Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?
How many of you are self employed? What do you do? I won't count startups that are funded, but more the individual who started something for themselves. Curious to know what sustains people.
438 comments
Currently self-employed as a.....rare coin dealer! Odd path for a tech nerd hacker like me, but certainly the most fun thing I've ever done with no plans to change this gig ever.
My backstory: Collected coins as a kiddo, took a 35-year detour into startup land: Started a VC-backed Web 1.0 company from 1999-2002, ran a non-tech company for ~10 years, then 2014-2022 did very traditional early stage tech product management / utility infielder roles. All fun times with at least one legit acquisition/IPO so far, but it turns out I don't love long zoom meetings and politics and formal process all that much.
In 2021 I started getting back into my old coin-collecting hobby and dabbled in buying and selling at a local coin show, and boy oh boy did that escalate quickly (it was one of the most fun and dopamine-filled weekends I can remember in a long time).
Cut to 2023 and I'm running my own rare coin business full-time -- buying, selling, and trading. It's such a fascinating business and very quiet multi-billion dollar industry with enormous opportunity. You need to have a passion for coin collecting and have a knack and aesthetic eye for quality (it's not all spreadsheet Moneyball), but man is it fun.
Feel free to AMA about being a tech nerd full-time coin dealer :)
My backstory: Collected coins as a kiddo, took a 35-year detour into startup land: Started a VC-backed Web 1.0 company from 1999-2002, ran a non-tech company for ~10 years, then 2014-2022 did very traditional early stage tech product management / utility infielder roles. All fun times with at least one legit acquisition/IPO so far, but it turns out I don't love long zoom meetings and politics and formal process all that much.
In 2021 I started getting back into my old coin-collecting hobby and dabbled in buying and selling at a local coin show, and boy oh boy did that escalate quickly (it was one of the most fun and dopamine-filled weekends I can remember in a long time).
Cut to 2023 and I'm running my own rare coin business full-time -- buying, selling, and trading. It's such a fascinating business and very quiet multi-billion dollar industry with enormous opportunity. You need to have a passion for coin collecting and have a knack and aesthetic eye for quality (it's not all spreadsheet Moneyball), but man is it fun.
Feel free to AMA about being a tech nerd full-time coin dealer :)
I've been self-employed for the last ~18 months. In the past I started two VC-backed startups, then was a PM at some later-stage companies before returning to entrepreneurship.
This time around, I'm building a solo "digital product studio" [1] instead of a startup. So, I'm staying one person, haven't raised money, and have multiple revenue-generating products. Product revenue doesn't cover my costs yet, so I do occasional consulting to bridge the gap.
I like the flexibility of this lifestyle. I'm based in NYC, but writing this from Tokyo where I've been doing a creative residence for the past two weeks.
And, a fun technicality - I truly self-employed in the sense that I have a salary and a payroll system. This is because my company is registered as an S-Corp in the USA, which requires the owner to be on a salary.
[1] https://www.contraption.co/essays/digital-product-studios/
This time around, I'm building a solo "digital product studio" [1] instead of a startup. So, I'm staying one person, haven't raised money, and have multiple revenue-generating products. Product revenue doesn't cover my costs yet, so I do occasional consulting to bridge the gap.
I like the flexibility of this lifestyle. I'm based in NYC, but writing this from Tokyo where I've been doing a creative residence for the past two weeks.
And, a fun technicality - I truly self-employed in the sense that I have a salary and a payroll system. This is because my company is registered as an S-Corp in the USA, which requires the owner to be on a salary.
[1] https://www.contraption.co/essays/digital-product-studios/
Self-employed on and off as a graphic and web design consultant since 2005 or so, with some time in offices, making websites with static generators, PHP/WordPress, and Python/Django, and print work with pencil, ink, paper, and graphics apps.
Tips:
1. Live simply and reduce expenses. Avoid debt if you can. Rice and beans recipe: https://hypertexthero.com/eat-play-read/
2. Try to be nice to other nice people and stay in touch with past co-workers, especially the nicest ones. They make the best bosses or clients later. Don’t burn bridges unless there is no other option.
3. Always be working on a project for yourself that you enjoy and can learn new skills from. If the project could be useful for others, clean it up a bit and share it.
