47 ms·

Ask HN: Who here is juggling two or more remote jobs? How is it working out?

92 points by beeks10 4y ago

For more context that made me ask this question, please see this video: https://youtu.be/clqUs5ZAUEU https://youtu.be/clqUs5ZAUEU

oxff 4y ago
I wonder how the legalities of working more than 1 (remote) job are. You'd think you'd run into some conflicting clauses in your employment contracts.
- ShivShankaran 4y ago
  Lots of employees do it. Their 9-5 jobs suffers but pay over there is guaranteed. I know more than few startup employees who work with other startups on hourly contract basis. Part of the reason for managers to start pushing for return to office since its harder to cheat this way from office.
  - pc86 4y ago
    I take a lot of issue with you framing this as "cheating." How is it cheating? How do you know the 9-5 necessarily suffers?
    - skeeter2020 4y ago
      because by definition you're being paid for your time. I've never seen a non-contract tech position scoped as "here's an exhaustive set of responsibilities; you'll be paid 40 hrs/week to accomplish them but if you finish early the time is yours". According to your profile you're a new EM; can you honestly say there's a point in your day when the job is done-done and you can jump over to your other job?
      - ivanhoe 4y ago
        Depends on the manager and the type of work. When younger I was working as a part of junior admin team for big ISP. Every day we'd all get the roughly same amount of maintenance tasks to do - but since, unlike other guys, I was into programming I automated a lot of it (and probably was a little faster and more focused in general) - so I'd finish it in about a half of the time they needed. Now I was quite clear that I will not do more work than others unless I get paid more, and the manager wanted to keep me, but because of bureaucracy and syndicate I couldn't get the raise. So we stroke an internal deal that once I clear my tasks I'm free to do whatever I want with my time, as long as others don't know about it. Now, I wish I could say I did something smart with that time, but it was a long time ago, so I mostly spent that time playing Starcraft or chatting on IRC :)
      - winterplace 4y ago
        Then the people who coast should be fired? The ones who only have 1 job but spend some hours at the company recreation room and less than 40 hours on work should also be fired?
    - Enginerrrd 4y ago
      I'm old enough and I have done this exact thing enough to know that of course it suffers. A lot more than you want to admit too. Even if you don't ever mix the 9-5 time with the freelance time, (Which FYI is nearly impossible in practice.) you just aren't going to be at your best when you show up the next day to work your 9-5 8-hour day after having worked a full day and moonlighted for another 4-6 hours afterward the day before. You're lying to yourself if that's what you think. And if you're working weekends, you're going to get burned out in a way that only punishes your 9-5 employer for not giving you a higher workload. People get fired all the time when their weekend or after work binge drinking interferes with their work the next day, why should spending your discretionary time burning yourself out be any different? Human beings can only do one thing in any moment. Worse, this truth has some applicability over longer time scales as well. Human beings require substantial periods of recovery in order to perform optimally. Often, what you do during that recovery has dramatic implications on how well you're going to do when you get back at it. (Ever solve a difficult programming problem only after taking a break? You won't get those same eureka moments if on your breaks your loading entirely new problems into your brain all the time.) You do the math.
      - Apocryphon 4y ago
        > Human beings can only do one thing in any moment. But not all things are equal. Some might be less than "one", and not require a full 8-hours.
        ivanhoe 4y ago
        Sounds like he never did the zoom meetings :D
      - airbreather 4y ago
        I work design/construction/commissioning engineering industrial machinery and plant, including automation/controls software. On site standard days are 12 hours, crunch time 14's become normal. Depending on project this might be month on month off, 5 days on 2 days off, 8 + 6 days, sometimes every day 3 months straight, or more. You do get used to it and can be overall productive for the hours - usually company is paying (big) by the hour so they wouldn't be paying if they are not getting. Not everyone can do it, or wants to, but different people have different capabilities. I've been doing it for decades.
  - jraph 4y ago
    > Part of the reason for managers to start pushing for return to office since its harder to cheat this way from office. Are they that many people doing this?
  - hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
    > Their 9-5 jobs suffers If they do it this way, they are doing it wrong. At my current job I can squeeze all my daily tasks in maybe one hour (mind you, this is after 10 years of doing a very similar set of things). It becomes longer when a significant change comes or an emergency happens but after a few weeks it's all the same. I study new things and develop my competences during the spare hours but I can imagine I could earn money as well. The pay is good so I don't have motivation to take an extra job but I can totally understand people who are more ambitious or earn less.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      There's a huge difference between coasting a bit and using available time to learn, do side projects, read books, even earn a bit doing some freelance non-competitive work--and working two jobs where the expectation of each is that you're working full-time. (And, in all probability violating various confidentiality etc. agreements.)
      - winterplace 4y ago
        What is the difference? The 2nd one is the side project isnt it? Why would they be violating confidentiality? They are not going to tell the 2nd company about their 1st company. Also not going to share trade secrets since there is no need to.
  - ivanhoe 4y ago
    9-5 jobs suffer from a lot of things all the time, it's sort of what managers already expect of employees, to be actually productive maybe 3-4 hours a day. Whether one is using the rest of time on water cooler politics, checking Instagram, playing games, or doing another job, it's not necessarily as visible in the overall productivity as you may expect it to be. Especially with well organized people smart enough not to set the bar too high in the beginning.
- vmception 4y ago
  Risk / reward Nobody should ever think in absolutes regarding these topics, only consequences, specifically the value of those consequences. Of course consequentialism is a two way street, like, is a potential $100 fine because an employer asked a personal question in an interview a deterrent? For an employee though, the stakes are technically way higher, but do you want that $3 million house or not.
thomgo 4y ago
You should check out r/overemployed
more_corn 4y ago
I work contract so I’m not hiding it from anyone. I juggle two clients simultaneously by design (it buffers me in case a contract ends). I’ve currently got four active clients and a compelling side-project (I also have 3 colleagues helping with those things). Keeping it all straight is a challenge. I lean heavily on my calendar and I take extensive notes. I have low patience for things taking longer than they should. And I’m having moments where I know I should remember a detail but it is just gone. I thought for a while that my memory was deteriorating, but I suspect I just have a lot going on and am reaching my natural limit of long term attention. I’m not sure I recommend it.
- mr_spothawk 4y ago
  > I thought for a while that my memory was deteriorating not juggling multiple "jobs" but still juggling a lot. i thought perhaps my memory was/is deteriorating... perhaps this is the reason!?
jarolinvargas 4y ago
I'm interested in the answers here. I'm considering doing this given that my current role is pretty laid back.
vr46 4y ago
So I am currently juggling a 9-5 and a freelance gig and a couple of side-hustle type roles and I am about to ditch the 9-5 because it completely gets in the way of everything else. My work goes best when I have time flexibility - duh - and the 9-5 remote keeps me trapped at my machine. Gigs based on delivering a thing have always been best for me - if I'm selling my expertise, it's ALWAYS better than selling my time.
akhmatova 4y ago
