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Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#91

Post by nkingsy »

All work I’ve done that earned me raises was not fed to me by managers.

I spend a few months knocking out work that’s fed to me and I use that time to understand the business and the code base and where they’re not playing nicely at a high level.

Once I understand the code and the business, I generate and argue for my own work. If I’m successful with this, the evidence of my contribution is plentiful and I get rewarded.

Pretty soon my code is legacy and my days are filled up mentoring, debugging and reviewing other peoples contributions, which effectively lets me focus on only the tricky bits and identify dev ex rough patches.

My own limited coding time is filled smoothing out the dev ex of my system. This is basically the top of the heap as far as I’m concerned. If you get bored, rinse and repeat with a larger problem space or bigger org.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#92

Post by jamauro »

rexstjohn wrote: post #80

Similar experience The good news is there is nearly unlimited demand for programming work. However, you have to filter it very carefully, learn how to market yourself and become very selective and specific about what you want to do. Pick a very specific niche which is specifically designed to be highly profitable, low custom work and doesn’t involve whole cloth creative agency work (trust me; you don’t want it). Stro…

Interesting. Which route did you decide to take?

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#93

Post by beaconstudios »

f0e4c2f7 wrote: post #89
beaconstudios wrote: post #87

Three options spring to mind: - Start your own company, either products or services - Join a startup that is generous with equity, as an early employee - Join a worker co-op (not that many of these generally, but IME they're overrepresented in software) You basically want skin in the game, from the sounds of it, and employment generally doesn't offer this (intentionally).

I've never heard of a worker coop. That's an interesting idea. Are there any software ones that are especially well known?

I don't believe so, because pretty much all of the household-name software companies are VC-backed and worker coops are not equity-based so they don't get VC backing; as such, they tend to be SMEs. I've known a couple of people who founded worker coops though.

There's a list of coops here that I just found: https://github.com/hng/tech-coops

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#94

Post by InitialLastName »

dnautics wrote: post #57
malthuswaswrong wrote: post #42

If you work 40 hours a day and you feel everyone around you is moving in slow motion and you need to fill your day with extra stuff just to give everyone else a chance to catch up then you probably aren't supposed to be working a salaried job. You are supposed to start your own company.

> You are supposed to start your own company This is not always good advice. Maybe you suck at marketing. Maybe you suck at coming up with things people like. Maybe you suck at raising money. Maybe you don't have any network at all. You probably want either a few of these qualities to bootstrap off of, or, start off as a millionaire, before starting a company.

Maybe you have bills to pay, no generational wealth to act as a safety net, and live in a place whose social safety net has been designed to heavily favor employees of large businesses.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#95

Post by qorrect »

dusted wrote: post #58
malthuswaswrong wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A penny saved is a penny earned. Many programmers are employed to automate tasks and reduce labor requirements. That adds value to the organization. You are splitting hairs by saying "the program" vs "the programming". You are a wizard that casts spells to make people's jobs easier. What exactly that means depends on the management. Once a job becomes easier they can either pay fewer employees to do the job or they c…

You can cast all the spells you want, it's great knowing spells.. but they're ultimately only as valuable as the problems they solve. Any old wizard can cast spells.. But knowing what to cast the spells at.. finding the thing that NOBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD thought as a target for spellcasting, that's where the money's at, that person can then get "fu" rich by casting spells OR by just paying some run of the mill wizar…

Ideas are a dime a dozen - it's the execution, the idea, and luck that gets you rich.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#97

Post by scsilver »

malthuswaswrong wrote: post #44
dusted wrote: post #23

I guess you already know, and you're asking exactly because you know.. But programming does not create value, it creates programs, which may create value.. Programming is a skill sure, but it does not create value, it creates programs. Programs may create value, so, the valuable skill is not really being able to create a program, but being able to find some problem, whose solution creates value. Programming may be re…

A penny saved is a penny earned. Many programmers are employed to automate tasks and reduce labor requirements. That adds value to the organization. You are splitting hairs by saying "the program" vs "the programming". You are a wizard that casts spells to make people's jobs easier. What exactly that means depends on the management. Once a job becomes easier they can either pay fewer employees to do the job or they c…

Yeah but most engineers shoot to short or take to long on automating that thing. Most useful automation takes large standards bodies and decades of coordination. When we are placed in profitable companies it's easier to produced more value than you consume, but I'm not sure making another pet project that I give up halfway through necessarily is. However, I am seeing some evidence if you do build out beginnings in certain fields the knowledge and understanding of that fog of war on the experimental mediums. Think vr programming, the tooling is not great, maybe just diving in there long enough to be brought into a vc back company building out that tooling.

OP, Have you tried getting to some conferences and talking to people, seeing if you can somehow further their goals. Sometimes passion is found in enabling and enriching others with more pointed goals.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#98

Post by [deleted] »

thorin wrote: post #7

No one wants to pay you a load of money to do something you like :-) They might pay you to do something they don't like or something that can make you a load of money. You need to get into something lucrative e.g. funded startups, Banking or any business field where they are lacking technical skills that can be applied to their particular issues. In the past I've been involved in banking, startups, domestic utilities…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#100

Post by Lascaille »

granitepail wrote: post #72
boppo1 wrote: post #68

Maybe working at a prop trading firm?

Definitely. If you have the skills, working in a strong fund is the best way to get pay that scales with your contribution.

If being a good programmer equalled being able to write an algorithm that prints money, everyone would be doing it.
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