4. Use a paper weekly planner and write down things to do and cross them out when they’re done. Write ideas and things to look up here. Have a drawer or cardboard box in which you throw pieces of paper with ideas written on them. Open the drawer and pick a random piece of paper when feeling stuck.
5. Look in the mirror now and again and ask yourself if you are happy with the upcoming day. If there are too many days in a row when you’re not, time to change, move, etc.
More: https://hypertexthero.com/reignite-passion/
Tips:
1. Live simply and reduce expenses. Avoid debt if you can. Rice and beans recipe: https://hypertexthero.com/eat-play-read/
2. Try to be nice to other nice people and stay in touch with past co-workers, especially the nicest ones. They make the best bosses or clients later. Don’t burn bridges unless there is no other option.
3. Always be working on a project for yourself that you enjoy and can learn new skills from. If the project could be useful for others, clean it up a bit and share it.
4. Use a paper weekly planner and write down things to do and cross them out when they’re done. Write ideas and things to look up here. Have a drawer or cardboard box in which you throw pieces of paper with ideas written on them. Open the drawer and pick a random piece of paper when feeling stuck.
5. Look in the mirror now and again and ask yourself if you are happy with the upcoming day. If there are too many days in a row when you’re not, time to change, move, etc.
More: https://hypertexthero.com/reignite-passion/
I am a self-employed furniture maker. I'm that guy who somewhat infamously no longer builds software[0]. About a year ago I moved my operations from a makerspace to my own shop. That's come with its ups and downs.
On the one hand, I know which idiot last used a tool: me.
On the other, I would no longer see other humans besides my wife most weeks. To keep sane I also work one day a week at a bike shop fixing bikes. It's something I'd done on a volunteer basis many years back.
The unexpected nice thing about this is that it gives me projects that are an hour or two in size in addition to the many-week sized projects that I do as part of my business. It's sort of like getting to fix a small bug in the midst of adding a big feature; it lets me pop out of the big project for a bit and see something else through from start to finish and see some tangible progress before diving back into a long-running project that moves forward in fits and starts.
Beyond getting to tackle some bite-sized projects, I'd say the thing that sustains me is getting to work with clients. It's tons of fun when people come to me with a vision that we can iterate on and bring into reality. And then the flip side is also rewarding: getting to scratch an itch and turn a design I've been turning over in my mind into reality.
Edited to add: If you've got an idea for a furniture or woodworking project, my contact info and website are in my profile.
https://github.com/docker/cli/issues/267#issuecomment-695149...
On the one hand, I know which idiot last used a tool: me.
On the other, I would no longer see other humans besides my wife most weeks. To keep sane I also work one day a week at a bike shop fixing bikes. It's something I'd done on a volunteer basis many years back.
The unexpected nice thing about this is that it gives me projects that are an hour or two in size in addition to the many-week sized projects that I do as part of my business. It's sort of like getting to fix a small bug in the midst of adding a big feature; it lets me pop out of the big project for a bit and see something else through from start to finish and see some tangible progress before diving back into a long-running project that moves forward in fits and starts.
Beyond getting to tackle some bite-sized projects, I'd say the thing that sustains me is getting to work with clients. It's tons of fun when people come to me with a vision that we can iterate on and bring into reality. And then the flip side is also rewarding: getting to scratch an itch and turn a design I've been turning over in my mind into reality.
Edited to add: If you've got an idea for a furniture or woodworking project, my contact info and website are in my profile.
https://github.com/docker/cli/issues/267#issuecomment-695149...
I've been working on https://webhook.site since 2016 when I posted it here on HN. In fall 2023, I quit my job to work on it full time, and it's one of the best decisions I've ever made. I have around 1400 subscribers, which is enough to pay myself a good salary. I've not done any funding or marketing so far.
I'm self employed for around 10 years now. Before that I was employed as frontend developer for around 7 years.
I started self employment as software consultant, which worked pretty well despite not having any connections from my previous employment. I only needed one or two projects a year to sustain my lifestyle. Getting two companies a year to accept your application isn't hard. If you write at least 5 applications a month, you need a success rate of less than 5%.
I changed to technical writing later, because text is less of a struggle than code, and educational articles that explain how to use software (e.g., services, tools, SDKs, frameworks, etc.) are paid pretty well, especially compared to the non-technical writing tasks. Regular software consulting projects take months and can haunt you for years. An article takes a few days and after that you can do other things you find interesting.