If you're two-timing on clients / employers (that is, plainly working two FT jobs at once) -- you can't expect that to end well. If you're working > 50 hours a week (or whatever your personal limit is) for more than 1-2 months -- that won't end well for your health or business relationships, either. That's the score, basically.
- winterplace 4y ago
  Having a kid is a 2nd job than makes it > 50 hours. Would you fire them?
- pc86 4y ago
  You're presenting opinions as if they are absolute facts above questioning. If you have a full-time job and you only need to do ~20 hours a week of work to complete all your deliverables, you could absolutely get another full-time job and have it go fine.
  - akhmatova 4y ago
    No, it won't "go fine". You'll be lying to both of your employers. That's not "fine" and it can't possibly end well for anyone.
    - pc86 4y ago
      How do you know anyone lied? If you have two fully remote jobs, and the workload for each one is ~20-25 hours a week, and the times don't overlap... I was trying to get you to actually provide reasoning, or evidence, or even "I acknowledge it's my opinion but I feel this way because __________" but here we are with more "I'm right, you're wrong, you're dumb if you disagree." Please try again because this is a point I'd love to actually discuss rather than just having you talk past me.
      - akhmatova 4y ago
        Do either of your employers know that (1) you're working for another employer and (2) are actually working 20-25 hours a week when the terms of employment clearly state otherwise (as is almost universally the case with "full-time" employment in the U.S. and just about anywhere else)?
overemployed 4y ago
New account not to dox myself here. I'm doing it. I very recently took on a second full time job. I work as a Release Engineer for both. It hasn't been too bad so far. The biggest thing is managing your calendars to avoid conflicts.
- solenoidalslide 4y ago
  Do you often get into sitcom-like situations where you are in two different meetings at once and have to make sure you avoid any unmute mishaps? I'm specifically thinking a case where you have to respond in a way that would make sense to both calls at once.
  - mongol 4y ago
    In would love to see the Seinfeld episode where George Costanza tries this. Perhaps it exists?
    - mateo411 4y ago
      I don't think George Costanza ever had two jobs at the same time. He did have two girlfriends at the same time once. He found it exhausting, so arranged for both of them to meet in the same place(Monks), in order to sabotage the relationship(s). Neither of them were willing to break up with him.
  - overemployed 4y ago
    I'm still pretty new to it. But that hasn't happened yet
- winterplace 4y ago
  Do you have an email address or a contact method? It can be a new email address.
MilStdJunkie 4y ago
If you do this with direct charge government work, you're within hailing range of felony territory. Granted, you probably won't get caught, but if you do, it's going to be a bridge burner for you in this industry basically forever. Is that entirely a bad thing, though, considering this industry? Discussion ongoing.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  Only if you falsify your timecards, right? I'm not doing it, so I don't really care. But the felony would be falsifying billing paperwork?
- rsanek 4y ago
  Do you have a source for this being considered a felony?
  - panda88888 4y ago
    https://news.clearancejobs.com/2021/09/08/does-your-client-watch-your-timesheet-hours-one-dod-contractor-finds-out-the-answer/ https://news.clearancejobs.com/2021/09/08/does-your-client-w...
willio58 4y ago
I could never. If you make enough money at one job working remote then there’s no need. If you don’t make enough then use your spare time beefing up your portfolio and applying to crazy-high paying jobs. Eventually you’ll land one. For me, working two jobs adds a level of secrecy that’d be difficult for me to maintain long term. Also could be hard to do simple things like take PTO.
froaway4job 4y ago
I've been working multiple remote jobs for the past 4 years. I'm currently working 4 full time engineering roles and a part time contract. It's been tough but a great experience. The main struggle is scheduling and making sure you can make all the meetings. It's also tough finding the right job which gives you autonomy to form your schedule. The main perks are obviously money and not caring about getting laid off. In this market it's pretty hard to get laid off, we shall see how it plays out over the next few years.
- sdfgdfghj 4y ago
  is this even legal?
  - jhugo 4y ago
    Depends what you mean exactly. It's almost certainly a breach of all of the contracts, unless they were quite sloppily drafted, but it's probably not a crime [1]. The repercussions would be as determined by the contracts — likely just termination. [1] Not legal advice. It could maybe be fraud depending on the details?
  - tra3 4y ago
    It may be against his contract, but none of the employment contracts I've ever had stipulated that I couldn't hire out my services elsewhere. Why do you think it'd be illegal?
  - froaway4job 4y ago
    Maybe, which means yes it is legal. Will anybody come after me? Doubt it's worth it to come after an engineer making 250K and will work at your company for less than 2 years.
- ttyp3 4y ago
  TC or GTFO. (Am I doing that right?)
  - froaway4job 4y ago
im_busy 4y ago
I currently have 1 full time job, 1 full time contracting, and 4 clients that pay me a retainer for a set amount of hours they can use week to week. It's going fine; I measure that based on my performance reviews all being excellent, my clients all paying the bills on time, and all work is done in a timely fashion. I do individual contributor infrastructure engineering at the senior+ level. Managing the calendar is the toughest part, making sure things don't overlap is difficult. My full time calendar is relatively light, the contracting gig on the other hand is starting to get on my nerves with the amount of meetings they're pushing me to attend.
- im_busy 4y ago
  Couple of other important points: * the full time and contracting gigs are in separate time zones, which helps time management. * I only actually work ~45-50 hours a week total, but all work is complete. * I only take on work that aligns. I use several extremely standard tools and ALL gigs are all the same, which lowers my cognitive overhead a lot.
- tra3 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing. If you don't mind a couple of questions: - is the compensation worth it? - do you think this is going to be a long term thing for you (burning the candle at both ends)?
  - im_busy 4y ago
    Cash comp is around 800K pre tax, to me it's worth it; I'm able to push tons of cash into my retirement accounts and do things like purchase a vacation home. I've been doing it for the past few years, and it hasn't had a negative effect on my mental well being or family relationships. I work extra here and there, sure, but so does everyone, and it has more to do with "we need to do this at this specific time" than any actual extra work needing to be done.
    - hardwaresofton 4y ago
      Not the person who asked the question but thanks again for sharing this. I'm in a similar situation but without the full time job -- I can understand the retainer, but with the contracting do you charge per hour? I'd imagine you charge per day/week but that also feels a bit hard to balance evenly with a full time job.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
I was on the other side of this: We had a remote worker who got a new job but then tried to hide it, collecting paychecks as long as possible. For any manager paying attention, it wasn't difficult to spot. He would swing between being eager to please and virtually unreachable. We didn't have many meetings or phone calls, but he had more scheduling conflicts than anyone else. On the rare occasion that we had high urgency tasks, there was about a 50% chance that he would obviously be not working on it at all until the evening, despite being online all day. Eventually we let him go for non-performance, which wasn't too hard to document. Now he has a problem where his resume start/end dates don't match what he's claiming on LinkedIn or (presumably) putting on his resume. He also burned the entire team (they figured it out) so he's not getting any positive references from anyway. It may work if you can find two jobs with two incompetent managers who aren't paying attention, but I don't think it's as easy as people suggest for any reasonably well paying engineering job.
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  > Now he has a problem where his resume start/end dates don't match what he's claiming on LinkedIn or (presumably) putting on his resume As a non-US person this is the most ridiculous reason to inherent anything.
- nscalf 4y ago
