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Comment by jacek | Hacker News Reader

I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult in my thirties and I have been taking medication for the last two years. I am also in EU.

I would recommend two things (YMMV). First, use ADHD to your advantage. People with ADHD have tendency to be inquisitive, but easily bored. Because of this I have become a jack of all trades. Although I have my specialty (ML), employers really appreciate that I also able to do Linux administration, create a web app and write a paper.

The second thing would be going freelance. I've done that last year, and it has been a blessing so far. I learned many new skills in new industries. Meeting new people and learning from them has been a valuable experience. The projects can be short enough not to get bored there. As a solid full-stack engineer you can earn better money, and have longer breaks in between.

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> First, use ADHD to your advantage.

Agree with this 100%. While I've never been formally diagnosed (and have no intention to be), I definitely have some tendencies that align with people who have been formally diagnosed with ADHD. The way I see it, this is a part of me anyways, so I might as well lean into it and milk it for all it's worth, which has led to me being in a similar "jack-of-all-trades" position. If anything, I view it as a tremendous advantage being able to dive into new projects/topics, learn what's interesting about them, then move onto the next shiny thing that catches my eye. With each new thing I get into, I'm able to pull from a vast trove of knowledge spanning many different subjects, which lets me think about old problems in new ways.

Even so, I can see something like ADHD being an issue for people who aren't necessarily driven to succeed beyond a baseline, and are just interested in having a more structured life.

> then move onto the next shiny thing that catches my eye.

This works as long as that next shiny thing is something that brings value/money or is at least compatible with your career goals. That's often the case in our field of work, but it's not a given.

I'm also a "jack of all trades" and it usually works out great for me, but I'm pretty sure that I was one non-lenient enough manager away from getting fired several times in my life. This wouldn't work so well if I wasn't working in a field that observes workers economy.

> This works as long as that next shiny thing is something that brings value/money

Yep, I know that all too well. Took about 4-5 years after high school (and dropping out of several colleges) before I found some sort of traction in my life, otherwise I was just swinging and missing, so to speak, over and over learning new things that often didn't materialize in any substantial progress. Then the shiny new thing was starting a business, which failed, I became homeless for a few months, worked food delivery to get back on my feet, then the shiny new thing for ~1-2 months was marketing, which as it turns out I really needed, now I'm working for a good company.

Another component to all this is probably that I'm just used to the ups and downs at this point and have learned to compensate for them reasonably well enough.

Interesting, do you do one gig at a time or multiple gigs in parallel?

At the moment I work full time as a Software Developer. At this point last year I was doing food delivery using DoorDash and Uber Eats for 12-14 hours per day, which has a sort of "GO GO GO" kind of feel to it. I'm fine with either, but it has to consistently be one of the other, which I feel is a pretty common trait with regards to people's ability to switch contexts.

Regarding freelancing, how do you deal with the multitasking related to getting the next project while working on the current project? Did you outsource this? The organizational work, the back and forth, the scheduling of interviews, etc. It seems like something that's very difficult to do with AD(H)D.

I'm not a freelancer but do have the ADHD ("inattentive type") diagnosis.

Personally I thrive in multitasking situations. My mind is always wondering, so situations that have many productive "wander targets" help me from going off and doing irrelevant stuff.

I also have ADHD the problem is that you start too many things. And the old ones are not attractive as the new ones. Sure i will debug your issue that nobody else can do because i enjoy that, but you want me to change the field in that crud i will find a way to screw it because it's boring. I hate the ADHD thing, and hate that some think it's some sort of superpower. The thing i hate the most as a parent is the forgetting and not being able to enjoy the time with the kids because i get easily bored and there is allways some other ting on my mind.

So far I have had breaks after every project, so I did not have to look for a new one while I work. But recruiters keep calling. These conversations can be wrapped up in 5 minutes.

You hire people as quickly as you can to help. Otherwise you focus on the task b/c you need to get paid to eat.

Out of interest, how did you get into your freelancing? how did you start off? Do you work with a company or agency or something?

I signed up with a few agencies (some required interviews and a small project or a test), used local sites connecting workers with employers and improved my LinkedIn profile. So far agencies work best for long term, well paid projects, sites for smaller, short term. From LinkedIn I am getting lots of spam from recruiters and calls that usually lead nowhere.

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