liquidity during the home buying process.
Maybe you can answer a question that is nagging me.
I recently moved to the US, and ever since I keep getting messages on LinkedIn offering contract/freelance jobs.
However the hourly rate is so poor that it would pay less that my current job base pay (not counting stocks and bonuses).
In Europe the rule of thumb is that contract job should pay 2x your full time job rate. This is based on the associated overhead plus lack of benefits (e.g. you need to pay your own pension contribution).
This made me think, is anyone taking these contract jobs? I see several possibilities:
a) Contract work in the US is not attractive.
b) People reaching out in LinkedIn are the bottom of the barrel. There are better rates out there.
c) People run several contracts in parallel, or with a full time job.
In the US, there are (at least) two competing views of contractors.
One side believes that contractors are cheap, disposable labor that costs less than hiring an employee with benefits.
Another side believes that contractors are a way to access temporarily needed expertise they lack in-house and cost more than hiring an employee with benefits.
Some firms' views depend on the skillset. Other firms have the same view no matter what.
In my experience, the more general a position, the more likely it is to be put in the "cheaper" group. The more specialized a position, the more likely it is to be put in the "expensive" group. Neither of these categorizations necessarily is correct, just how the firm is viewing things.
I have a friend that has literally only done contracts for the last 8 years. To put bluntly, he is bad at coding and could never last in a full time job. He once bragged to me that he took a Microsoft Azure cert after failing the test 5x.
There are high paying contracting jobs, but they are only available to people that know people that offer good contracts. A friend of a friend has a 6mo contract with a Fintech company paying $500k.
Two people I worked with, left and ended up landing a $150/hr consulting gig for the last 4 months. Neither had more than 6 yers of professional developer experience but they are AWESOME devs. 100% remote. They were just informed their contracts were extended for 12 months. Each are approved for 40-50 hours per week. Current project: MEAN stack. Next project looks like MERN or JAVA. Large company primarily in/around healthcare related services.
I know at least one tier 3 public tech company is paying $300k/yr usd ($200k base + 15% bonus + 70k in stock) for people with less than 4 years of experience + full benefits (401k, 18 days pto, etc.)
The 2x calculation is similar in the US. I've also seen "3x your hourly rate as an employee" if you're relying on the contracting income. It's important to account for the time you'll spend doing sales and misc. non-billable business building.
There are lowball contracting offers all over the internet and people sometimes accept these for various reasons. A higher tier of sustainable contracting does exist though, with most of the higher paying work sourced via networking, not via job boards.
In the UK we have Temp jobs, ECM (ie/ inside IR35) Fixed term contract (FTC) too, not just contract (outside IR35).
a) There are not as many outside IR35 jobs in US (1099 is the term they use)
b) yes, once a recruiter randomly contacts you, they are outside of their usual placements which usually means their contacts have all declined it.
I'd wager it's for the same company for over 3 months or more and its for people you've worked with or for in the past that trust you for a domain specific issue that doesn't need 100% of your time. Like a cloud infra engineer for a less than 20 person startup or something like that.
What I meant by side gigs was the more typical model of finding small gigs with flexible (read: resource constrained) buyers.
Books can serve a similar role, especially if they're through a publisher. You almost certainly won't make much but people often give you quite a bit of credit for being an expert as an author. (Perhaps more than they should.)
I took over one because I was using it and it had a giant "LOOKING FOR MAINTAINER" in the README and it was interesting enough for me to want to maintain it.
Basically, look around / do some targeted searches on GitHub / ask in lang discords / slacks if anyone needs help. Lots of work to do out there.
You gotta feel for the techs running adult sites. Used to be (maybe still is?) the bleeding edge of web tech. Payments, micro payments, video, advanced site search, content filtering, crypto,... I guess there is a lesson there, like "serving primal urges = $$$". But you never see those resumes on linkedin.
This may be unpopular here, but be really clear what you want out of your job.
If you're just talking side gigs be really clear this doesn't interfere with your own job performance. The first target you hit because of your "side gig" will be your downward spiral.
Now .. running your own business is another option. For me I encourage my staff to have "side gig" of their own business, but will not sign off on them contracting on the side.
One is a valuable option where you learn new skills - the other is...
It's a simple legal ass cover. Should the manager / lead care if there's a side gig in play while all other needs are being met? No, of course not. However, what if the side gig becomes a bit more than planned and now your team member isn't delivering, gets sick more often, or is otherwise grinding themselves into the ground (and doesn't recognize the need to get out of that situation)?
You can care about your team member's welfare and support them 100%, but part of that support should be defining the rules of play so that all parties know what the agreement is.
If they stop delivering, you do what you do if they stop delivering. Coaching, performance discussions, reassignment/termination. Whether it's because of a side gig or not is irrelevant.