  It's not a problem, he's just going to lie about ever having a second job and only report his first job. That's how this works, you have a primary job which is your "real job", and others which feed you more paychecks until they realize you're underperforming and you get fired. FWIW I'm not doing this, I'm just on the /r/overemployed subreddit.
- b20000 4y ago
  so why didn’t you pay him more so he would not need to juggle jobs?
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    As long as you can fire them and find a replacement for the same price, why would you ever increase pay? Especially for a worker that is underperforming?
sithadmin 4y ago
FWIW, a lot of US employers report your current employment status, role and salary to databases like Equifax's 'The Work Number' - and nearly any organization that subscribes can view this data. HR departments DO look at this info and occasionally spot-check it to catch moonlighting employees. You can request your own data here: https://employees.theworknumber.com/ https://employees.theworknumber.com/
- mongol 4y ago
  So much for keeping salaries secret. Amazing.
  - probIs8 4y ago
    You should never believe the elites follow the rules they put on the proles
- CabSauce 4y ago
  To provide a little more info. It is possible to request a freeze on your info, but of course they make it annoying. They appear to be sourcing the data from payroll management systems like ADP. Your organization might not even be aware that they're sharing and selling your paycheck information.
  - ttyp3 4y ago
    I especially distrust companies using outsourced payroll and benefits startups for this reason.
    - gregjor 4y ago
      Payroll and benefits are complex and hard to administer. Complying with overtime and income tax rules across jurisdictions alone make outsourcing payroll and benefits a sensible decision for many organizations. The problem isn’t outsourcing a difficult and error-prone requirement that is never part of the core business (payroll and benefits). The problem is those outsourcing companies selling that data or using it for purposes other than managing payroll and benefits. Unfortunately we live in a world where anything we participate in, voluntarily or otherwise, potentially exposes us to data harvesting and our information sold to the highest bidder.
mrcartmeneses 4y ago
Seems like a recipe for burnout to me. But I burn myself out just doing one job anyway. Because for some reason if I’ve not out-delivered everyone else by an order of magnitude then I’m not satisfied
captainbland 4y ago
No chance. I guess maybe contractors might get away with it in some circumstances but I don't see how it works in conventional FT agile teams with regular ceremonies, meetings, etc. Plus I value my free time, which I know is weird.
gdfgjhs 4y ago
I am so confused with comments in this threads. Since when did tech employees became so submissive and scared? As far as I know, having 2 jobs is not illegal, not unethical. Many, sadly, low income families have to work two or more jobs. We in tech make enough but what if you are bored and need more challenges. My current second job is family but I know multiple single engineers (or in one case, with grown up kids) with 2 jobs. They work 16+ hours each day but with pandemic there was nothing else to do, so might as well do more work. At least, one guy is pretty open about it with both of his employers. Others hide it but they get the work done. Also you can list 2 jobs on your resume. When I started my career, I didn't had very high paying tech job, I did freelance work on the side and listed on my resume. Never been problem. Your company doesn't own you.
- saagarjha 4y ago
  Working a side job is typically not allowed for most full-time employees, at least not without permission.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - gdfgjhs 4y ago
    My current Fortune 500 tech company's contract explicitly said that if I moonlight, I cannot work for their competitors. And if I get a second job or contract work, I should discuss it with my manager or HR. It does't say anywhere that I cannot have second job at all. I know 2 SWE in the company who actually discussed this with their managers and got okay in writing for their consulting businesses. EDIT: Really curious if SWE actually read their contracts or they just assume that they are not allowed. I don't remember my contracts from earlier jobs. It would be interesting if we can have a site like levels.fyi for contracts.
    - SauciestGNU 4y ago
      I moonlighted for a while, and I checked my primary job's employment agreement first. All it said is that I can't be simultaneously engaged by competitors. No requirement to inform my manager or the company. Lots of people in my company have side businesses (some rebuild and sell laboratory instrumentation, others contract, etc). I was surprised when I discovered the permissive nature of my company, but I've never seen it be a problem for anybody.
motohagiography 4y ago
Did it legitimately over the pandemic because I'm a solo consultant/contractor and don't have exclusivity clauses so I manage multiple clients, however, it has come up in interviews when they look at dates because I put them all on my CV. Key observations to share are: - the more different the jobs are, the more managable they are, as the complete context switch is as good as a break. It's not task context switching which is costly, it's role switching, which can be uplifting because there is a "you" in between the roles that is separate from each of them. Most highly successful people have intense hobbies for the same reason. - Lying destroys your mental health. You don't need to lie if you set and relate with clear personal and professional boundaries. It's a kind of moral identity you have to set. Lying is weak, and indicates you've made some upstream errors that you just don't make when you are a pro. I asked a mentor for advice about something once and he said, "I don't get into the kinds of situations where this is even a question." If you are lying, for your own sake, stop. - Stress really only comes from failing (nobody gets tired of winning, maybe just bored), so having another source of success improves your attitude and that pays off on both gigs massively. Success gives you a refreshing vibe to be around, and most jobs don't provide enough of it, so bringing exogenous success to relationships and work is huge. - Working as a consultant in large institutions, there are employees and managers who make sabotaging and undermining consultants a kind of sport, so you need the durable skills for handling those people, as if you are doing multiple jobs, your biggest risk comes from people who won't respect your boundaries. That's a general life lesson as well. - Realistically, nobody questions anything if you are succeeding, so if someone gets "suspicious," it's really that you aren't delivering value for them and it's time to improve or move on anyway. - Have a plan to invest the increased revenue and don't spend it. You are giving up so much of your life to do the extra work, blowing it on representative and symbolic pleasures is just remedial, and becoming enslaved to the hedonic treadmill is a recipe for burnout. There is no there there. Luxury mainly makes up for impostor syndrome and blowing money satisfies a self destructive urge. If you wouldn't buy it if nobody else could see it, don't buy it. - Have a plan to outsource or compensate for all the personal balls you are going to drop like new relationships, home and vehicle maintenance, accounting, gym time (get a home gym), nutrition, pet care. If you can do a master's degree while working, you can do a second job, and people with families manage, but if you don't have commitment and buy in from your partner, consider that the additional revenue is just going to become a bigger support obligation when you destroy your marriage making it, so take care.
jlokier 4y ago
I find it hard to believe the statistic in the video that 37% of remote workers are working multiple jobs, with the implication that means full-time workers. Is that statistic actually for full-time workers doing overlapping time, and is there evidence? Or does it include all the people whose remote work is an hour here and there in random gig economy freelance tasks, where it's perfectly natural to have multiple commitments?
- ghaff 4y ago
  This seems to be the source: https://www.resumebuilder.com/7-in-10-remote-workers-have-multiple-jobs/ https://www.resumebuilder.com/7-in-10-remote-workers-have-mu... The implication is certainly that these are two full-time jobs. I don't have data to counter it but, I'm sorry, this just doesn't pass the sniff test. Sure, lots of full-time workers may earn a few dollars on the side now and then but that's not what this article seems to be saying.
