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I've been doing this for 2 years, except I have 3 positions not two. Also all 3 pay really well, but they are all small companies (less than 20 employees). All

by rsamp 6y ago

I've been doing this for 2 years, except I have 3 positions not two. Also all 3 pay really well, but they are all small companies (less than 20 employees). All three are distributed teams with no offices. I learned a long time ago when I was assigned a task, if I concentrated I could get my days work done in 2/3 hours, sometimes less. If it was a large task that was supposed to take a month, I could do it in two weeks. I dont believe this is because Im special in any way, I just think people slack off and generally lose too much time at work. Obviously I didn't start with 3, I had 1 and noticed I had a lot of downtime and applied and was selected for a second job. At first I was very nervous I had taken on too much, but after a few weeks it became clear I could finish both in about 6 hours a day. I then added the third, and usually I can finish everything in 8/9 hours. Ive gotten into trouble a few times where things piled up and I had to work all through the weekend, but its rare. Its also happened where I finish all my works' week by Wednesday and have Thursday and Friday pretty much off. I dont get into trouble with meetings because all 3 jobs dont have that many (1 or 2 per week) and since the teams are distributed theres always some room for scheduling effectively. At one point I even got a 4th job, that immediately was too much and I resigned after a week. Final note, I see nothing immoral about this. I want to make money and keep busy, if I end up paying the price by pulling some all nighters or long weekends I accept that, and have done it. In all three positions I get positive reviews and even raises. (this is not my real HN account, I created it just to share this story without divulging my identity)

rsamp 6y ago
I also have a wife, kids and excercise two hours 6 days a week.
read_if_gay_ 6y ago
Thanks for sharing, I think everyone gets this same idea once you realize office jobs are ~80% wasted time but to most it seems too outlandish to actually try and do it. Similar idea: you could get a remote job and only actually work for something like 2h/day. Would you say that is equally feasible? How did you pick jobs? As in, what criteria did you set and how did you check them?
- rsamp 6y ago
  Yes I agree its feasible. Thats pretty much the situation I was in before I started taking on more. I was selective in what jobs I took, aside from technical criteria, 1. had to be 100% remote 2. small teams 3. when interviewing, I tried to make sure that the company valued results over anything else. which a lot of remote office companies already are. I remember when interviewing for a job I didn't take they wanted me to install a program that takes constant screenshots of my system. That obviously was a deal breaker.
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    Thanks for answering. > Thats pretty much the situation I was in before I started taking on more. During that time, if you didn't work, would it have been possible to pursue a completely different activity such as going hiking for example? Or did you have to be "on standby" at home? Why are you looking for small teams in particular? And how did you make sure that there aren't too many meetings in particular? Sorry to bother you with so many questions.
    - rsamp 6y ago
      I've found distributed teams with members in different timezones already try to minimize meetings and are really good at organizing themselves through email,slack,scrum boards, etc. This may sound like I got lucky finding companies that work this way, but I dont think it is, all remote companies usually have employees and even founders who want some liberty to organize their schedule and only care if work gets done at the end of the week. During what are agreed to be my regular work hours I am expected to answer chats, so hiking would not be an option. When I only had one job I was wasting a lot of time playing bridge online. I was looking for small teams because I was afraid large companies would have more measures in place to avoid situations like mine.
  - raincom 6y ago
    Interesting to hear this. An acquaintance worked for a big Telco, and one day his director walked up to him, and asked him "why he was idle yesterday". That's how he found out that every one is being monitored. This was not a remote job.
cvhashim 6y ago
At this point, I feel like you should just run a software consulting shop. Time to start outsourcing tasks and hire subcontractors for support so you could pick up even more work.
volkfish55 6y ago
What sort of skills do you need that are more favorable to being able to work several positions? Sys admin, devops, front end, backend, full stack or database? How do you get out of on call for all 3 positions. I'm in awe. Very nice!
- rsamp 6y ago
  I'm full stack, but more specialized in backend and sysadmin. None of the three positions have on call duties.
  - volkfish55 6y ago
    Thanks for your answer! I wonder if I wrongly assume sys admin position naturally require you to be on call, server goes down/offline or some other operations issue.
    - rsamp 6y ago
      Theres no formal on-call. But we do have monitoring and alerts and if theres an emergency since its a small team we are all expected to help out. In practice emergencies happen once a year, so Im happy to get out of bed and help out however I can.
s1artibartfast 6y ago
>I dont believe this is because Im special in any way, I just think people slack off and generally lose too much time at work. I can't speak for other people, but I think this is highly dependent on the person and job. I know a score of people who put in a solid 50+ hours at one job. Congrats to you if you have found 3 different jobs that require 2 hours/day. Do you have noncompetes or employment contracts with each company? If so, how did you navigate this?
- rsamp 6y ago
  I don't have noncompetes, and all three jobs deal with software development but in completely different industries. Ethically I wouldn't work for two competing companies. I agree there are tech jobs that are way more demanding, its true that I may have found good situations. I think theres also some truth to the fact that if you put your phone on do not disturb, and just concentrate on your work you can get a lot done. It also helps that although Im not a particularly talented developer, I do have almost 2 decades of experience so typically its just coding and not much research. This can be tedious to be honest, but at this point in my life I have a family to take care of, Im prioritizing being a good provider over technical challenges that fulfill me. I'm on pace to pay off my 20 year mortgage in 3 years. Once I'm debt free I may consider working less and doing something else with my time.