If they get sick more often, you...? What would you do normally? Hopefully the answer is "support them." If this is cover for "they're saying they are sick but I think they're just working on their side gig" then refer to #1 but you better be right about it.
> You can care about your team member's welfare and support them 100%, but part of that support should be defining the rules of play so that all parties know what the agreement is.
I agree with this 100%. The agreement is that they're paid a full-time salary for full-time work (whatever that means whether it's ass-in-seat for 40 hours, or WFH or whatever). Whatever they do outside of that time isn't the company's business unless they're directly competing with them.
It's not imaginary, it's called copyright. In many jurisdictions (including the US, FAFAIK) your employer retains the copyright of things you produce in your free time that fall within your job description (e.g. if you might have done the same thing on company time).
So if you have a side gig that matches your day job and your work output is covered by copyright: yes, you need your employer's sign-off.
The US is not a single jurisdiction, there are at least 50 with regards to employment law. I've worked in several and at no point has any employer held any copyright to things I product in my free time.
> if you have a side gig that matches your day job
Well this is competition, isn't it? That's completely different.
This is illegal in Washington State and California, explicitly, and is not the default by far. Certain employers (such as Facebook) demand this, but, it's certainly not the default state of affairs!
I will provide a concrete example, even though I am not the parent commenter. I work for a FAANG company in a reasonably senior role. I have carveouts in my employment contract that I negotiated when I started a few months ago, because in addition to my day job, I co-own a coworking space with my wife (and she owns other businesses that I do some light tech work for - site maintenance, office network, etc).
My day job is very demanding, but my leadership team are aware, and the HR folks at my employer have documentation that supports me having a side business, and so if I say things like "I have to go the bank/lawyer stuff for my business", no one bats an eye as long as I am hitting my targets for the day job.
The expectation is that I will largely be available and focused on my day job during the 9-5, and where needed, provide support on escalations/on-call.
If I started taking on consulting contracts or was regularly juggling contracting or side-job related tasks against my day job, then it wouldn't be a good fit for delivering on that 9-5.
You're chasing pennies with a side-gig. If you're already at the top of market in terms of pay, it's unlikely a side-gig is going bring in enough to satisfy your ambitions.
Why not start your own business? The upside is much better. Yeah, it might fail, but you can decide to start another one what you learned.
Yeah, it seems like I had an idealistic view of what a side gig would be, whereas it's a lot more work than I wish to spend on it.
I'm happy in my day job; it's secure, I'm paid well and I get a lot of time with my family. Starting my own business would put family time in jeopardy which isn't an option, especially as I'd have to give up my main income.
I did this last year. I work full time for ~100/hr, and someone I've worked with before, recommended me to an early stage startup in the US. They paid me ~130/hr just to be part of the meetings with their EU based dev team. Monthly I was making 2-3k extra but the context switching, startup rollercoaster, dev team not performing turned out to be stressful. In the end they secured funding and assembled an in house dev team, so they didn't need me anymore. I suggest you try it, but not for the extra money because the extra stress is not sustainable long term, do it for the learning experience and maybe that will help you in the future.
tried both full time and contractor years back, too stressful, can't deal with both with kids, I since focus on one of them, not both at the same time, for the sake of my own health.
By full time with 100/hr I meant that I'm a contractor working for a company for 40hrs a week. Since we started to work remote I picked up a second assignment of a few hours extra a week. But all in all it becomes more stressful.
Unless both jobs are doing very similar things on the tech stack(so our brain does not context switch too heavily), but they're not competing in the same market(an ethical issue), I might still consider it, the chance is too low, so far I do one job and I actually can have a life.
I think you're probably right. Every now and then I've had something fall in my lap from someone I knew. I've done a few focus groups (though those are during the day.) And so forth.
But, perhaps not unsurprisingly, there really isn't a general source for short side gigs paying a few hundred dollars an hour--especially for asynchronous tasks you can do nights or weekends.
Specially if you factor in the marginal tax you'll pay on the side gig, it's almost never worth it imo. I know that was a turn off for me at least, so starting a business if you have the energy will have way more upside
I often get pings for research consulting interviews, that pay very well, and take an hour or so. Maybe thats something to look at.
That said, be cautious about conflicts. If you work for a mega corp like a hyperscaler it is going to be very hard to avoid the appearance of conflict.
This is my pet peeve - why so many people here in the UK strive for mediocrity? Do we really got rid ourselves of any ambitions? When you admit to earning more than £35k you are supposed to feel sorry and apologise for trying and if you are over £80k people look at you as a privileged money pinata, that ideally should be taxed at 100% and keep head down in shame.