Distozion 4y ago
It's interesting that a lot of people here seem to consider a second FT position as immoral/illegal. How about instead of a second FT job - studying FT for an unrelated degree? The time needed is arguably the same as a second FT and context switching is still there.
- jdlshore 4y ago
  I think that people are assuming fraud—working two jobs at the same time (eight hours a day), rather than two full-time jobs (16 hours a day).
  - jstx1 4y ago
    Which is a fair assumption - putting 16 hours of work a day seems much less likely than someone working remotely and doing the bare minimum at 2 jobs for as long as they can get away with it.
    - giraffe_lady 4y ago
      Doing the bare minimum is both legal and ethical though. If it wasn't it wouldn't be the minimum.
      - jdlshore 4y ago
        Legal, maybe. Ethical? Not to me. Think of it this way: would you tell your employer you were planning to work two jobs, and put in the minimum effort into them? Would you be above-board and transparent about your conflicting responsibilities and schedules? If not, you're committing fraud: "intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value." (The value, in this case, is the fruits of your labor.) And fraud is most certainly unethical, even if not illegal in this case. Employees trade their hours for the company's money. If you want to trade deliverables for money, you have to be a contractor on a deliverable-based contract. It's a lot riskier, which is why it pays more... sometimes. If you are in a full-time job, and not putting in full-time hours, you're defrauding your employer.
b20000 4y ago
a while ago i juggled 2 contracting gigs. they each paid X per hour which is a quarter to half of what you need as a full time self employed person in CA. employees in companies hiring contractors do not understand the math of self employment and thus expect unrealisticly low hourly rates. so we end up with this situation. i found that the max hourly rate for software development in general is about double of western europe. however, the cost of living there is a quarter of what it is in CA. TL;DR companies in CA in general are unaware of the enormous cost of living in CA partly driven by FAANGs. so anyone not working in FAANG ends up juggling multiple jobs. sort of like baristas but not yet as bad.
throwaway1995v2 4y ago
I do but one of them does know, basically I got a job offer, but my previous(and current employer) really needed me since they have a legacy backend written in a relative niche language and I was the only one left to maintain it while they migrate it to python, so they offer me to switch from full time to part-time with the same salary. so half of the day with my old employer and the rest with the new one. I'm only doing it to pay for my house faster and when I finish with that by the end of the year I will quit, so far It had worked pretty well(minus some super long days).
- hardwaresofton 4y ago
  > so they offer me to switch from full time to part-time with the same salary I'm not sure of the specifics where you are, but contractors/part timers are usually drastically cheaper to hire than full time employees. Your consulting rate should be 1.5x or more (I'd say 2x+) than your FTE rate.
sdevonoes 4y ago
Elon Musk, probably.
- Schopenhauer01 4y ago
  Lol, too many at the same time. Staying sane must be difficult for him.
DarrenDev 4y ago
Not doing this myself, but I've worked a couple of contracts over the past few years where the workload and expected outputs were so small that they could easily have been handled as a second job alongside a more regular job with regular workloads. Think 1 hours work a day. In both cases I resigned the job out of boredom, but I could easily have kept them on and worked a full second job with no one noticing.
earphonesthrow 4y ago
i'm working remotely from EU but company thinks i'm still in US
- winterplace 4y ago
  How do you handle taxes? Do you have an email address or a contact method? It can be a new email address.
- spaghetti1535 4y ago
  I didn’t think this would be possible for a EU citizen(?) Are you originally a US citizen and you moved to the EU?
  - isbvhodnvemrwvn 4y ago
    Yeah it very much looks like it would only be possible with tax fraud being involved.
mrtweetyhack 4y ago
intellix 4y ago
I'm on both sides of this. I've started 2x companies at the same time (one where I work 9-6 and the other which I work around 6-12 and all weekend) so I'm literally working all the time. Initially it made me struggle in my 9-6 because typically when I don't understand something, I'd spend my outside hours reading into things or do some extra work to finish up... but now I appear as a standard developer instead of a 10x and it's frustrating as hell. The side project one has become vastly more successful and lucrative than my 9-6 and it's starting to creep into that time as well, with many employees asking me for information throughout the day and asking me to quickly help with things. I've told my 9-6 that I need to quit because it doesn't make sense but don't want to suddenly leave and harm the perspective value of the company. Both places know the other exists and I've really tried to keep them separate but it was easier when I was working in a vastly different timezone because I could juggle them both easier (get lots of valuable work done whilst nobody is online and feel like the day is already achieved). Now the other side of it which really pisses me off massively, is that for the side-job I've had to build a front/backend team to deliver things and it's fairly big now but it's 100% remote and we have no office (even before COVID). Some people that you hire are rockstars, others are just ok and then there's the guys who scheduling issues for meetings, suddenly become more active for a week when you notice they're not doing anything, push almost nothing. I wasn't aware of r/overemployed but it's been clear to me that this is a common scam for a long time. People start off great and then they suddenly stop delivering, which was making me start to really hate this remote stuff. We've applied a few things systematically to try and prevent the overemployed scam: - Daily geekbot standup reports of what you did yesterday, today and what's blocking you - Detailed weekly geekbot standup reports of what you managed to achieve during the week and what you're still working on (the people who stand out are the ones who are continuously working on the same items each week. The "detailed" is the part that really shown us the cockroaches hiding in the woodwork) - Each release has commit log with the author next to each (it shows who is delivering) - Enforced daily pushes - even if you're not yet complete with your work, you should be committing every day, so if we need to investigate, we can see what you're actually doing on a daily basis. We had people who would only push chunks every couple of days or every week and it was hard work reading through it, to see if it looked meaty enough. - HR Slack channel with automated leave calendar notifications, so you can see who's booked off for the day, with requests being approved by HR (everyone knows who is around for the day) and also if you need to disappear for an hour or two, you can write it, so everything is more transparent and people can be honest about being AFK. We have a project manager, who we thought would keep tabs on the velocity of each developer and catch out who wasn't delivering much, but it really didn't help and it took management to notice something was wrong with various people. We've got stricter over time. At first we were getting abused due to lack of time and process and it was mega depressing having so many people and not seeing things progress with the product and feeling like you were being scammed but now due to the process it's not that bad IMO. I can't wait to quit my 9-6 so that I'm able to be more hands on with the other and not have to work around the clock. Most of my work in the side job is trying to improve processes, unblock people and code in things to reduce the reliance on me so things are smoother.
msarrel 4y ago
Not an answer to the question, but pertinent. I'm hiring and I recently extended an offer to someone and that person responded by saying it wasn't enough money. Our HR department and I went through all the different salary surveys and we determined our offer was fair. The person countered by saying That was the amount of money that they needed. I said okay please submit a consulting contract. They submitted a consulting contract with someone else's name on it. I called them and they said "oh yeah, you caught me, I was trying to bill two different companies for full time." Not hired.