Via technical writing, I got into other kinds of text related jobs the software industry offers, like social media management (e.g., Twitter/X, newsletters, blogs) for companies with developer audiences.
Usually I work less than 20h a week and I can do it from everywhere, which allows me to travel often and having enough time off to enjoy it.
I started self employment as software consultant, which worked pretty well despite not having any connections from my previous employment. I only needed one or two projects a year to sustain my lifestyle. Getting two companies a year to accept your application isn't hard. If you write at least 5 applications a month, you need a success rate of less than 5%.
I changed to technical writing later, because text is less of a struggle than code, and educational articles that explain how to use software (e.g., services, tools, SDKs, frameworks, etc.) are paid pretty well, especially compared to the non-technical writing tasks. Regular software consulting projects take months and can haunt you for years. An article takes a few days and after that you can do other things you find interesting.
Via technical writing, I got into other kinds of text related jobs the software industry offers, like social media management (e.g., Twitter/X, newsletters, blogs) for companies with developer audiences.
Usually I work less than 20h a week and I can do it from everywhere, which allows me to travel often and having enough time off to enjoy it.
I am working on https://audiodiary.ai as a solo founder, I recently have been getting enough income to just about cover my living expenses and haven’t received any funding and didn’t do any marketing, with 9k users so far since launch last May. It’s fulfilling and great to see people use and love a product I’ve built. I’m obviously highly motivated to grow so it keeps me busy.
Self-employed, running https://buttondown.email as a solo founder. (My day generally looks like — 30% engineering, 40% onboarding + support, 10% marketing, 20% operations.) It was a profitable nights-and-weekends project from 2017—2022; took it full-time in 2022.
I think the thing that I would say about self-employment is that people understate the day-to-day flexibility and overstate the month-to-month flexibility. It is _addicting_ to be able to structure a given day exactly how you want it, and to take days off without having to worry about PTO; conversely, I've done a hither-to poor job of increasing my bus factor and it's tough to e.g. plan entire week-long vacations without knowing I'll need to carve out extra time afterwards to catch up on inbound issues.
Being self-employed is hard work for sure. I also _totally_ understand the cliche of "becoming a founder makes you un-hireable"; it's really hard to imagine going back to a traditional job after this, and I find it more fulfilling than anything else I've done in my career.
I think the thing that I would say about self-employment is that people understate the day-to-day flexibility and overstate the month-to-month flexibility. It is _addicting_ to be able to structure a given day exactly how you want it, and to take days off without having to worry about PTO; conversely, I've done a hither-to poor job of increasing my bus factor and it's tough to e.g. plan entire week-long vacations without knowing I'll need to carve out extra time afterwards to catch up on inbound issues.
Being self-employed is hard work for sure. I also _totally_ understand the cliche of "becoming a founder makes you un-hireable"; it's really hard to imagine going back to a traditional job after this, and I find it more fulfilling than anything else I've done in my career.
In Poland, where I'm from, it's pretty much the norm to be self-employed in Poland in the IT sector.
I believe that around 50% of workers are technically contracted one-man companies, and this percentage is inversely correlated with the seniority level - the greater the earnings (and the sense of job security that goes along with expertise and experience), the greater the incentive.
Going B2B makes a substantial difference in terms of fiscal burdens. Other than that, your day-to-day work looks pretty much the same though. You're just sending monthly invoices to the same employer, typically a single one, sometimes for years on end.
I believe that around 50% of workers are technically contracted one-man companies, and this percentage is inversely correlated with the seniority level - the greater the earnings (and the sense of job security that goes along with expertise and experience), the greater the incentive.
Going B2B makes a substantial difference in terms of fiscal burdens. Other than that, your day-to-day work looks pretty much the same though. You're just sending monthly invoices to the same employer, typically a single one, sometimes for years on end.
Me! I started my solo, startup law practice almost by accident via a Hacker News comment years ago. It's now my primary source of income.
It's hard, but less hard than what startup founders do. It's nice having control of my schedule, but the flip side is that there's never a day off. Personally, I think being self-employed is great for people who naturally work really hard and want to capture the full output of their labor.
I don't think I could ever go back to full time employment for someone else. It's addicting having your own business that actually cash flows!
