I did some years back, and at first it was nice. But it wasn't long before I wanted some free time and was happy when a contract was done. It's a way to try out working with different things for different companies. Also a way to overload yourself and burn out if you're not careful.
Ask HN: Are you contracting on the side (while working full time)?
21–30 of 62 posts
Re: Ask HN: Are you contracting on the side (while working full time)?
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the easiest way to get started with SF dev? I'm part of a contracting team and having another arrow in our quiver would be pretty useful.
trailhead.salesforce.com Focus on getting certified to really stand out.
How much time and cost is involved in doing?
Re: Ask HN: Are you contracting on the side (while working full time)?
#23I tried taking on a side job last year and it made me miserable. The work was fairly easy, the people were great, and the money was decent, too. But taking on a whole new set of responsibilities and losing a chunk of my free time was just too much for me. Ultimately it just wasn’t worth the toll it took on my mental health.
One issue in particular that I ran into was the difficulty in context switching between my day job and my side job. I imagined being able to do an hour here or there before or after work. But in reality I found it really hard to get any meaningful work done in an hour, which meant I needed to allocate larger chunks of time than I originally planned. That meant I often ended up sacrificing entire evenings, or chunks of my weekend on my side job. The difficulty in context switching also caused me to procrastinate a lot, which also made me feel terrible about myself.
Re: Ask HN: Are you contracting on the side (while working full time)?
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
trailhead.salesforce.com Focus on getting certified to really stand out.
How much time and cost is involved in doing?
Can’t really give you a quantifiable answer time wise. It really depends on how much time you put in and how good of a developer you already are.
It took me 4 years working full time to get to the point I’m at now. But I also worked Uber, Postmates, and fast food jobs to support my family at night till I got side gig developer work. In my 3rd year things really started to take off. I now have 8 certifications.
Cert tests are only $200-400 a piece to take.
Re: Ask HN: Are you contracting on the side (while working full time)?
#25I'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 o…
>> Embedded development is also pretty much in demand, more so if you have FPGA skills as well.
Extremely so. Demand is vastly outpacing supply for engineers in this growing sector.
Re: Ask HN: Are you contracting on the side (while working full time)?
#26I tried taking on a side job last year and it made me miserable. The work was fairly easy, the people were great, and the money was decent, too. But taking on a whole new set of responsibilities and losing a chunk of my free time was just too much for me. Ultimately it just wasn’t worth the toll it took on my mental health. One issue in particular that I ran into was the difficulty in context switching between my day…
Thanks for sharing.
Re: Ask HN: Are you contracting on the side (while working full time)?
#27Yes. You have to learn a skill with demand that cannot be met. That is the easiest way to get side work. Learn Salesforce development. I've accepted a new contract role that is full time hours and my older employer straight up told me, "We cannot match your new hourly rate, but here is still a raise. Feel free to work on things for us whenever you want, whenever you have time, remotely." I'm nothing special, an avera…
Can you talk a bit about the kind of projects you do? Also, where do you find clients?
Re: Ask HN: Are you contracting on the side (while working full time)?
#28I tried taking on a side job last year and it made me miserable. The work was fairly easy, the people were great, and the money was decent, too. But taking on a whole new set of responsibilities and losing a chunk of my free time was just too much for me. Ultimately it just wasn’t worth the toll it took on my mental health. One issue in particular that I ran into was the difficulty in context switching between my day…
This happened to me as well. I thought I would be able to juggle different responsibilities full-time work, an occasional side works and post graduate studies but I was wrong.
I was under the impression that I would be able to do it because back when I was in high school and college I can easily get good grades with barely any effort. I even had time to enjoy other leisure activities. Turns out, I was just oblivious what real responsibilities are.
Re: Ask HN: Are you contracting on the side (while working full time)?
#29I'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 o…
>> Embedded development is also pretty much in demand, more so if you have FPGA skills as well. Extremely so. Demand is vastly outpacing supply for engineers in this growing sector.
Doesn’t that fall in EE realm, where salaries are lower than software or even web dev?
Re: Ask HN: Are you contracting on the side (while working full time)?
#30I actually did some paid technical writing on the side in 2019 on top of my full time job as a developer.
It helped a lot that the company I work for started a technical content agency as a new division of the company and was okay with me doing extra paid work for them outside of normal work hours.
If you're a developer who is also a decent writer, maybe something like this would work for you?
I actually found technical writing to be a nice change of pace from my day job. If I'd tried to do extra paid software work on the side I think I'd have felt burned out rather quickly.
If you want to know more about getting into technical writing, my email address is in my profile.