by rsamp 6y ago

rsamp 6y ago

I also have a wife, kids and excercise two hours 6 days a week.

read_if_gay_ 6y ago

Thanks for sharing, I think everyone gets this same idea once you realize office jobs are ~80% wasted time but to most it seems too outlandish to actually try and do it. Similar idea: you could get a remote job and only actually work for something like 2h/day. Would you say that is equally feasible? How did you pick jobs? As in, what criteria did you set and how did you check them?

rsamp 6y ago
Yes I agree its feasible. Thats pretty much the situation I was in before I started taking on more. I was selective in what jobs I took, aside from technical criteria, 1. had to be 100% remote 2. small teams 3. when interviewing, I tried to make sure that the company valued results over anything else. which a lot of remote office companies already are. I remember when interviewing for a job I didn't take they wanted me to install a program that takes constant screenshots of my system. That obviously was a deal breaker.
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  Thanks for answering. > Thats pretty much the situation I was in before I started taking on more. During that time, if you didn't work, would it have been possible to pursue a completely different activity such as going hiking for example? Or did you have to be "on standby" at home? Why are you looking for small teams in particular? And how did you make sure that there aren't too many meetings in particular? Sorry to bother you with so many questions.
  - rsamp 6y ago
    I've found distributed teams with members in different timezones already try to minimize meetings and are really good at organizing themselves through email,slack,scrum boards, etc. This may sound like I got lucky finding companies that work this way, but I dont think it is, all remote companies usually have employees and even founders who want some liberty to organize their schedule and only care if work gets done at the end of the week. During what are agreed to be my regular work hours I am expected to answer chats, so hiking would not be an option. When I only had one job I was wasting a lot of time playing bridge online. I was looking for small teams because I was afraid large companies would have more measures in place to avoid situations like mine.
- raincom 6y ago
  Interesting to hear this. An acquaintance worked for a big Telco, and one day his director walked up to him, and asked him "why he was idle yesterday". That's how he found out that every one is being monitored. This was not a remote job.

cvhashim 6y ago

At this point, I feel like you should just run a software consulting shop. Time to start outsourcing tasks and hire subcontractors for support so you could pick up even more work.

volkfish55 6y ago

What sort of skills do you need that are more favorable to being able to work several positions? Sys admin, devops, front end, backend, full stack or database? How do you get out of on call for all 3 positions. I'm in awe. Very nice!

rsamp 6y ago
I'm full stack, but more specialized in backend and sysadmin. None of the three positions have on call duties.
- volkfish55 6y ago
  Thanks for your answer! I wonder if I wrongly assume sys admin position naturally require you to be on call, server goes down/offline or some other operations issue.
  - rsamp 6y ago
    Theres no formal on-call. But we do have monitoring and alerts and if theres an emergency since its a small team we are all expected to help out. In practice emergencies happen once a year, so Im happy to get out of bed and help out however I can.

s1artibartfast 6y ago

>I dont believe this is because Im special in any way, I just think people slack off and generally lose too much time at work. I can't speak for other people, but I think this is highly dependent on the person and job. I know a score of people who put in a solid 50+ hours at one job. Congrats to you if you have found 3 different jobs that require 2 hours/day. Do you have noncompetes or employment contracts with each company? If so, how did you navigate this?

rsamp 6y ago
I don't have noncompetes, and all three jobs deal with software development but in completely different industries. Ethically I wouldn't work for two competing companies. I agree there are tech jobs that are way more demanding, its true that I may have found good situations. I think theres also some truth to the fact that if you put your phone on do not disturb, and just concentrate on your work you can get a lot done. It also helps that although Im not a particularly talented developer, I do have almost 2 decades of experience so typically its just coding and not much research. This can be tedious to be honest, but at this point in my life I have a family to take care of, Im prioritizing being a good provider over technical challenges that fulfill me. I'm on pace to pay off my 20 year mortgage in 3 years. Once I'm debt free I may consider working less and doing something else with my time.