For instance, I have been working on a product in my spare time and I don't want to finance it through loans or giving up equity. Having £200k job (only £9,500 net per month) would get me closer to get the required tools, inventory, securing a rent for the workshop and storage, but that still not really too much money for that kind of endeavour. Unfortunately I am coming from a poor working class and I don't have a rich daddy to fund my start up, yet when people learn how much I earn they think I am rich, but reality is that kind of money is not enough to make anything sensible with it (you still have to save for years and live modestly), but people think it's the level of private jets and heated pool in a large back garden of a mansion.
Making a value judgement on someones financial ambition is a little ... weak.
Does it really matter? I'm on £200k gross in the UK, outside London ... but i'm not done climbing that mountain. Of course £200k is "enough" for anyone, but that doesn't mean you can't aim higher.
I might agree with this depending on what the specific goal is. But why should ambition be generally celebrated?
There is certainly ambition that has brought about improvement in life. There has also been ambition applied to the wrong ends or failing that has brought suffering. I'm not sold on the idea that the goal of continually increasing comp above an already luxurious level is meaningful or worth a third party celebrating. I especially feel this way about our industry where comp seems detached from the contributions are not easily attributed/calculated.
It is perfectly valid to believe that OP is probably overpaid in their day job, and also to believe that they are entitled to seek a side gig if they prefer.
Ok... that has nothing to do with my comment. Of course they're entitled to want a side gig. But why is ambition something to be celebrated, especially in the context of this example?
From 168 hours that we all start with in a week, if someone wants to spend 20 of them making their and their family's lives better, why wouldn't we generally encourage that? I certainly wouldn't discourage it and I could be neutral on it, but if I think about, I'd rather they work on a side gig than watch Netflix, doom-scroll, or watch TikToks.
I think the part we're disconnected on is "better". Will a couple extra grand a year make their family's life better beyond the amount they already have? Perhaps physical exercise or relaxing provides more benefit. Of course we probably can't answer this as it's specific to each individual.
I suppose I'm in the camp that finds it skeptical that it would be much benefit at that level. I might also view it as a negative to society as that gig could go to someone who needs it more. Granted we would then be admiring the ambition of the lower earner, which brings me back to me saying that the specifics matter more than generally celebrating ambition.
Most every tech job in the world could go to someone who needs it more. That doesn't make me discourage people from taking tech jobs, nor do I plan to retire when I have the minimum amount needed for a modest retirement.
"Most every tech job in the world could go to someone who needs it more."
Based on the struggle to hire qualified candidates, it seems this is an unrealistic view. Also, there is a difference between someone having a single job, and someone double dipping.
In theory (and in a well functioning system), ambition in a populace leads to GDP growth as ambitious people seek ways to make more money by doing higher value work. This in turn leads to a higher standard of living, possibly for everyone if you redistribute some of the surplus via taxation schemes.
Personally (and more selfishly), I tried to raise my salary to be able to afford not working for extended periods of time.
That makes sense. I'm wondering more about net benefit. Is it really a benefit if our GDP rose if we spend increasing amounts on stuff like healthcare and have shorter lives due to the constant grind of work? I'm not sure we can answer these questions, but I agree with you that as long as the ambition is properly placed and the system works well that it would be good.
It’s a fair question. There is evidence that working increases your life expectancy, at least among men[1], and under the regime of western societal norms.
Working with “ambition” could result in more stresses that counteract this gain. Hard to say.
Also possible that the gain would disappear outside of a culture that places so much value on jobs and wealth.
I'm just genuinely intrigued as to why someone on £200k would want to work more. maybe there's a good reason, like they're an "earn to give" person, or some actual ambition the money will help fulfill, or some expensive health need etc. Maybe they'd like to spend less time with their family. Just wanting to exchange more of your life for more money seems weird to me, if you're already in a position to be able to live in luxury.
In the neighborhood of New York City I live in, buying a 2 bedroom apartment requires you to have a higher yearly income than $250k (~= £200k). The simple desires of (a) wanting space for family and (b) wanting to live in a specific place, can push you to want to earn higher salaries.
Yeah you're right actually, glancing at Rightmove (UK property site), and going by the standard 4.5x mortgage test, you're probably not going to get a decent family home in Central-ish London on £200k. Shit's fucked up.
Edit: To be clear the repayments on a £1m mortgage would "only" be like £60k a year, you only need £>200k to initially buy the place.
> it's about the experience/knowledge gained/distraction/self-worth of accomplishing more
To me, a side gig means accomplishing more of what someone else wants, with the trade-off of being less able to accomplish (or learn about, or distract yourself with) what you want. Which seems like an odd thing to want unless you need the money. I suppose for some people having a £200k income and not needing the money seem less synonymous than they do to me.
>I'm just genuinely intrigued as to why someone on £200k would want to work more.
The money outcome isn't a zero-sum game. If someone works more, they can put that towards their children's education fund, retirement or other investments, or anything else at all.
