Hacker News Reader

Comment by k__ | Hacker News Reader

I often think, it would be cool to have a 50% job as developer. I would make enough money to live and had plenty of time to do what I want.

But somehow those 50% jobs are only available in industries where 50% don't pay for a living...

I tried it with freelancing once, but I felt the overhead eradicated the benefits :\

View on HN

This is essentially what I've been doing for about a year and a half.

I've found that the best way to do it is to focus 100% on client projects for a month or two, and then take a month or two for yourself. IMHO "single-tasking" results in much better quality work.

While you're working on your own thing, you should be meeting with potential clients and setting up your next paying gig, since the sales cycle on a couple month project large enough is about a few weeks to a month anyways.

This sounds completely awesome! How do you get people to hire you for just a month or two though? I assume it's not as simple as the typical job search

I talk to a lot of people and try to find those who need a specific project done. I try not to take on "open ended" jobs.

(Author here.) It's a thing I am trying to do right now: 50% for data science freelancing (which I enjoy a lot nonetheless), and 50% for my own musings and self-development, without any restrictions (whether technical, scientific or educational).

It's clearly better financially than academic jobs _and_ I am not restricted by grant topics & timelines or a place.

I am just curious what can go wrong? (I.e. I don't know personally anyone living this way.)

The biggest dangers are going to be non-paying clients, and leads drying up. If you can't find any leads, you'll end up spending all your "self time" eaten up with business development.

I will see. As of now I have more leads than I can manage, but I am aware of the risk (also for this reason I rather do it part time than full switches of paid work vs side projects).

Thank you for clarifying something I've been struggling with for years. I have a couple hundred project ideas and inventions written down but always have this sense that I can't work on them because they are seemingly not the best use of my time. Instead, I spend nearly the entirety of my time either immersed in the logistics of wrapping up a contract, or working to find another.

If someone could solve the business development end of freelancing, that would be more valuable to me than matchmaking. The work was never the problem for me, but the angst surrounding it.

Tools like https://freelanceinbox.com/ and 10xmanagement.com are trying to solve the leadgen problem for developers. Haven't used them, but might be worth a look.

I've followed a similar path for the last three years, and it has worked out very well for me so far. I don't even want to think about how low the odds were of getting initial funding for my side project through the usual grant system; but now, thousands of academics depend on what I've built.

An alternative to freelancing is a not-too-demanding day job that you enjoy, and which is sufficient to pay the bills. It was good enough for Albert Einstein...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com