92 points by beeks10 4y ago

For more context that made me ask this question, please see this video: https://youtu.be/clqUs5ZAUEU https://youtu.be/clqUs5ZAUEU

oxff 4y ago

I wonder how the legalities of working more than 1 (remote) job are. You'd think you'd run into some conflicting clauses in your employment contracts.

ShivShankaran 4y ago
Lots of employees do it. Their 9-5 jobs suffers but pay over there is guaranteed. I know more than few startup employees who work with other startups on hourly contract basis. Part of the reason for managers to start pushing for return to office since its harder to cheat this way from office.
- pc86 4y ago
  I take a lot of issue with you framing this as "cheating." How is it cheating? How do you know the 9-5 necessarily suffers?
  - skeeter2020 4y ago
    because by definition you're being paid for your time. I've never seen a non-contract tech position scoped as "here's an exhaustive set of responsibilities; you'll be paid 40 hrs/week to accomplish them but if you finish early the time is yours". According to your profile you're a new EM; can you honestly say there's a point in your day when the job is done-done and you can jump over to your other job?
    - ivanhoe 4y ago
      Depends on the manager and the type of work. When younger I was working as a part of junior admin team for big ISP. Every day we'd all get the roughly same amount of maintenance tasks to do - but since, unlike other guys, I was into programming I automated a lot of it (and probably was a little faster and more focused in general) - so I'd finish it in about a half of the time they needed. Now I was quite clear that I will not do more work than others unless I get paid more, and the manager wanted to keep me, but because of bureaucracy and syndicate I couldn't get the raise. So we stroke an internal deal that once I clear my tasks I'm free to do whatever I want with my time, as long as others don't know about it. Now, I wish I could say I did something smart with that time, but it was a long time ago, so I mostly spent that time playing Starcraft or chatting on IRC :)
    - winterplace 4y ago
      Then the people who coast should be fired? The ones who only have 1 job but spend some hours at the company recreation room and less than 40 hours on work should also be fired?
  - Enginerrrd 4y ago
    I'm old enough and I have done this exact thing enough to know that of course it suffers. A lot more than you want to admit too. Even if you don't ever mix the 9-5 time with the freelance time, (Which FYI is nearly impossible in practice.) you just aren't going to be at your best when you show up the next day to work your 9-5 8-hour day after having worked a full day and moonlighted for another 4-6 hours afterward the day before. You're lying to yourself if that's what you think. And if you're working weekends, you're going to get burned out in a way that only punishes your 9-5 employer for not giving you a higher workload. People get fired all the time when their weekend or after work binge drinking interferes with their work the next day, why should spending your discretionary time burning yourself out be any different? Human beings can only do one thing in any moment. Worse, this truth has some applicability over longer time scales as well. Human beings require substantial periods of recovery in order to perform optimally. Often, what you do during that recovery has dramatic implications on how well you're going to do when you get back at it. (Ever solve a difficult programming problem only after taking a break? You won't get those same eureka moments if on your breaks your loading entirely new problems into your brain all the time.) You do the math.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      > Human beings can only do one thing in any moment. But not all things are equal. Some might be less than "one", and not require a full 8-hours.
      - ivanhoe 4y ago
        Sounds like he never did the zoom meetings :D
    - airbreather 4y ago
      I work design/construction/commissioning engineering industrial machinery and plant, including automation/controls software. On site standard days are 12 hours, crunch time 14's become normal. Depending on project this might be month on month off, 5 days on 2 days off, 8 + 6 days, sometimes every day 3 months straight, or more. You do get used to it and can be overall productive for the hours - usually company is paying (big) by the hour so they wouldn't be paying if they are not getting. Not everyone can do it, or wants to, but different people have different capabilities. I've been doing it for decades.
- jraph 4y ago
  > Part of the reason for managers to start pushing for return to office since its harder to cheat this way from office. Are they that many people doing this?
- hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
  > Their 9-5 jobs suffers If they do it this way, they are doing it wrong. At my current job I can squeeze all my daily tasks in maybe one hour (mind you, this is after 10 years of doing a very similar set of things). It becomes longer when a significant change comes or an emergency happens but after a few weeks it's all the same. I study new things and develop my competences during the spare hours but I can imagine I could earn money as well. The pay is good so I don't have motivation to take an extra job but I can totally understand people who are more ambitious or earn less.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    There's a huge difference between coasting a bit and using available time to learn, do side projects, read books, even earn a bit doing some freelance non-competitive work--and working two jobs where the expectation of each is that you're working full-time. (And, in all probability violating various confidentiality etc. agreements.)
    - winterplace 4y ago
      What is the difference? The 2nd one is the side project isnt it? Why would they be violating confidentiality? They are not going to tell the 2nd company about their 1st company. Also not going to share trade secrets since there is no need to.
- ivanhoe 4y ago
  9-5 jobs suffer from a lot of things all the time, it's sort of what managers already expect of employees, to be actually productive maybe 3-4 hours a day. Whether one is using the rest of time on water cooler politics, checking Instagram, playing games, or doing another job, it's not necessarily as visible in the overall productivity as you may expect it to be. Especially with well organized people smart enough not to set the bar too high in the beginning.
vmception 4y ago
Risk / reward Nobody should ever think in absolutes regarding these topics, only consequences, specifically the value of those consequences. Of course consequentialism is a two way street, like, is a potential $100 fine because an employer asked a personal question in an interview a deterrent? For an employee though, the stakes are technically way higher, but do you want that $3 million house or not.

thomgo 4y ago

You should check out r/overemployed

more_corn 4y ago

I work contract so I’m not hiding it from anyone. I juggle two clients simultaneously by design (it buffers me in case a contract ends). I’ve currently got four active clients and a compelling side-project (I also have 3 colleagues helping with those things). Keeping it all straight is a challenge. I lean heavily on my calendar and I take extensive notes. I have low patience for things taking longer than they should. And I’m having moments where I know I should remember a detail but it is just gone. I thought for a while that my memory was deteriorating, but I suspect I just have a lot going on and am reaching my natural limit of long term attention. I’m not sure I recommend it.

mr_spothawk 4y ago
> I thought for a while that my memory was deteriorating not juggling multiple "jobs" but still juggling a lot. i thought perhaps my memory was/is deteriorating... perhaps this is the reason!?

jarolinvargas 4y ago

I'm interested in the answers here. I'm considering doing this given that my current role is pretty laid back.

vr46 4y ago

So I am currently juggling a 9-5 and a freelance gig and a couple of side-hustle type roles and I am about to ditch the 9-5 because it completely gets in the way of everything else. My work goes best when I have time flexibility - duh - and the 9-5 remote keeps me trapped at my machine. Gigs based on delivering a thing have always been best for me - if I'm selling my expertise, it's ALWAYS better than selling my time.