I'm reminded of Margaret Thatcher's response to this: "He'd rather the poor were poorer, as long as the rich were less rich."[1]
Every ethical dollar earned is a byproduct of value creation. Maybe you meant something more like "as long as he's not ripping off his customers," but otherwise that's an odd thing to say in response to someone who makes good money but is still looking for side jobs.
Well it sounds like you got it figured out what's best for everyone's health, ethics, and economics. Thankfully we have wise people to tell us what we can and can't work on...
Oh stop it. Every time we make progress there will be some unequal effect. Some people will benefit and others will lose out. We should do our best to balance the trade offs, but to say someone shouldn’t be ambitious if there is some unequal effect is preposterous and pessimistic.
Why does wage inequality matter? Inequality isn't strongly driven by wages, but is by capital income.
Personally, the way I see it, the more money goes to wages, the better, and if that's because some guy is earning millions a year, I still think it's good.
Income from people starting new companies, that's fine too. What's bad is rent extraction, ossification, monopolies and private institutions that have power over people.
Some people have unique needs and wants. There's also the whole fish growing to fill its aquarium thing. So it's reasonable for them to feel that way, just as it's reasonable for you to feel the other.
That said, I would suggest that at that level of comp, maybe just use the extra time for your own enjoyment - hobby, relaxing, FOSS personal project, etc.
Cant speak for the UK, but all it takes is a disabled child or other complex life situation and the numbers suddenly arent so rosy. I refrain from asking anyone "why do you need more money?" - its their business alone.
Why, though? If you're making that much money, it's unlikely you need more. Fill your time with things that will make you happy, not things that will make you wealthier. You're filling the wrong tank.
I mentioned £200k because it's near the top end for a senior engineer in London (although not the very top). FAANG, some Unicorns, trading firms will pay this to a senior engineer. Bear in mind this is total compensation, so part of that will be in stock or options.
For engineers based in the UK that are shocked by this number I'd recommend reading this [0] article. It's about compensation in the Netherlands but the same principle holds for the UK.
In Boston and NYC I am seeing $150-200k at well-funded startups for "experienced IC" roles. If you have several years of experience, and you're actually a good engineer, and aren't at least above 150k in a market like this, you need to start interviewing, because your current employer is taking advantage of you.
Depends where in the US. 200k is not typical for anyone working outside of a FAANG in SV. I've got almost 17 years exp and not making $200k base, and recruiters who contact me balk when I ask for something in that range - to include someone who contacted me on this very site and put me through a multi-week interview process only to offer me considerably less than 200 (or even my current pay).
And considering the way the economy is going (at least in the West), it's probably smart to work a side gig and make as much money as you can, while you can, because work is going to dry up soon.
I am not working for FAANG. I am not in SV. I am based in the US. Working for an early stage start-up. Earning quite a bit North of $200K. My compensation is based on the value I provide, not where I live. Any recruiter or hiring manager who tries to tell me different is promptly ignored.
> I've got almost 17 years exp and not making $200k base
I am surprised by this. You can check levels.fyi to target the right companies. I guarantee you 100% that you can easily make > 230k base outside FANG for a remote position.
Really? I don't personally know anyone making that much. My mother is a software engineer with an additional 20 years of experience on me and has never made that much (currently makes less than me, in fact).
Probably not as a web dev; senior / lead Java developer, Oracle DBA, managerial level at big companies like banks and insurance might get you closer to that. But to be blunt, you're probably not worth 200K as a web developer.
I found it really hard to find jobs that pay anywhere close to US salaries in EU.
Unless things are very different now, I would plan to move to US to make 'that kind of money'.
I was going to say. Unless you have things lined up, I would hesitate to move to UK without a plan. I am saying this as my sister is attempting this very thing ( and me trying to discourage her since its a business pie in the sky kind of dream ). The days easily obtainable jobs ( especially the low level ones ) for other EU members are over. She did not seem to get that memo. On the high end of the spectrum, banking lost some jobs as a result of Brexit. Dunno about insurance.
US has its benefits, but I would consider age as a factor ( if you are younger, you may be able to worry less about insurance and whatnot ).
Pound pavement. Take people out to lunch. Go to conferences. Lots and lots of networking. Leverage any existing connections you have. If you're a senior, you should have some that are no longer relevant to your company, like old coworkers and whatnot.
In my experience, there will be about a 3-6 month delay between looking for work and securing a contract.
A couple things:
I undersold myself at first to get a couple of very pleased customers that then gave me much more work. However, it's very tricky... the customers that scoff at your price are not the ones you want. They are also going to be a PITA in every other way, and they'll grumble and make you feel like shit even when you deliver what you promised, on time, for the price you agreed to, with excellent value compared to the market. You don't want them.