It's hard, but less hard than what startup founders do. It's nice having control of my schedule, but the flip side is that there's never a day off. Personally, I think being self-employed is great for people who naturally work really hard and want to capture the full output of their labor.
I don't think I could ever go back to full time employment for someone else. It's addicting having your own business that actually cash flows!
I'm self-unemployed :D Helped a startup to exit a couple of years ago and had a small amount of equity. Been working on building a game since then. I don't think I'm going to make it to the finish line before I need to get another job, but maybe after that job I'll have the game finished and can build a more sustainable path from there.
Definitely envious of those with actually sustainable business models, though, heh.
(p.s. https://github.com/MeoMix/symbiants, come say hi in the Discord if you want to talk shop about Rust/Bevy/WASM/gamification of mental health)
Definitely envious of those with actually sustainable business models, though, heh.
(p.s. https://github.com/MeoMix/symbiants, come say hi in the Discord if you want to talk shop about Rust/Bevy/WASM/gamification of mental health)
I just build projects that interest me (websites, apps, games). So far released 62 things, of which 10 made >$10k. It's interesting because you get to do a variety of things, and I don't really mind the unpredictability. Might even like it in a slot machine variable reward sort of way.
Just now I spent 3 months making a game that turned out to be worth $0, but that's part of the process. As long as the project itself is interesting and you learn something from it, it doesn't feel like totally wasted time.
Just now I spent 3 months making a game that turned out to be worth $0, but that's part of the process. As long as the project itself is interesting and you learn something from it, it doesn't feel like totally wasted time.
Self-employed. Project started in 2000. Income fully funded by revenue since 2009. Product is a cross-platform native digital audio workstation (ardour.org). Revenue also funds a significant part of the income of a second developer (total of $220-240k/year in recent years).
Was self employed and worked as contractor programmer for the longest time until a couple of years ago. Thought I would work less. Boy was I wrong. Chasing clients, doing taxes, invoicing people and praying they'll pay on time. Got sick of the not very dependable cash flow which was feast and famine cycles. Went to get a corporate job and even though the work is not as exciting and the codebase is legacy, at least I don't sweat the next paycheck.
Would living on investment income be considered as self employed. I quit my management job of Tech department of my company.
Saved enough money to generate 80 percent of my last drawn salary from my investments.
Now focusing on creating my own fintech web app, with generative ai integration.
I like the feeling of working independently and years of corporate job had taken taken toll on mental health.
Currently building skills in fullstack web development and generative ai. Would take freelance job for some extra cash
Saved enough money to generate 80 percent of my last drawn salary from my investments.
Now focusing on creating my own fintech web app, with generative ai integration.
I like the feeling of working independently and years of corporate job had taken taken toll on mental health.
Currently building skills in fullstack web development and generative ai. Would take freelance job for some extra cash
I have been self-employed since 2008, when I quit my job in software engineering to go all-in on my software business (that dated from 2003). That failed spectacularly, because I only focused on technology and not on the value I was creating, and with few customers, I had to do on-site contracting for more than a year before going on full-time parental leave.
I then rebooted my software project, launched a landing site and started talking to prospects (hundreds of them), before I set out to pivot my existing product to something that might gain traction. (I wound up throwing away 95 percent of the code.) I spent 2014 through 2019 with the product in beta, barely making a living off of a few enterprise support contracts and doing freelance photography (and depleting my savings), but spending at least 80 percent of my time on building the product and getting it to a finished state.
(Some people seem to be able to build a product in a weekend that gets eager customers. I'm not one of those people, choosing to build something that was, in retrospect, much too big of a project for one person. I probably also spent too much time polishing the product before commercializing it, likely due to a fear of failure.)
In 2019, the product was finally commercialized as a SaaS service. I remember thinking that I either wanted it to be a spectacular success, or a spectacular failure (so that I could focus on other things, after close to 20 years).
It was neither, but has been growing steadily ever since. I would have made much more money working for someone else, but the freedom is unparalleled. I get to set my own hours and focus on things I consider important. I enjoy doing everything from support calls and UX work to building a compiler and a type system (that I have mentioned before on HN).
I also have no one I need to answer to, other than our customers. That has been important over the past couple of years, when a series of health emergencies in my family has diverted my attention elsewhere. I have been very fortunate to be able to do so, focusing on what's important, without having to ask permission to cut down on work temporarily.
