Ask HN: Is developing apps the easiest way to the gravy train? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is developing apps the easiest way to the gravy train?

5 pointsrfnslyr5 comments

I currently work at a bank and I'm realizing I hate my job and the corporate world. After I finish (and sometimes during work) I study mobile development but I don't have a mac so I can't really make anything, so I'm just making wireframes and design mockups for now, use cases, technical doc, etc.

How profitable is it really? I have a lot of design skill and I consider myself a fairly decent programmer capable of making some cool apps, so I'm taking a shot.

I'm actually quitting my job late August to go full time into app development.

Can anyone share their experiences when they first started in the mobile world? I feel like there are so many mediocre developers that if you're even remotely decent you're going to ride the gravy train.

My second question is: Assuming I don't become a millionaire off app development, is there a good market for hiring good app developers? I'm taking a year off and my goal is to develop 3 apps of ideas I have.

This post boggles me. I'll save you a lot of hard lessons by telling you what to do.

1. Don't quit your day job. If it's easy enough to finish and study during the day, then don't quit it until after you make enough to do so.

2. Buy a Mac. What good is that corporate banking job if you can't afford a $1000 Macbook Air? You gotta spend money to make money.

3. Start writing apps TODAY. You'd be surprised how much you can accomplish during nights and weekends if you turn off the TV, video games, and sacrifice a little bit of your personal time.

Do all this for at least 6 months and if you haven't found a way to hop on the gravy train, look into something else. At least you'll still have that day job which clearly affords you plenty of time to pursue other ventures if this one doesn't work out.

Good luck!

It's an internship ending in August. I come home and study so yeah, I'm coding every day. I don't consider this work. It's fun for me so it's easy to keep at it for hours, it's like I'm playing an endless video game.

Thanks, using the time off to work on apps :)

Gravy train...cute :) Making money off the app store is hard.

Like others have said, don't quit unless you're capable of sustaining yourself for a period of time. As for the job market, I assume its good, just look up craigslist or linkedin for an idea.

I can't speak for the gravy train, but I did find a problem with this:

>I don't have a mac so I can't really make anything

Why can't you make apps for Android? Or Windows Phone?

My goal is iOS apps, though for the next few months until I get a mac I'll be focusing on mobile web apps and responsive design.

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