....But it is a balance. Consider some way to mitigate risk on behalf of your customer in your first couple of contracts: hourly with a Not to Exceed number, or bid the job. Etc. Anything to get your foot in the door and get word-of-mouth recommendations.
Also... when pounding pavement, don't chase after individual customers! If you do, make sure they are whales. Do your best to find someone that will feed you lots of customers... Maybe partner with someone that does a complement to your work, like frontend or something of the sort?
Also... in partnerships, don't be greedy. There's ENORMOUS value that can be had when all the people you work with or around know that YOU want THEM to make money.
And finally... in my experience, having a "side gig" is really hard or impossible to pull off. It's always been a pretty binary situation between: "I have no work, nor prospects" and "Holy shit, I have way too much work and more is coming in." Work doesn't trickle in organically. You're either in or your out of the network of people that need work done, and if you're in, people paying top dollar want work done now. Trust me, those are the people you want anyway. The ones looking for a bargain will screw you.
Don't be afraid to say no to people that give you red flags, but I will warn you that every time you say "no" you are killing a connection on your network graph that could have led to a lot more work.
Per another comment of mine, you're now essentially talking about a full time-ish job though. Unless you're lucky and connect with just the right people in your network, it's really tough to land well-paying part-time to very part-time gigs with a minimum of business development and a fair bit of flexibility.
And this is true broadly. It's very hard to find/make a 10-20 hour job that lets you take off a month or two and isn't some $5-10/hour sort of thing. To the degree there is, you probably have to create it yourself.
I ended up trying to approximate this for a time by sharing work with a shop of 3 people. We were each 3 separate companies, but we would bring in clients under one contract and then just exchange labor via internal market-like exchanges. It worked pretty well for quite a while.
But even then... while it did sort of allow one to frequently (but not always) work part time and to take a couple weeks off and just distribute work with the other guys in the shop, it didn't attenuate the feast or famine issue as much as I'd hoped. In practice, 2 out of the 3 of us did the business development, and 1 guys served as the guy we could offload work onto.
You can just work two jobs at once ;-) During the pandemic and the WFH era, some employees have taken on two positions at the same time keeping this secret from both employers. Here's a funny WSJ article about this https://archive.ph/DGQrA. Quote from that article:
“It’s 100% overwhelming, and my wife’s like, ‘How long can you do this?’ ” he says. But “every other Friday, when those paychecks drop, I am reinvigorated.”
* Slack groups (geographical or programming language based)
* craigslist software section
My tips:
* Have a portfolio / resume handy
* Expected rate and weekly availability
- \* And your flexibility in both areas
* Citizenship
* Timezone
* Reason for looking
- Want to get experience in X
- I run a software consultancy
- Need a challenge
- Looking for experience
As someone who has looked for someone part-time multiple times, it's been a frustrating experience overall.
* Under-qualified
- I wish I did, as I love mentoring, but I don't have the time to take someone under my wing right now. Hence the need for a portfolio / resume / Github.
* Overqualified
- I can't afford you right now ;)
* People who already have 40 hour jobs and who _think_ they have enough time but they don't
- Not under the person's control all the time, I understand. Life gets in the way
I've always just leveraged existing connections. I'm not great at selling myself, but I've done a lot of good work for a handful of people that ARE good at talking me up. Reach out to people that you've done good work for and let them know that you are looking for some side gigs. You might not get anything right away, but things could start trickling in. This has opened up a lot of opportunities for me.
There's no easy way to do that. You have to market yourself as worth the money. You are absolutely right about fiverr, upwork and similar outlets will not bring clients that pay good money and they are usually more demanding than when you get your name into a managers rolodex (contact list is the modern equivalent I suppose). A little fake-it-till-you-make-it might bring you some of the way there. Try making a webpage selling your consultancy with a portfolio of projects you are proud of. It's something to put on a business card that you can pass out when networking. I want to echo what others have said about going to conferences. The trick is that you don't want to get onto the contact lists of other devs and managers don't often go to conferences. Your best bet at the conference itself is going to the sponsor desks and asking around. It's a hustle and I don't think it fits your idea of making a few extra €€. I've found that once I have a solid engagement that takes 8 of my daily weekday hours, I just don't have time to hustle the way I can when I don't have a dayjob.
There are benefits to sharpening the blade. If your day job vanishes all of a sudden (happened to me twice in my career), having your tentacles out to look for gigs will soften the blow. I've also had a gig turn into a dayjob (even if that one was short-lived and problematic on many fronts).
I have found my last few freelancing gigs by posting my availability in Slack groups. As an Elixir dev I posted in an Elixir-specific Slack group. I also post in the HN monthly threads but I haven't gotten many leads from those.
It also helps if you have an established profile, e.g. an active Github profile with open source contributions.
