Ask HN: What job offers most free time?

basement dweller

and why so few women want to work in it.

In my experience working for your average corporation or government entity involves normal (and often flexible) hours, and can be as demanding or undemanding as you like. Throw in benefits and it's not the worst way to go.

It does entail taxing the same muscles you'd like to use for your own projects, but at a multiple of what you'd expect to be paid in the other fields mentioned. (And as has been said before, you could always "pay yourself first" by doing your own work before clocking in.)

There is money and time, but there's also stability. Companies don't hire developers for a month or two, at least where I come from and consulting requires lots of careful planning to keep a steady income. Plus, you need much more self-discipline to be self-employed, which I may lack.

Anyway, based on what I constantly hear on HN, freelancing may be overrated. I find it difficult to compete against Indian or Bangladeshi programmers, even when I can clearly provide much higher quality. Either clients don't understand what they are getting for the price or the project requires little competence anyway.

1. Go to any web development agency that sells to companies.

2. Show them a small portfolio of relevant work. The code should be clean and should solve a problem.

3. Tell them your availability. Something regular like 20 hours per week is probably more desirable, but some will take what they can get.

4. Invite them to "try before they buy" on a small paid gig. Ramp up size of projects as you gain trust.

5. If you are able to say things like "I am able to talk to customers and develop bespoke applications that solve their problems in an elegant way", expect to dictate your own terms and get rewarded handsomely (at least for someone not doing sales).

6. If the agency compares you to low-paid offshore programmers, you're talking to the wrong agency.

Keep in mind that most good agencies have more work than they can handle -- their bottleneck is on the "good and reliable developer" side.

Also note that they work may be incredibly boring -- but certainly no more boring than "sales clerk" or "security guard", and also certainly more lucrative.

> I am indeed a halfway decent programmer

Ask someone who pays programmers if they agree with this assessment. Most programmers I know tend to self-evaluate themselves a bit on the high side. Some folks may find that they have some programming idiosyncrasies that make their code less than ideal for anything other than personal projects that they themselves will maintain.