akhmatova 4y ago

If you're two-timing on clients / employers (that is, plainly working two FT jobs at once) -- you can't expect that to end well. If you're working > 50 hours a week (or whatever your personal limit is) for more than 1-2 months -- that won't end well for your health or business relationships, either. That's the score, basically.

winterplace 4y ago
Having a kid is a 2nd job than makes it > 50 hours. Would you fire them?
pc86 4y ago
You're presenting opinions as if they are absolute facts above questioning. If you have a full-time job and you only need to do ~20 hours a week of work to complete all your deliverables, you could absolutely get another full-time job and have it go fine.
- akhmatova 4y ago
  No, it won't "go fine". You'll be lying to both of your employers. That's not "fine" and it can't possibly end well for anyone.
  - pc86 4y ago
    How do you know anyone lied? If you have two fully remote jobs, and the workload for each one is ~20-25 hours a week, and the times don't overlap... I was trying to get you to actually provide reasoning, or evidence, or even "I acknowledge it's my opinion but I feel this way because __________" but here we are with more "I'm right, you're wrong, you're dumb if you disagree." Please try again because this is a point I'd love to actually discuss rather than just having you talk past me.
    - akhmatova 4y ago
      Do either of your employers know that (1) you're working for another employer and (2) are actually working 20-25 hours a week when the terms of employment clearly state otherwise (as is almost universally the case with "full-time" employment in the U.S. and just about anywhere else)?

overemployed 4y ago

New account not to dox myself here. I'm doing it. I very recently took on a second full time job. I work as a Release Engineer for both. It hasn't been too bad so far. The biggest thing is managing your calendars to avoid conflicts.

solenoidalslide 4y ago
Do you often get into sitcom-like situations where you are in two different meetings at once and have to make sure you avoid any unmute mishaps? I'm specifically thinking a case where you have to respond in a way that would make sense to both calls at once.
- mongol 4y ago
  In would love to see the Seinfeld episode where George Costanza tries this. Perhaps it exists?
  - mateo411 4y ago
    I don't think George Costanza ever had two jobs at the same time. He did have two girlfriends at the same time once. He found it exhausting, so arranged for both of them to meet in the same place(Monks), in order to sabotage the relationship(s). Neither of them were willing to break up with him.
- overemployed 4y ago
  I'm still pretty new to it. But that hasn't happened yet
winterplace 4y ago
Do you have an email address or a contact method? It can be a new email address.

MilStdJunkie 4y ago

If you do this with direct charge government work, you're within hailing range of felony territory. Granted, you probably won't get caught, but if you do, it's going to be a bridge burner for you in this industry basically forever. Is that entirely a bad thing, though, considering this industry? Discussion ongoing.

HWR_14 4y ago
Only if you falsify your timecards, right? I'm not doing it, so I don't really care. But the felony would be falsifying billing paperwork?
rsanek 4y ago
Do you have a source for this being considered a felony?
- panda88888 4y ago
  https://news.clearancejobs.com/2021/09/08/does-your-client-watch-your-timesheet-hours-one-dod-contractor-finds-out-the-answer/ https://news.clearancejobs.com/2021/09/08/does-your-client-w...

willio58 4y ago

I could never. If you make enough money at one job working remote then there’s no need. If you don’t make enough then use your spare time beefing up your portfolio and applying to crazy-high paying jobs. Eventually you’ll land one. For me, working two jobs adds a level of secrecy that’d be difficult for me to maintain long term. Also could be hard to do simple things like take PTO.

froaway4job 4y ago

I've been working multiple remote jobs for the past 4 years. I'm currently working 4 full time engineering roles and a part time contract. It's been tough but a great experience. The main struggle is scheduling and making sure you can make all the meetings. It's also tough finding the right job which gives you autonomy to form your schedule. The main perks are obviously money and not caring about getting laid off. In this market it's pretty hard to get laid off, we shall see how it plays out over the next few years.

sdfgdfghj 4y ago
is this even legal?
- jhugo 4y ago
  Depends what you mean exactly. It's almost certainly a breach of all of the contracts, unless they were quite sloppily drafted, but it's probably not a crime [1]. The repercussions would be as determined by the contracts — likely just termination. [1] Not legal advice. It could maybe be fraud depending on the details?
- tra3 4y ago
  It may be against his contract, but none of the employment contracts I've ever had stipulated that I couldn't hire out my services elsewhere. Why do you think it'd be illegal?
- froaway4job 4y ago
  Maybe, which means yes it is legal. Will anybody come after me? Doubt it's worth it to come after an engineer making 250K and will work at your company for less than 2 years.
ttyp3 4y ago
TC or GTFO. (Am I doing that right?)
- froaway4job 4y ago

im_busy 4y ago

I currently have 1 full time job, 1 full time contracting, and 4 clients that pay me a retainer for a set amount of hours they can use week to week. It's going fine; I measure that based on my performance reviews all being excellent, my clients all paying the bills on time, and all work is done in a timely fashion. I do individual contributor infrastructure engineering at the senior+ level. Managing the calendar is the toughest part, making sure things don't overlap is difficult. My full time calendar is relatively light, the contracting gig on the other hand is starting to get on my nerves with the amount of meetings they're pushing me to attend.

im_busy 4y ago
Couple of other important points: * the full time and contracting gigs are in separate time zones, which helps time management. * I only actually work ~45-50 hours a week total, but all work is complete. * I only take on work that aligns. I use several extremely standard tools and ALL gigs are all the same, which lowers my cognitive overhead a lot.
tra3 4y ago
Thanks for sharing. If you don't mind a couple of questions: - is the compensation worth it? - do you think this is going to be a long term thing for you (burning the candle at both ends)?
- im_busy 4y ago
  Cash comp is around 800K pre tax, to me it's worth it; I'm able to push tons of cash into my retirement accounts and do things like purchase a vacation home. I've been doing it for the past few years, and it hasn't had a negative effect on my mental well being or family relationships. I work extra here and there, sure, but so does everyone, and it has more to do with "we need to do this at this specific time" than any actual extra work needing to be done.
  - hardwaresofton 4y ago
    Not the person who asked the question but thanks again for sharing this. I'm in a similar situation but without the full time job -- I can understand the retainer, but with the contracting do you charge per hour? I'd imagine you charge per day/week but that also feels a bit hard to balance evenly with a full time job.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

I was on the other side of this: We had a remote worker who got a new job but then tried to hide it, collecting paychecks as long as possible. For any manager paying attention, it wasn't difficult to spot. He would swing between being eager to please and virtually unreachable. We didn't have many meetings or phone calls, but he had more scheduling conflicts than anyone else. On the rare occasion that we had high urgency tasks, there was about a 50% chance that he would obviously be not working on it at all until the evening, despite being online all day. Eventually we let him go for non-performance, which wasn't too hard to document. Now he has a problem where his resume start/end dates don't match what he's claiming on LinkedIn or (presumably) putting on his resume. He also burned the entire team (they figured it out) so he's not getting any positive references from anyway. It may work if you can find two jobs with two incompetent managers who aren't paying attention, but I don't think it's as easy as people suggest for any reasonably well paying engineering job.