Overall, I wouldn't trade this for anything. This year, my product will gain a sister product in a more lucrative field (I'm hoping), and I have plans to commercialize my compiler, both as a service and as a traditionally-licensed library. So I'm excited to stay solo and keep working on building the business.
I then rebooted my software project, launched a landing site and started talking to prospects (hundreds of them), before I set out to pivot my existing product to something that might gain traction. (I wound up throwing away 95 percent of the code.) I spent 2014 through 2019 with the product in beta, barely making a living off of a few enterprise support contracts and doing freelance photography (and depleting my savings), but spending at least 80 percent of my time on building the product and getting it to a finished state.
(Some people seem to be able to build a product in a weekend that gets eager customers. I'm not one of those people, choosing to build something that was, in retrospect, much too big of a project for one person. I probably also spent too much time polishing the product before commercializing it, likely due to a fear of failure.)
In 2019, the product was finally commercialized as a SaaS service. I remember thinking that I either wanted it to be a spectacular success, or a spectacular failure (so that I could focus on other things, after close to 20 years).
It was neither, but has been growing steadily ever since. I would have made much more money working for someone else, but the freedom is unparalleled. I get to set my own hours and focus on things I consider important. I enjoy doing everything from support calls and UX work to building a compiler and a type system (that I have mentioned before on HN).
I also have no one I need to answer to, other than our customers. That has been important over the past couple of years, when a series of health emergencies in my family has diverted my attention elsewhere. I have been very fortunate to be able to do so, focusing on what's important, without having to ask permission to cut down on work temporarily.
Overall, I wouldn't trade this for anything. This year, my product will gain a sister product in a more lucrative field (I'm hoping), and I have plans to commercialize my compiler, both as a service and as a traditionally-licensed library. So I'm excited to stay solo and keep working on building the business.
I am. I founded PG Support (https://pgsupport.dk).
We are a small team of experienced PostgreSQL consultants.
I really like having close contact to customers as well having a very high variance in the type of work that I do.
I also run DebianSupport (https://debiansupport.com) from which we provide professional services for Linux. Mostly Debian and Ubuntu but not exclusively so.
Having used Linux extensively since 1997 and PostgreSQL since 2000, I really like working with both pieces of technology. And I love being able to provide value from my skills and experience.
I really like having close contact to customers as well having a very high variance in the type of work that I do.
I also run DebianSupport (https://debiansupport.com) from which we provide professional services for Linux. Mostly Debian and Ubuntu but not exclusively so.
Having used Linux extensively since 1997 and PostgreSQL since 2000, I really like working with both pieces of technology. And I love being able to provide value from my skills and experience.
I am for a couple years now. I do consulting work [1] around Rust/Embedded Systems/Systems Engineering, usually helping teams that are either kicking off a project (so helping with planning, scoping, and backfilling knowledge gaps), or people who want help building a proof of concept (so: just build it for me asap) for existing companies exploring new ideas or for startups that are working on demos for investors, etc.
I've been active on both the open source and commercial side of embedded Rust since the beginning, so it's been fun to watch it grow both as an ecosystem as well as from a commercial adoption perspective. Doing consulting makes it easier to help do more open source docs + support in the open, and seems to be one of more sustainable ways to do OSS in my opinion, if you can swing it.
[1]: https://onevariable.com/
I've been active on both the open source and commercial side of embedded Rust since the beginning, so it's been fun to watch it grow both as an ecosystem as well as from a commercial adoption perspective. Doing consulting makes it easier to help do more open source docs + support in the open, and seems to be one of more sustainable ways to do OSS in my opinion, if you can swing it.
[1]: https://onevariable.com/
I’ve been self employed full time for almost 20 years, with one to two employees during that time. It’s a product company which I won’t link to because customers think we’re a big organization.
I worked nights and weekends for about 10 years on the products before they were good enough and selling enough that I could go full time. I’ve focused heavily on not having technical debt, and making the app as user friendly as possible to cut down on customer support burden.
Customer support work on holidays and vacations is required, but only for an hour or two. It’s been a pretty good gig.
I worked nights and weekends for about 10 years on the products before they were good enough and selling enough that I could go full time. I’ve focused heavily on not having technical debt, and making the app as user friendly as possible to cut down on customer support burden.
Customer support work on holidays and vacations is required, but only for an hour or two. It’s been a pretty good gig.