Maybe talk to your wife? Friends, family? Keeping physically healthy and healthy relationships allows you to keep working your 9-5.
Otherwise I'd learn new skills, if not tech maybe management? I did an OU MBA online which was fun, I didn't want to be a manager but helped me work more effectively in the organization.
Depending on the type of work that you wish to get into (for getting side paid), i would caution this approach...Because when i did my side hustle, i reached to family and friends, and they only ended up connecting me to the typical bagel showps who "wanted a website". you can imagine where engagements went from there. Either the clients want Google/Facebook-level engineering for pennies, or they conduct massive scope creep, or keep saying non-helpful feedback like "my nephew in high school can do this, why are saying it taakes time, costs X money?", etc.
The only scenario where this might work is if your family/friends actually work in corporate America. Why? Because they might understand projects, scope, vendor payment, etc...and they might likely connect you with clients who have similar understanding of project work, etc. I've never had such luck...but maybe that can be a good direction.
Ha. I actually meant as a social context, in a way to hang out and have fun. But now you mention it going into business (or charity) with friends could either be great or disastrous, but is worth checking.
You’re assuming OPs not doing the above. A job is 35 hours a week. OP might want a side gig that gives 20 hours x $200/hour. This means OPs making $4k extra a week and has 55 hours remaining a week to do the above assuming 8 hours of sleep. The few quick judgements in this thread are something else.
Make sure it's something you really want to do since it may consume all of your free-time for weeks or months at a time. Don't be me..
Midway through my career I was given a golden opportunity to side-gig consult for a project that could have launched a consulting business. Instead, after an excellent presentation and client interest -- I laid out some numbers that were very high. You see, I had (and still have) a very high valuation for my free time. The customer balked but remained intersted and offered a counter. I told them it was non-negotiable and terminated without providing a counter-offer. I ended up embarrassing my colleague who had given me the opportunity to pitch to an exec team of a golfing buddy.
In the end, it was no harm done (I was working for FANG) but I learned that I valued my free time far too much to work a side gig unless it was a startup of my own design.
For anyone who doesn't want to repeat this experience: you can almost always come down in cost, by also coming down in scope -- and retain your hourly rate.
I can't speak to the project above, but typically starting with a smaller-scoped project at the original high rate is a good way for both sides to evaluate whether the relationship is working without a huge commitment.
A good number of people are making quite a fortune tutoring coding online if that's something you are interested in. I assume you are good with kids if you have one. What hourly rate are you looking for? I may be interested in in giving you some extra work as we have a couple families at Modulo looking for coding tutoring. Feel free to reach out. Very easy to find me from my bio.
I interviewed there and they gave me a big project that would have taken several days to complete. Call me arrogant, but I couldn't work for free like that. Additionally all the interviewers were from extremely low cost of living countries, whereas I live in one of the highest cost of living areas in the US.
I had the impression that you have to bid yourself down to catch work over there due to that discrepancy. There are people in Eastern Europe more qualified than me, willing to work harder than me, at 1/3 the cost of me. Thus I preferred local contract hunting.
They give you a project that's supposed to take 8 hours, with a loose definition so you can take your own approach to it. Having been through the process, the project is definitely not something they'd take and use for themselves, it's a really basic test of aptitude.
I'm on the "DevOps" side which tends to demand less $ from what I hear, but I get between $90 and $130/hr for hourly gigs (my preference). There's also Part-Time and Full-Time gigs that guarantee 20 hours and 40 hours per week respectively.
It's almost like a full job interview process with many parts. Keeping details minimal because of NDA, I had 3 "rounds" including online assessment and video interviews.
Of all the solutions our industry can provide, why cannot we not solve for if someone is performant in the industry?
Trades figures this out centuries ago.
However, our industry retains a hint of mystery. A magical sauce that cannot yet be taught.
But more importantly, a level of some mystery remains that cannot be detected without forcing the recruit through a rigorous course. Its biggest attrition being a the large potential for no return.
The difference with “us” is that our skills are still evolving - and quickly in many spaces…. The tools change, the methods change and the skill sets are constantly evolving to match.
I'd say all in all I put maybe 10 hours into it, which is far less than I do for a typical job interview prep. Given that this has brought me numerous clients, it was worth it for me.
I do, it really depends on the client. I like working with small businesses and most of those are just a quick conversation about what they're looking for.
I'm not sure where you got that info from, but unless you completely tank everything, there isn't an automatic disqualification. Even if you fail two out of three questions, you'll still get a chance to meet with the screener.
I did all tests in half the required time, 100% success rate, had a bug during the interview with the screener, in the last of 5 overall I've done, I probably could've fixed it with 2 more minutes but no, I failed and was asked to practice leetcode puzzles and apply again one month later.
Yeah, I don't think I will.