justsomehnguy 4y ago
> Now he has a problem where his resume start/end dates don't match what he's claiming on LinkedIn or (presumably) putting on his resume As a non-US person this is the most ridiculous reason to inherent anything.
nscalf 4y ago
It's not a problem, he's just going to lie about ever having a second job and only report his first job. That's how this works, you have a primary job which is your "real job", and others which feed you more paychecks until they realize you're underperforming and you get fired. FWIW I'm not doing this, I'm just on the /r/overemployed subreddit.
b20000 4y ago
so why didn’t you pay him more so he would not need to juggle jobs?
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  As long as you can fire them and find a replacement for the same price, why would you ever increase pay? Especially for a worker that is underperforming?

sithadmin 4y ago

FWIW, a lot of US employers report your current employment status, role and salary to databases like Equifax's 'The Work Number' - and nearly any organization that subscribes can view this data. HR departments DO look at this info and occasionally spot-check it to catch moonlighting employees. You can request your own data here: https://employees.theworknumber.com/ https://employees.theworknumber.com/

mongol 4y ago
So much for keeping salaries secret. Amazing.
- probIs8 4y ago
  You should never believe the elites follow the rules they put on the proles
CabSauce 4y ago
To provide a little more info. It is possible to request a freeze on your info, but of course they make it annoying. They appear to be sourcing the data from payroll management systems like ADP. Your organization might not even be aware that they're sharing and selling your paycheck information.
- ttyp3 4y ago
  I especially distrust companies using outsourced payroll and benefits startups for this reason.
  - gregjor 4y ago
    Payroll and benefits are complex and hard to administer. Complying with overtime and income tax rules across jurisdictions alone make outsourcing payroll and benefits a sensible decision for many organizations. The problem isn’t outsourcing a difficult and error-prone requirement that is never part of the core business (payroll and benefits). The problem is those outsourcing companies selling that data or using it for purposes other than managing payroll and benefits. Unfortunately we live in a world where anything we participate in, voluntarily or otherwise, potentially exposes us to data harvesting and our information sold to the highest bidder.

mrcartmeneses 4y ago

Seems like a recipe for burnout to me. But I burn myself out just doing one job anyway. Because for some reason if I’ve not out-delivered everyone else by an order of magnitude then I’m not satisfied

captainbland 4y ago

No chance. I guess maybe contractors might get away with it in some circumstances but I don't see how it works in conventional FT agile teams with regular ceremonies, meetings, etc. Plus I value my free time, which I know is weird.

gdfgjhs 4y ago

I am so confused with comments in this threads. Since when did tech employees became so submissive and scared? As far as I know, having 2 jobs is not illegal, not unethical. Many, sadly, low income families have to work two or more jobs. We in tech make enough but what if you are bored and need more challenges. My current second job is family but I know multiple single engineers (or in one case, with grown up kids) with 2 jobs. They work 16+ hours each day but with pandemic there was nothing else to do, so might as well do more work. At least, one guy is pretty open about it with both of his employers. Others hide it but they get the work done. Also you can list 2 jobs on your resume. When I started my career, I didn't had very high paying tech job, I did freelance work on the side and listed on my resume. Never been problem. Your company doesn't own you.

saagarjha 4y ago
Working a side job is typically not allowed for most full-time employees, at least not without permission.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- gdfgjhs 4y ago
  My current Fortune 500 tech company's contract explicitly said that if I moonlight, I cannot work for their competitors. And if I get a second job or contract work, I should discuss it with my manager or HR. It does't say anywhere that I cannot have second job at all. I know 2 SWE in the company who actually discussed this with their managers and got okay in writing for their consulting businesses. EDIT: Really curious if SWE actually read their contracts or they just assume that they are not allowed. I don't remember my contracts from earlier jobs. It would be interesting if we can have a site like levels.fyi for contracts.
  - SauciestGNU 4y ago
    I moonlighted for a while, and I checked my primary job's employment agreement first. All it said is that I can't be simultaneously engaged by competitors. No requirement to inform my manager or the company. Lots of people in my company have side businesses (some rebuild and sell laboratory instrumentation, others contract, etc). I was surprised when I discovered the permissive nature of my company, but I've never seen it be a problem for anybody.

motohagiography 4y ago

Did it legitimately over the pandemic because I'm a solo consultant/contractor and don't have exclusivity clauses so I manage multiple clients, however, it has come up in interviews when they look at dates because I put them all on my CV. Key observations to share are: - the more different the jobs are, the more managable they are, as the complete context switch is as good as a break. It's not task context switching which is costly, it's role switching, which can be uplifting because there is a "you" in between the roles that is separate from each of them. Most highly successful people have intense hobbies for the same reason. - Lying destroys your mental health. You don't need to lie if you set and relate with clear personal and professional boundaries. It's a kind of moral identity you have to set. Lying is weak, and indicates you've made some upstream errors that you just don't make when you are a pro. I asked a mentor for advice about something once and he said, "I don't get into the kinds of situations where this is even a question." If you are lying, for your own sake, stop. - Stress really only comes from failing (nobody gets tired of winning, maybe just bored), so having another source of success improves your attitude and that pays off on both gigs massively. Success gives you a refreshing vibe to be around, and most jobs don't provide enough of it, so bringing exogenous success to relationships and work is huge. - Working as a consultant in large institutions, there are employees and managers who make sabotaging and undermining consultants a kind of sport, so you need the durable skills for handling those people, as if you are doing multiple jobs, your biggest risk comes from people who won't respect your boundaries. That's a general life lesson as well. - Realistically, nobody questions anything if you are succeeding, so if someone gets "suspicious," it's really that you aren't delivering value for them and it's time to improve or move on anyway. - Have a plan to invest the increased revenue and don't spend it. You are giving up so much of your life to do the extra work, blowing it on representative and symbolic pleasures is just remedial, and becoming enslaved to the hedonic treadmill is a recipe for burnout. There is no there there. Luxury mainly makes up for impostor syndrome and blowing money satisfies a self destructive urge. If you wouldn't buy it if nobody else could see it, don't buy it. - Have a plan to outsource or compensate for all the personal balls you are going to drop like new relationships, home and vehicle maintenance, accounting, gym time (get a home gym), nutrition, pet care. If you can do a master's degree while working, you can do a second job, and people with families manage, but if you don't have commitment and buy in from your partner, consider that the additional revenue is just going to become a bigger support obligation when you destroy your marriage making it, so take care.

jlokier 4y ago

I find it hard to believe the statistic in the video that 37% of remote workers are working multiple jobs, with the implication that means full-time workers. Is that statistic actually for full-time workers doing overlapping time, and is there evidence? Or does it include all the people whose remote work is an hour here and there in random gig economy freelance tasks, where it's perfectly natural to have multiple commitments?

ghaff 4y ago
This seems to be the source: https://www.resumebuilder.com/7-in-10-remote-workers-have-multiple-jobs/ https://www.resumebuilder.com/7-in-10-remote-workers-have-mu... The implication is certainly that these are two full-time jobs. I don't have data to counter it but, I'm sorry, this just doesn't pass the sniff test. Sure, lots of full-time workers may earn a few dollars on the side now and then but that's not what this article seems to be saying.