Only around 5% of the products from IndieHackers generate a monthly revenue exceeding ~$8,333 (around ~$100k/year).
Source: https://scrapingfish.com/blog/indie-hackers-revenue
Source: https://scrapingfish.com/blog/indie-hackers-revenue
I was self employed for about 10 years until one of the startups I did along the way turned into something and now I have to work there.
I'm doing full time freelancing in the UK and loving it tbh, but sometimes it can get a bit difficult to handle.
I was doing typical employment until October 2023 while doing some part time freelancing. The company had layoffs and I decided to do more freelancing while I look for the next job. Then the freelancing pay became double or more what I'd make from normal employment, so I am unlikely to get back to "being an employee" unless the situation changes significantly.
Initially I was worried about being able to find enough gigs to be able to make enough income to survive, but now my main struggle is to not take on too many responsibilities at once to be able to keep the clients happy, and even had to turn a few people down because I'm getting too busy...
I do get some spare time for myself to work on my own things, a few of those projects do bring income, but my main income source and the thing that takes most of my day is the freelancing.
I hired an accounting company to take care of taxes and stuff.
Most of my clients are in the UK.
I work partially through Toptal and some through my network.
I can't complain too much about it!
I was doing typical employment until October 2023 while doing some part time freelancing. The company had layoffs and I decided to do more freelancing while I look for the next job. Then the freelancing pay became double or more what I'd make from normal employment, so I am unlikely to get back to "being an employee" unless the situation changes significantly.
Initially I was worried about being able to find enough gigs to be able to make enough income to survive, but now my main struggle is to not take on too many responsibilities at once to be able to keep the clients happy, and even had to turn a few people down because I'm getting too busy...
I do get some spare time for myself to work on my own things, a few of those projects do bring income, but my main income source and the thing that takes most of my day is the freelancing.
I hired an accounting company to take care of taxes and stuff.
Most of my clients are in the UK.
I work partially through Toptal and some through my network.
I can't complain too much about it!
Self employed since 2005.
I run 2 long-term consulting gigs (one of them is an Elixir project for the French government at https://transport.data.gouv.fr?locale=en, the other is in the healthcare sector).
I have also bootstrapped various products (and plan to do more in the future).
I run 2 long-term consulting gigs (one of them is an Elixir project for the French government at https://transport.data.gouv.fr?locale=en, the other is in the healthcare sector).
I have also bootstrapped various products (and plan to do more in the future).
Me as well! I've started working at startups as an employee about ~6 years ago.
And did my first freelance project about 3 years ago. Mostly doing FullStack with a FE focus. From then I've been working on and off due to studies.
It certainly has its upsides and downsides. Here in Germany, freelancing allows one to somewhat escape generally low salary for employed software developers (as compared to the US). But what I don't enjoy is the distance to the actual issue/customer at hand. It's on average a much more corporate form of work. And the last couple months have been very slow in terms of demand.
And did my first freelance project about 3 years ago. Mostly doing FullStack with a FE focus. From then I've been working on and off due to studies.
It certainly has its upsides and downsides. Here in Germany, freelancing allows one to somewhat escape generally low salary for employed software developers (as compared to the US). But what I don't enjoy is the distance to the actual issue/customer at hand. It's on average a much more corporate form of work. And the last couple months have been very slow in terms of demand.
Long-time lurker, first time poster. Here goes… Founder CEO of a bootstrapped compliance engineering startup. Ex-FAANG who got really frustrated by the engineering toil caused by audit and compliance management. Most compliance tasks are manual, repetitive, tactical, and lack enduring value. As an engineer who spent 20 years dealing with auditors and regulators globally and who understands compliance really really well, I knew I had to change things or I would never forgive myself. If you’re an engineer who’s had to face auditors you know what I am talking about :-)
Anyways, building out an automated cloud compliance platform. MVP is coming out in the next few months. B2B subscription based SaaS platform for automated SOC 2 compliance in AWS. Post MVP looking at PCI and then some of the data privacy regulations. Also reviewing upcoming compliance requirements for AI and Electric Vehicle Charging Management Systems (EVCMS).
PS: Happy to answer any engineering questions or share tips on how to become compliant with least toil. Regulators aren’t engineers and engineers don’t understand what needs to be minimally done to get the auditors off their back, so this is my way of giving back to the community. Traveling internationally and will respond here on a best effort basis, or my LinkedIn (listed in my HN profile) is the best way to reach me.
