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

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

#41

Post by jetti » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 5:20 PM UTC

TbobbyZ wrote: post #4

Yes. 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…

I would imagine that clients that would want to get contractors for Salesforce development would want those individuals working during normal business hours, which would conflict with an existing job. Have you found clients are more flexible in hours?

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

#42

Post by steve_adams_86 » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 5:21 PM UTC

I suppose in a sense I do, although my "full time job" isn't development. I take care of my son at home during the day (and occasionally parts of the night), and otherwise work part to full time on software.

I've also worked part time contract gigs while working full time on software. It gets to be a lot pretty quickly.

I've come to think the impact on my quality of life isn't worth it. I'm so sleep deprived and the monetary rewards have never felt that great - especially now since I'm paid less than I have been in almost ten years. I think I'd feel a little differently if my son wasn't such a schedule mangler or I was earning what I'm used to, but... I'm fairly firmly in the camp now that my time is worth more than anything I can manage to get paid after a certain point.

Something worth considering is intermittently taking on smaller but lucrative contracts. Be selective. Don't commit to a long term slog in which you'll sacrifice your personal life and appreciation for your career.

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

#43

Post by TbobbyZ » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

jetti wrote: post #41

TbobbyZ wrote: post #4

Yes. 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…

I would imagine that clients that would want to get contractors for Salesforce development would want those individuals working during normal business hours, which would conflict with an existing job. Have you found clients are more flexible in hours?

More flexible indeed.

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

#44

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

robervin wrote: post #12

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.

This is really the key. Decide how many hours a week you're available and use that to estimate your delivery schedules. If you can work more than the estimate, great, but never commit to more than you know you can do.

Life got a lot easier after I figured this out :-)

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

#45

Post by ScottFree » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

tluyben2 wrote: post #31

ananonymoususer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never had to seek work. It has always been from people I knew or people who knew my coworkers. If one has good skills, the work will speak for itself and lots of repeat business/new customers will come knocking on the door.

Exactly. That's the reason why I don't understand that reasonably senior people ever have to go through that whiteboarding crap (or actually through anything more than a friendly chat).

Not everybody has done as good a job maintaining their network. I'm really bad at that sort of thing.

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

#46

Post by stets » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 7:25 PM UTC

TbobbyZ wrote: post #15

dbancajas wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

$100

Really interested in hearing more about this -- is it possible I could reach out to you to ask a few questions?

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

#47

Post by elcritch » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 7:27 PM UTC

non-entity wrote: post #35

elcritch wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t that fall in EE realm, where salaries are lower than software or even web dev?

Not just that, I can get work as a software developer without any formal education whatsoever. I cant imagine that happening in a more mature engineering field like EE.

Good question. i wonder what areas FPGA programmers are needed. It seems an fpga for interfacing electronics would be somewhat different than just using fpga's to speed up machine learning processing.

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

#48

Post by mguerville » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 12:06 AM UTC

A card game to complement my lectures on innovation (adjunct prof with a 10 session syllabus). I figured rather than do only case studies and maybe a simulation (those are typically not great), I'd leverage my interest in board games to craft a game with a strong academic foundation. (I'm not a developer, so my options are a bit limited for side projects, but no-code is giving me a lot of hope and I have a couple of ideas for later this year)

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

#49

Post by matt_the_bass » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 12:40 PM UTC

rpeden wrote: post #30

I 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 techni…

Could you please define what you mean by technical writing? I’m curious since it is such a broad topic.

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

#50

Post by loganwedwards » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 1:58 PM UTC

I went down this route before going in full time with contracting. With a full time job, I was capable of billing between 10-15 hours a week and it was only sustainable for a few months for me due to the balance of downtime and family time. Besides the extra cash, the economic diversification and the new skills acquired during this time made the venture worth it, but YMMV. Good luck!