Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#171

Post by skinnymuch » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

jasondigitized wrote: post #96

wokwokwok wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Expect to work for peanuts at the beginning - consider it advertising. This is terrible advice. Don't work for free, all you're doing is allowing other people to take advantage of you... which, they will. There's plenty of other great advice in this topic; this: "work hard and do a good job, for free and it'll be great experience / advertising / whatever the f" is total BS.

I disagree. I know someone who approached a company and said "I will work as a free intern for 3 months. If you want me to simply get coffee I will. It will be the best coffee you have ever had." 3 months later he had a full time offer and is now doing very well. Working for free indefinitely is bad advice, but offering a "freemium" model is rather savvy.

That seems messed up. Seems like survivorship biasor something

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#172

Post by theonionknight » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #125

levesque wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd share more, but too many people would figure out who it is. Feels like your example is very specific and would not generalize to the average programmer.

I know many people that did this. Not all of them are making $500k a year, but here is some more examples: - Multiple Rails contributors, one that turned core. Those folks are making well north of $200k a year. - Ember contributors or contributors to projects around ember-data or similar. Multiple people making north of $200k a year. - A guy that dove into contributing to Postgres. He wouldn't even share how much his…

You keep referring to the "right" OS project, what do you mean by this? A project in Github trending?

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#173

Post by myth_drannon » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #61

latenightcoding wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is bad advice for someone who has only been coding for 3 years (according to OP). People who can make $500k/year through connections they make contributing to open source projects could most likely just apply to a FAANG company directly. It is way more common to see brilliant developers make $0 from open source projects.

> People who can make $500k/year through connections they make contributing to opensource projects could most likely just apply to a FAANG company directly This vastly overestimates the efficiency of FAANG hiring channels.

Yes, like the Brew guy interview at Google.

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#174

Post by volkk » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:12 PM UTC

nurettin wrote: post #158

@noddly I have some actionable advice. You are in an excellent spot. week 1, 2 maybe 3: search for popular android applications that have low ratings that you can implement, sort them whichever way you prefer, do some wireframes and plan your first project. Do not spend less than 3 weeks. Do not spend more. Week 4: This is the most important week. Figure out the tech you will be using. Make lots of demos projects, fa…

> Things don't work? No problem

i think that OP should also continue applying constantly for remote jobs in US while he's doing the aforementioned. if he spends 13 months writing android apps that go nowhere (which is an extremely high probability of that happening), he'll basically be no better off monetarily than before.

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#175

Post by theblackcat1002 » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:14 PM UTC

nurettin wrote: post #158

@noddly I have some actionable advice. You are in an excellent spot. week 1, 2 maybe 3: search for popular android applications that have low ratings that you can implement, sort them whichever way you prefer, do some wireframes and plan your first project. Do not spend less than 3 weeks. Do not spend more. Week 4: This is the most important week. Figure out the tech you will be using. Make lots of demos projects, fa…

This is actually what I did, but with web application and services. I tried app development in the one of my first few projects but finally gave up for web apps because it allows faster trial and error ( mainly I can push changes in UI and UX faster to a wider audience ). My take away is that stay away from "hot" topics ( news, game app ) unless you have a solid background because you need a really polish product to compete.

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#176

Post by skinnymuch » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:14 PM UTC

random_visitor wrote: post #157

rubber_duck wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to your list, even if you take the household income, 1500/month is 18000/year - which of those countries above 18000 would you describe as third world ?

Median income lifestyle in first world country does not equate to median lifestyle in say India or Brazil. For example, In India, fresh out of college students earn ~$6k/yr in TCS and similar companies. They make ends meet by pinching pennies. At the same time the median household income is ~$3.6k, that's what a household of a hardworking physical labourer would make and the conditions they live in aren't pretty. I d…

OP signaled $1.5K though as well. 50% higher than $1K. Same difference or bigger than your examples in difference alone.

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#177

Post by anaxag0ras » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

nurettin wrote: post #158

@noddly I have some actionable advice. You are in an excellent spot. week 1, 2 maybe 3: search for popular android applications that have low ratings that you can implement, sort them whichever way you prefer, do some wireframes and plan your first project. Do not spend less than 3 weeks. Do not spend more. Week 4: This is the most important week. Figure out the tech you will be using. Make lots of demos projects, fa…

As someone in a similar situation to OP, I really appreciate this advice. Thanks.

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#178

Post by cpascal » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

myth_drannon wrote: post #173

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who can make $500k/year through connections they make contributing to opensource projects could most likely just apply to a FAANG company directly This vastly overestimates the efficiency of FAANG hiring channels.

Yes, like the Brew guy interview at Google.

For context: https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#179

Post by icebraining » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

andi999 wrote: post #76

rmsaksida wrote: post #40

Don't bother with domestic freelancing. Chances are you will be worked to death and struggle to even get paid. Software engineers are rarely taken seriously in developing economies. Focus on overseas freelancing. Start small and gradually increase your rate. You probably won't get big projects or a nice pay rate in the beginning. It's fine, in the long term things will work out. You will build a reputation over time.…

Do companies employ overseas freelancer? If the company doesnt have a dependency in that country isnt this from a legal and tax point of view a nightmare?

One can help with that by creating a single-person company and just issuing regular invoices for services. An accountant to manage the local taxes is usually not very expensive.

Re: Ask HN: How do I reach making $1-1.5k/mo in 13 months?

#180

Post by kchr » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:21 PM UTC

rvp-x wrote: post #128

bryanlarsen wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3pt14159 isn't saying that noddly should try and make money doing open source. Noddly should gain the respect of an open source maintainer. These maintainers receive lots of requests for job openings and contract positions. Most of it is just recruiter spam, but some of it is real and the maintainer would be happy to forward them on to someone they respect, along with a recommendation. It's that recommendation that's…

I had very few job offers originate from FOSS (maybe 2 in 4 years?). I suspect there's a narrow field where people recruit using FOSS/GitHub and I'm not involved in it. JavaScript based projects seem to be doing much better from an outsider perspective. I got more out of having a decent looking LinkedIn account.

I read it more like "get involved in FOSS projects to gain experience and trust, and base your CV (+ references) on that when applying for the jobs you want".