Cheers! Vic
Anyways, building out an automated cloud compliance platform. MVP is coming out in the next few months. B2B subscription based SaaS platform for automated SOC 2 compliance in AWS. Post MVP looking at PCI and then some of the data privacy regulations. Also reviewing upcoming compliance requirements for AI and Electric Vehicle Charging Management Systems (EVCMS).
PS: Happy to answer any engineering questions or share tips on how to become compliant with least toil. Regulators aren’t engineers and engineers don’t understand what needs to be minimally done to get the auditors off their back, so this is my way of giving back to the community. Traveling internationally and will respond here on a best effort basis, or my LinkedIn (listed in my HN profile) is the best way to reach me.
Cheers! Vic
I've been independently employed the for 13 years as a software consultant. Most of my work has been building web-based business software for small/medium sized businesses. This involves both designing and implementing solutions for non-technical clients. It's a lot of greenfield design and development, which feels a lot like working in an early stage startup.
I have at times taken 6mo - 24mo contracts as just a software engineer when the pay and environment were good enough. This work is far less interesting, because someone else is typically designing what is to be built.
I have at times taken 6mo - 24mo contracts as just a software engineer when the pay and environment were good enough. This work is far less interesting, because someone else is typically designing what is to be built.
I was self employed from 2009 to 2018. I was an embedded programmer / debugger and I had two major sources of income debugging engineering development boards for two boutique companies. I got the first gig from a friend who worked at one, the second by spamming the embedded world conference, and a handful more through linkedin. I couldn’t really travel because I needed a lab with test equipment. But I did double my previous salary north of 200k and I worked as much or as little as needed. It ended up being an average 40hr work week overall. The one thing I missed out on was equity. A decade without bonuses, RSUs, or options really set me back compared to my peers. Plus I hated having to stress about finding new contracts or if I was going to get cut loose. Finally I quit and went back to a big employer and I’m much happier to not have that financial stress and to have equity again.
I’be been self employed for ~1.5yrs after quitting my job to build a GUI for Kubernetes [1]
It’s not easy to get started, but im very happy with this change after being a FTE for 15yrs. It’s a refreshing experience having to talk to customers to understand their pain points and then build something for it
I’m also doing some part time freelancing, so with my products + freelancing I’m earning way more than as a FTE
[1] https://aptakube.com
It’s not easy to get started, but im very happy with this change after being a FTE for 15yrs. It’s a refreshing experience having to talk to customers to understand their pain points and then build something for it
I’m also doing some part time freelancing, so with my products + freelancing I’m earning way more than as a FTE
[1] https://aptakube.com
Self-employed for 10 years now as the co-runner of Apsis Labs (https://apsis.io); we're a software development agency with a focus on healthcare technology and HIPAA compliance.
After a decade of building products for clients, we've recently launched our own bootstrapped SaaS offering: https://reamdocs.com --- the contract management platform we've built in-house to manage our services business for the last 5 years.
That all pays the bills, but what sustains me is my time outside of work: my family, my hobbies, my cat. Joys which I have time for because self-employment has allowed me to set my own hours, walk away from toxic clients, and freedom to do what is interesting on any given day.
After a decade of building products for clients, we've recently launched our own bootstrapped SaaS offering: https://reamdocs.com --- the contract management platform we've built in-house to manage our services business for the last 5 years.
That all pays the bills, but what sustains me is my time outside of work: my family, my hobbies, my cat. Joys which I have time for because self-employment has allowed me to set my own hours, walk away from toxic clients, and freedom to do what is interesting on any given day.
Does selling programming ebooks count?
I left my job in 2014 (worked for a semiconductor company), muddled around for 4+ years with not much to show before writing programming ebooks allowed me to earn a living. Fast forward to 2024 and I'm still only earning about 1/3 of what I used to earn (without even considering inflation, what my salary could've been now, etc), but it works for me.
I left my job in 2014 (worked for a semiconductor company), muddled around for 4+ years with not much to show before writing programming ebooks allowed me to earn a living. Fast forward to 2024 and I'm still only earning about 1/3 of what I used to earn (without even considering inflation, what my salary could've been now, etc), but it works for me.