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My solution was to move away from traditional 9-5 work. First, I moved into contracting/consulting, which meant I could work shorter gigs that let me run at fu

My solution was to move away from traditional 9-5 work. First, I moved into contracting/consulting, which meant I could work shorter gigs that let me run at full speed for a few months at a time, then down tools for a while and recover completely before doing it again. Normally said recovery would involve the better part of a year traveling through interesting parts of the world, which was a pretty big upside in itself. The second part was building a couple Software as a Service products that eventually combined to bring in the equivalent of a dev salary on their own, while not taking up a lot of time to maintain. That let me pick and choose just the most fun sounding consulting gigs, and whether to simply spend a given year traveling or working on my surfing. The cool thing about either of these routes is that they eliminate the whole "ageism" thing. None of my customers have ever asked my age before signing up for a trial of the SaaS. And none of the startups I've worked with have held my lack of inexperience against me when they bring me in to build something for them. If anything, "25 years of javascript experience" and some scary tales from the document.all days just helps to justify a high bill rate. I suppose if I'm honest, I can see where you're coming from with regard to slowing down and finding it harder to tolerate the non-stop-imaginary-crisis-to-ship that you find in so many shops these days. But I find that I can still burst hard for short periods of time and build things quick, so long as I have a good amount of downtime between gigs. Contracting is perfect for that.

mancerayder 6y ago
>First, I moved into contracting/consulting, which meant I could work shorter gigs that let me run at full speed for a few months at a time, then down tools for a while and recover completely before doing it again. Normally said recovery would involve the better part of a year traveling through interesting parts of the world, which was a pretty big upside in itself. I tried this for a few years and did ok, especially with crazy tax deductions (in the US you can aside a lot more for retirement than an employee, and a lot of people don't know a part of your mortgage in certain cases). But I did 12 month contracts I found and negotiated painfully through recruiters, who kept 40-50 pct at least of what they billed me out for to clients. I wouldn't mind so much, but I found it hard and similar to FTE job hunting when the gigs were ending. I always dreamt of being some reputation-lead consulting person who others sought out. Instead I was doing rounds and rounds of interviews like an FTE. Silly given how insecure contracting is. But is that possible to avoid without a social media presence and marketing effort?

mancerayder 6y ago

>First, I moved into contracting/consulting, which meant I could work shorter gigs that let me run at full speed for a few months at a time, then down tools for a while and recover completely before doing it again. Normally said recovery would involve the better part of a year traveling through interesting parts of the world, which was a pretty big upside in itself. I tried this for a few years and did ok, especially with crazy tax deductions (in the US you can aside a lot more for retirement than an employee, and a lot of people don't know a part of your mortgage in certain cases). But I did 12 month contracts I found and negotiated painfully through recruiters, who kept 40-50 pct at least of what they billed me out for to clients. I wouldn't mind so much, but I found it hard and similar to FTE job hunting when the gigs were ending. I always dreamt of being some reputation-lead consulting person who others sought out. Instead I was doing rounds and rounds of interviews like an FTE. Silly given how insecure contracting is. But is that possible to avoid without a social media presence and marketing effort?