The thing that bugs me the most is it was obvious the interviewer wasn't an engineer. There weren't able to tell how close I was to the solution. I dunno, that method might work in some cases, but I've been doing software engineering for 16 years. I guess I'm not good enough.
Also fuck having to solve puzzles with a timer with someone looking over your shoulder. I have done emergency "servers are on fire" maintenance in the middle of the night for big customers and it's less stressful than that.
I mean that one is pretty easy; 'a1null' , first thing is a string so it'll try to concatenate with 1, coerce 1 to a string and get 'a1' then same thing will null. Makes perfect sense ;p
For me the screen-shared leetcode/React challenge was stupid easy, I failed in the later take home project because I half assed it (no testing/CRUD validation)
As a dev or more on the ops side? How long are the contracts? When you get a client, do they place you in a team with internals, or is there another setup? I guess toptal is like an intermediary, global scale, and they screen/test their freelancers.
It has varied from me being the only person working on it to full time work.
It's been easy enough that I've always taken 2, 20 hour/week jobs so that I don't lose all my employment at once when one ends. It's never been a problem picking up the next contract.
I've never worked with anyone else from Toptal, though I have been the replacement.
I haven't been using them for a while, but it's been non-stop inquiries from them, even though I've set my availability to 0hr/wk.
When I started the process years ago, I only saw bad things about Toptal. Went through anyways and have only good things to say. The most vocal are always the negative, and a lot of them were people who never got through the selection process. YMMV, but my experience is positive.
An idea would be bug bounties. They are great for free time, because you can always do it on your own time, and in the end you can get paid for submitting bugs. Bugcrowd and hackerOne are great platforms to do such bug bounties.
I've lucked into some great places being cool with part-time work. That said, just yesterday I spoke with a recruiter for a 40hr gig and they had deep concerns that I've had work overlap (my part-time business + 40hr contract work) on my resume. I've pulled out of consideration for that role because of it but am thinking of adjusting my resume to not show overlap. I would've thought it showed drive but I guess - at least in some recruiting circles - that it causes concern.
Should I remove my business from my resume? A lot of my exciting experience comes from my business whereas the 40hr stuff is just standard work I've been doing for years.
You correctly identified the red flag of a place looking for side-gig work that actually hates any sign of side-gig work. So for starters, great job there, you don't want to work for those people. As much as I hate to just recommend "find better recruiters", that does sound like a pretty terrible recruiter. I wouldn't remove the interesting stuff from your resume because a non-technical chump doesn't understand how technology gets tinkered on.
Keep it if the work was interesting and you feel like it bolsters your experience. Sometimes I remove dates from my resume as they’ll always be doing the mental math of assembling your timeline and notice all the concurrent items. Duration is a happy medium for me. That frees you from the linearity that resumes often follow, so maybe consider adding a section entitled “Recent Projects” or something similar with the other section called “Employment”
It’s a white lie but I’ve often explained those periods as “consulting” instead of freelance / “entrepreneur”. Then when I discuss it I always make it about the project and work. I never talk about the client except maybe the industry as a lead in to the problem. This way it sounds temporary or something. If they think you have an active client list you’re maintaining, that is always going to be concerning for them. They don’t know if you’ll be distracted or will make the clients the priority. They want to be your top and ideally only priority (sometimes even over family).
If they really press you they’re probably trying to understand how you managed so much project work while being employed full time. This is when you force a step-back from the details and say, “I do occasionally take on a project outside of work, it helps me work with emerging tech and things I’m interested in. I view it as a form of continuing education that is required in many professions. It’s never effected my performance at my job and I ensure to never causes a conflict of priorities. I find I can be 50%+ more productive due to having less meetings and organization overhead.” Or something with that gist
I find this extremely helpful, thank you. Presenting the situation the way you mentioned in the last paragraph is honest and presents it in a very positive way. I also like the idea of project/employment sections. Much appreciated!
Yeah, fiverr isn't going to pay well, that's right there in the name.
I have had some success with other freelancing sites in the past, where I initially set my rates to $50/hour and raised it to over $150/hour by the time I stopped. More than once, I lost a job in the initial bidding, but was later contacted and hired by the client after issues cropped up with the cheaper hires.
And, yes, as others have said, networking and marketing. I also wrote a technical blog and got other jobs through my network. Over time, that became the primary source of clients. But, when I was just starting, the freelancer sites were very helpful.
Also, you're at the mercy of the algorithm on Fiverr. I had a successful voiceover side gig for a few years, a thousand completed orders and 100% 5 star reviews - one day, the algorithm changed, and poof. Game over, in an instant. 0 orders, forever.
There are plenty of more curated platforms out there now like Tribe.ai (more focus on ml intensive projects), not sure if Gigster is still around but they also used to leverage freelancers part-time, and then Toptal. All these let you go the route of being part of a network and getting gigs sent to you rather than going out and trying to find your own.
