For sale: 8 hours/week of my time | Hacker News Reader

For sale: 8 hours/week of my time

28 pointsgbruins44 comments

I have a full time job as a software engineer that I enjoy. I work 4 10-hour days and have Fridays off. High inflation and increased expenses are driving me back into the job market looking for ways to supplement my income, but I don't want to fight for gigs on freelance platforms like Upwork.

Ideally I want a reliable project where I can invest 8-12 hours per week. One idea I had was to offer my services to companies looking to fill full time roles as a 'bridge' employee until they find their full time candidate (I could even participate in the interview process).

I guess I'm looking for a 'long term gig'. Am I nuts? Or is there a job board out there for companies/startups that need just a bit of extra help?

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You're not nuts but you're viewing this the wrong way. You will be significantly happier if instead of working more to keep up on the hedonistic treadmill you do one of 2 things.

1) Get a raise. There should be 0 reason for a software engineer to need a second job.

2) Spend less. You will never make enough money if your expenses keep increasing

#1 is too idealistic. Things happen in life. Markets crash. College savings, previously adequate, is cut in half. Maybe other things.

#2 I'm trying but the current administration just wont have it. Like for example, the price of caviar DOUBLED at Whole Foods. Ridiculous! Also, the gas pump just stops at $150 when I try to fill up my Mercedes SUV.

#3 earn more is the only way to avoid it. Smart idea, I'm looking for the same myself. Reducing spending never works and multiple sources provide safety.

I was thinking maybe a podcast explaining the tools I use.

Hobbies that pay for themselves are fun. Get a laser engraver and learn to design cool tchotchkes to sell online. It won't pay nearly what a side-gig will, but it also won't feel like "work" as much.

My partner sells organization plans/charts on Etsy and makes more than beer money off of it. She just does it for fun and throws whatever she makes online. Sometimes it doesn't sell, other times it sells like 3-4 units, and rarely she'll have a hit that sells hundreds.

It's actually pretty cool that every few days, Etsy throws a two figure check in our bank account.

I sell on Etsy and while the design/idea phase is fun the rest is just menial labor and customer service. I'd call it an interesting life experience more than fun.

What do you mean by "organization plans/charts"? I'm imagining someone drawing org charts for imaginary companies and selling them to... I don't know who the customers for that sort of thing would be.

lol you're off the mark

Think weekly planners and calendars or whiteboard kanban boards.

She is a nurse, so she mostly makes printouts that are useful for nurses to help them organize their work in some capacity or another.

It may be time to start interviewing for other positions to see if you're not maximizing your salary potential for your position.

This sounds like contracting. It's a world I'm looking to get into as well.

A friend recently suggested I try this service which has contracts as low as 10 hours a week. http://gigster.com

Thank you!

It's invite only, though.

Not really. You just apply to one of their "jobs".

You could sign up on fiverr. Despite the name, you can charge whatever you want.

post in this and next months, "Freelancer" HN post, you might get some bites there

We hire people like this in dyvenia to help train and mentor our devops employees. If you have experience and knowledge that can be a good path for a part time.

I’m not sure about 8 hours but I’ve had some success with ~15hrs distributed throughout a week so the employer knows they can get in touch with me most days. Unfortunately I think this that finding these sorts of gigs requires a lot of up-front networking or grinding away on freelance sites until you hook something medium-term, like a half-year contract or whatever.

Yes I think you are right on. Thank you

I believe that's called contract work.

Your belief is correct! The contract work I see seems to fall into 2 buckets: short term gig, or temporary 40/hr per week. I'm looking for a some kind of middle ground: long term 8/hr week.

Good luck finding that, but I don't see many employers being good with a schedule like that for a contractor or employee. At best, you might be able to get a paid internship with those hours, but (a) it won't be much of a paycheck, and (b) they'll probably expect you to become a full-time employee at some point, and won't likely hire you even for an internship without that possibility.

I think you'd need to be a specialist and advisor in something that a company needs and currently isn't good at.

I mean, if you're a company and you want some development done, you probably don't want it taking 5 times as long as it need be. You'd rather hire someone 5 days a week (even for a short period of time) rather than someone 1 day a week.

But for advising the teams companies already have about something they don't know about but you do, it could still make sense for the company. E.g. for a while I helped quite a few companies do MySQL 4 to MySQL 5 transitions (a while ago now obviously!) It was something I became quite good at but companies didn't want to build up the internal knowledge because they only needed to do it once. I would come in and discuss their situation, advise them, come back a bit later to see how they were getting on and review what they'd done, etc.

Focus on things you're good at that other companies might not have knowledge of. Particular programming languages, particular tasks such as optimization or software design, particular databases, particular clouds perhaps. Or migrations and transitions where it doesn't make sense for the company to build up knowledge as they only do it once.

Yep, this. Consulting is probably the only option. Though that said, in my experience, consultants are short-term positions at any given company, not long-term. You come in, consult, advise, and then ensure the changes take hold -- then your contract is up. Although my experience is rather limited in this regard, so maybe there's a long-term opportunity hidden in that industry somewhere.

How much are you looking to charge? And what skills do you have?

I'm a front end developer... Vue, JavaScript, CSS, Node.js, design tools (Illustrator, Photoshop).

How much are you looking to charge?

> I have a full time job as a software engineer

> looking for ways to supplement my income

what? Dont Software Engineers generally have huge salaries? Maybe the issue is not on the income side, but the spending side

OK thanks for the advice. Dad is that you?

When a full time software engineers are looking for ways to supplement their income we should all be worried.

Whether it is inflation, consumerism, or just greed, something is wrong.

Not necessarily. I have one child in college and one entering college next year. Things get expensive real fast in this life stage.

Your kids don’t have to go to college.

Upwork would be a good place to look.

what is your expertise specifically

Do you know C programming?

I am an experienced multi platform C++/C developer. Do you offer such projects?

You are also looking for an 8hr/week gig? Hmmmmm... something is wrong. You should spend less. There is ZERO reason for a C++ developer to need a second job.

I'm thinking of sponsoring someone to do a deep dive into the Luajit codebase and try explain to me how it works.

off topic: how did you negotiate 4x10 work schedule?

Probably a confluence of many things, but the list is: * Ive been at the company for over 15 years * The local job market (Bay Area) is (was?) quite hot, and the company is not a sexy silicon valley destination that attracts talent. * The company could not match the FAANG companies, and some folks had already jumped ship * The raise from my annual view was less than desired. When it was clear that more salary was not an option, a got creative and asked for an equally valuable asset... my own time. * Top it off, my boss is fantastic

Unicorn role. Absolutely don’t leave, generate more income elsewhere.

I have a hunch you're right. BTW, I didn't come here to do this, but the company is great, quite large, and has lots of open roles world wide. Also open to fully remote software engineers. I won't share the company unless someone asks though.

just ask. i am doing 3x6.5

what kind of company are you at?

BigTech, non-tech BigCo, mid-sized non-tech?

I cannot see how a manager/director at a BigCo would be able approve something like this since everything is standardized (like base pay at each level)

Look at Codementor.

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