Ask HN: Are you contracting on the side (while working full time)?

I've found I can handle an extra 10 hours of work a week without negatively impacting the rest of my life -- work, social, sleep, hobbies. I've gotten all my contract work from prior work relationships or referrals from friends.

At this point, I'm looking to switch from hourly to project-based pricing -- I'm finally efficient enough to charge by value; there are only so many billable hours in a day.

care to share your hourly? is it 150/hr?

This.

I moved on to a company that was paying me a lot and i couldnt say no. Instead of 2 week notice i offered my former employer this option.

I fully disclosed to my prospective employer this relationship. I even carved out a clause that lets me leave the office once per month to be working elsewhere.

I also converted a job recruiting attempt into a contractual arrangement.

I dont have more time for anything anymore.

A few tips.

Former employers are a balancing act. If you were working full time for them, and doing good work, that is effectively their expectation. It will be hard to change it. Learn to manage it. Make sure the contract specifically states what you will do and what you wont.

Make sure you clearly state who you will be reporting too. Contracts can go sideways quickly if your expertise is no longer trusted by way of new hire with something to prove. This is mostly true for new contracting engagements. Former employers know your depth of expertise, new guys do not.

Don't take additional problems at your new FT employer until you know you can manage all the work across all co's.

Particularly, be choosy with your clients. Do not take startups for cheap unless there is significant upside. Your time is valuable and it should be paid well. Taking a job below market rate for your experience is a quick way to utterly destroy your motivation in doing a good job. Unless you are bored, the project is interesting, or unemployed.... Do not do it.

I am not a developer. I cant even write SQL. I work in a rather mundane field. However i am an expert in scaling that field with a good tech stack, and I can speak semi intelligently about tech infrastructure. I can even read a SQL query and immediately understand what it is doing.

I've done it off and on. There is apparently insatiable demand for "cheap" web development FWIW. Check with the local rotary club or "business club" in your area that has a bunch of local business owners.

Embedded development is also pretty much in demand, more so if you have FPGA skills as well.

As with most things different skills give you different places where you might hunt for piece work.

Don't do contracting on the side if you work for any of the big tech companies. They will find out and they will fire you for it, whether that is legal or not.

I'm a full-time freelancer/contractor but I did a lot of on-the-side freelance work when I was permanently employed years back. You need two things. 1. Your daytime job needs to be relatively easy and low-stress so you have surplus mental capacity to work more in the evenings and weekends. 2. You side gigs need to be simple, repeatable processes. I used to do things like custom email newsletter and blog design, which I could easily churn out using common templates. Pay-by-the-hour services such as SEO and PPC management can also be pretty lucrative.