Distozion 4y ago

It's interesting that a lot of people here seem to consider a second FT position as immoral/illegal. How about instead of a second FT job - studying FT for an unrelated degree? The time needed is arguably the same as a second FT and context switching is still there.

jdlshore 4y ago
I think that people are assuming fraud—working two jobs at the same time (eight hours a day), rather than two full-time jobs (16 hours a day).
- jstx1 4y ago
  Which is a fair assumption - putting 16 hours of work a day seems much less likely than someone working remotely and doing the bare minimum at 2 jobs for as long as they can get away with it.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    Doing the bare minimum is both legal and ethical though. If it wasn't it wouldn't be the minimum.
    - jdlshore 4y ago
      Legal, maybe. Ethical? Not to me. Think of it this way: would you tell your employer you were planning to work two jobs, and put in the minimum effort into them? Would you be above-board and transparent about your conflicting responsibilities and schedules? If not, you're committing fraud: "intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value." (The value, in this case, is the fruits of your labor.) And fraud is most certainly unethical, even if not illegal in this case. Employees trade their hours for the company's money. If you want to trade deliverables for money, you have to be a contractor on a deliverable-based contract. It's a lot riskier, which is why it pays more... sometimes. If you are in a full-time job, and not putting in full-time hours, you're defrauding your employer.

b20000 4y ago

a while ago i juggled 2 contracting gigs. they each paid X per hour which is a quarter to half of what you need as a full time self employed person in CA. employees in companies hiring contractors do not understand the math of self employment and thus expect unrealisticly low hourly rates. so we end up with this situation. i found that the max hourly rate for software development in general is about double of western europe. however, the cost of living there is a quarter of what it is in CA. TL;DR companies in CA in general are unaware of the enormous cost of living in CA partly driven by FAANGs. so anyone not working in FAANG ends up juggling multiple jobs. sort of like baristas but not yet as bad.

throwaway1995v2 4y ago

I do but one of them does know, basically I got a job offer, but my previous(and current employer) really needed me since they have a legacy backend written in a relative niche language and I was the only one left to maintain it while they migrate it to python, so they offer me to switch from full time to part-time with the same salary. so half of the day with my old employer and the rest with the new one. I'm only doing it to pay for my house faster and when I finish with that by the end of the year I will quit, so far It had worked pretty well(minus some super long days).

hardwaresofton 4y ago
> so they offer me to switch from full time to part-time with the same salary I'm not sure of the specifics where you are, but contractors/part timers are usually drastically cheaper to hire than full time employees. Your consulting rate should be 1.5x or more (I'd say 2x+) than your FTE rate.

sdevonoes 4y ago

Elon Musk, probably.

Schopenhauer01 4y ago
Lol, too many at the same time. Staying sane must be difficult for him.

DarrenDev 4y ago

Not doing this myself, but I've worked a couple of contracts over the past few years where the workload and expected outputs were so small that they could easily have been handled as a second job alongside a more regular job with regular workloads. Think 1 hours work a day. In both cases I resigned the job out of boredom, but I could easily have kept them on and worked a full second job with no one noticing.

earphonesthrow 4y ago

i'm working remotely from EU but company thinks i'm still in US

winterplace 4y ago
How do you handle taxes? Do you have an email address or a contact method? It can be a new email address.
spaghetti1535 4y ago
I didn’t think this would be possible for a EU citizen(?) Are you originally a US citizen and you moved to the EU?
- isbvhodnvemrwvn 4y ago
  Yeah it very much looks like it would only be possible with tax fraud being involved.

mrtweetyhack 4y ago

intellix 4y ago

I'm on both sides of this. I've started 2x companies at the same time (one where I work 9-6 and the other which I work around 6-12 and all weekend) so I'm literally working all the time. Initially it made me struggle in my 9-6 because typically when I don't understand something, I'd spend my outside hours reading into things or do some extra work to finish up... but now I appear as a standard developer instead of a 10x and it's frustrating as hell. The side project one has become vastly more successful and lucrative than my 9-6 and it's starting to creep into that time as well, with many employees asking me for information throughout the day and asking me to quickly help with things. I've told my 9-6 that I need to quit because it doesn't make sense but don't want to suddenly leave and harm the perspective value of the company. Both places know the other exists and I've really tried to keep them separate but it was easier when I was working in a vastly different timezone because I could juggle them both easier (get lots of valuable work done whilst nobody is online and feel like the day is already achieved). Now the other side of it which really pisses me off massively, is that for the side-job I've had to build a front/backend team to deliver things and it's fairly big now but it's 100% remote and we have no office (even before COVID). Some people that you hire are rockstars, others are just ok and then there's the guys who scheduling issues for meetings, suddenly become more active for a week when you notice they're not doing anything, push almost nothing. I wasn't aware of r/overemployed but it's been clear to me that this is a common scam for a long time. People start off great and then they suddenly stop delivering, which was making me start to really hate this remote stuff. We've applied a few things systematically to try and prevent the overemployed scam: - Daily geekbot standup reports of what you did yesterday, today and what's blocking you - Detailed weekly geekbot standup reports of what you managed to achieve during the week and what you're still working on (the people who stand out are the ones who are continuously working on the same items each week. The "detailed" is the part that really shown us the cockroaches hiding in the woodwork) - Each release has commit log with the author next to each (it shows who is delivering) - Enforced daily pushes - even if you're not yet complete with your work, you should be committing every day, so if we need to investigate, we can see what you're actually doing on a daily basis. We had people who would only push chunks every couple of days or every week and it was hard work reading through it, to see if it looked meaty enough. - HR Slack channel with automated leave calendar notifications, so you can see who's booked off for the day, with requests being approved by HR (everyone knows who is around for the day) and also if you need to disappear for an hour or two, you can write it, so everything is more transparent and people can be honest about being AFK. We have a project manager, who we thought would keep tabs on the velocity of each developer and catch out who wasn't delivering much, but it really didn't help and it took management to notice something was wrong with various people. We've got stricter over time. At first we were getting abused due to lack of time and process and it was mega depressing having so many people and not seeing things progress with the product and feeling like you were being scammed but now due to the process it's not that bad IMO. I can't wait to quit my 9-6 so that I'm able to be more hands on with the other and not have to work around the clock. Most of my work in the side job is trying to improve processes, unblock people and code in things to reduce the reliance on me so things are smoother.

msarrel 4y ago

Not an answer to the question, but pertinent. I'm hiring and I recently extended an offer to someone and that person responded by saying it wasn't enough money. Our HR department and I went through all the different salary surveys and we determined our offer was fair. The person countered by saying That was the amount of money that they needed. I said okay please submit a consulting contract. They submitted a consulting contract with someone else's name on it. I called them and they said "oh yeah, you caught me, I was trying to bill two different companies for full time." Not hired.