I was doing a couple of side gigs when I was younger. It was a total nightmare. Ended up feeling like doing two full time jobs, being absolutely exhausted and then not having much extra money to show for it (the taxes are brutal).
As where did I find those - at the time it was gumtree or word of mouth.
For me it is consulting in crypto and algorithmic trading, but there are other high-paying areas to consider. Like adtech, but I am not sociopathic enough for that.
It is harder to find a side gig as a generic (no pun intended) Go developer, you’d want to specialize in something.
Why adtech is more sociopathic than algorithmic trading? Honest question, especially because both are so similar (algorithmic usage of information in fast marketplaces).
Because in adtech, you have to manipulate people much more directly, without going through the equalizer of electronic marketplaces.
Also, at least in crypto, nearly all people are here voluntarily, they know that they are in the adversarial environment, a fighting arena. In adtech, you are up against the innocent.
Its not like adtech is inherently evil work...but as @atemerev noted, the industry makes one feel like you *have* to do shady things to achieve goals, do your work, etc. II'm sure there are good, honest people in the induystry. But in essence its basic manipulation...so many people (myself included) have issues working in such an environment, at least for the most part.
The part-time thing has two kinds, in my very limited experience. One, is doing maintenance on something you used to work on full-time. You already know the code base, you just don't need to be doing full-time work on it. If you were good to work with, previous employers might have a use for you on a part-time basis.
The other kind, is going to be the fiverr-type thing, where your pay rate is not competitive.
So, leveraging past employment (or coworkers who went on to other places, who know you know the thing they need a bit of extra help on) is, again in my very limited experience, the way to do it. One more reason to be nice to people, even at places you have decided to leave, or they have decided to leave.
This isn't actual advice; I'm sure many of us get plenty of emails from recruiters, and I've always wondered if you could build a book of business as a freelancer by replying to them that you're looking for contract work.
Build a free tool with a decent community of users in a field you’re good at / interested in. Some of your users will naturally ask if you’re available to freelance for them on adjacent projects.
If you build such a tool with a decent community, why not add a Premium version and charge money for it?
If you already have some software and an active community, you did all the hard work for an SaaS. What's the advantage of focusing on individual client needs at that point instead of expanding the tool and getting customers?
My website has a number of self-services tools on it that are helpful but you have to have a decent idea of what you're doing to begin with to make use of them.
Under the tools I've got a link to my contact form for people who need more help.
I used to get quite a decent bit of work through this to the point I was turning people away. It's kind of dried up in the last couple years though.
As @loudouncodes mentioned, no easy way but to network and to market yourself. But you also need to consider which aspect of yourself you want to sell as the side gig.
* Would you write a book to impart your knowledge to the readers?
* Would you sell your physical hours in delivering work products?
* Would you sell your advice via consulting?
Many ways to cut this fruit, and still have it taste good. Best of luck on your ventures.
I usually get side gigs (freelance work where I can give 10-15 hours per week) through HN hire freelancer thread, Reddit, UpWork and my social network. I aim for gigs that have interesting problems to solve.
I'm working on an initiative for freelancers by curating good quality freelance jobs from many different sources - job boards + Slack Communities + LinkedIn + Twitter feeds etc, filtering them and sharing the best leads with freelancers. It will be helpful if you are a freelancer or an agency. Feel free to ping me[2] if you would like to get alerted when we launch soon [1]
Things that have worked for me, an introvert, include emailing former employers and coworkers, and responding to calls for help on social media including sometimes right here.
Since becoming a software engineer I've worked as a Tech Lead for a coding bootcamp (gave mock technical interviews to new grads), a coach for levels.fyi (gave advice for folks interviewing with fang+ companies), and a tech coach for Outco (gave advice and mock interviews for folks preping for interviews). I also did some consulting work for a small dev agency.
The first and last I found from calling people I'd previously worked with, sharing a bit about my move into swe, and asking if they have any advice for me. Both of them said I have a job you might be good for.
The other two I found from emailing founders about their programs. Hey I saw you do x. I do x. I'd love to chat.
A lot of companies are dying to hire anyone who is halfway decent.
For 10 years I spoke at every conference, user group, etc. that I could find. I sustained a 9 person consulting company finding gigs through the network of other speakers and attendees that would come up and ask me questions. Every question can be rephrased as “I have a problem you can help me solve”, but you also have to qualify to make sure there is a company with a budget for solving that problem. That takes a little business development.
For conference attendees, you have to have some free giveaway to keep a connection… like a free 2 hour code review of your existing project, or “I’m willing to do this presentation for an in-house user group as a lunchtime thing if you’re interested”. Those little giveaways get you closer to the management and the confidence you know what you’re talking about.