6 ms·

"I now have six amazing clients, and I’m making an amount of money equivalent to my Google total compensation package,[1] which proves the thesis that it’s poss

by asim 4y ago

"I now have six amazing clients, and I’m making an amount of money equivalent to my Google total compensation package,[1] which proves the thesis that it’s possible to be a professional maintainer earning rates competitive with the adjacent market for senior software engineers." His experience is totally unique. Please don't let this make you think you can quit your job and earn the same you did at your high paying FANG job. He's an outlier in the industry. I was a nobody when I left my job to work on open source full time. It was a year before I found a corporate sponsor and that was only because my friend worked there and he understood the value of what I was working on. Patreon was laughable in terms of what came back. Just be fully aware as you read this. With existing brand and following you can do what he did, without it you'll struggle immensely like I did.

pfortuny 4y ago
The “thesis” he speaks about only needs one example to hold, and he is it. So, not much of a “thesis” but a data point. It is possible to survive a shark attack. Well, yes, but do not count on my to try.
usr1106 4y ago
With six clients one could think, ok it's not so expensive for them, but still sums up nicely for the developer. Still I think the situation is highly exceptional. Which employer/client would be happy with someone working for them only 1 day a week? And think about the adminstrative overhead for a single person to deal with 6 contracts all the time. With some clients the paperwork can be significant.
- cosmodisk 4y ago
  The context switching is substantial with 6 clients, even if it's the same tech. As for 1 day per week: a very senior person can give good advice or point to the right direction. The company I work for isn't a tech company, but we do hire people to provide specialist knowledge and it doesn't require full time position to do so.
lrvick 4y ago
I quit my job a couple years ago and secured several small retainers over a few weeks using my network. My employer at the time generously agreed to be my first client to smooth the transition. Today I have am managing 8 active retainer clients, and regular 1-2 week audit contracts, while rarely working more than 40 hours a week. Virtually all code I write is open source, or on track to be so soon, and I only work with clients okay with that. I am making triple my previous salary, and am actually onboarding new team members as a "tier 1" to help me meet demand without overworking myself. I am a full stack security engineer with 20 years of experience, and most companies can't have access to senior security engineers without paying GAFAM money in the range of $600k+ total comp, which they just can't afford. Instead I offer most companies start a retainer with my team and I for as little as 10 hours a month and we can be there when they need help with security architecture, important code reviews, risk assessments, conducting interviews, or just to help unblock people in general. This model is a win for companies that can't yet afford experienced full time security hires in house, and it is a win for me who can be in control of my time and life with higher income, and only have to focus on the most interesting problems of many different companies with minimal exposure to internal politics. I can't express how much happier I am. Best career choice I ever made. YMMV.
- goodpoint 4y ago
  > most companies can't have access to senior security engineers without paying GAFAM money in the range of $600k+ total comp It's difficult to believe that even in SV.
  - lrvick 4y ago
    High demand, low supply: https://www.axios.com/2023/01/24/cybersecurity-hiring-tech-layoffs https://www.axios.com/2023/01/24/cybersecurity-hiring-tech-l...
neilv 4y ago
> I’m sharing details about my progress to hopefully popularize the model, and eventually help other maintainers adopt it, Hopefully this won't inspire people who don't meet the right conditions and whatever luck contributed to this existence proof. I've known a lot of poor people trying to make it as independents in open source. I once sent a laptop to a homeless kernel hacker (and, earlier, sent them food), and had to find a laptop specifically to be small and discreet, because they feared being stabbed for anything flashy-looking. Another, who has done talks on their novel work at major hacker-as-in-HN conference, as well as other accomplishments, I had to tell them about Medicaid, because they couldn't afford to go to the doctor when they really needed to. One who accomplished something major that most HNers have used or heard of, was living in a trailer, and died. I've also known plenty of people in open source who had modest day jobs and were pretty stressed and depressed from money problems, and the cascading effects of that, despite being at least as tech-skilled as people making FAANG money. If you happen to find yourself as the official maintainer of multiple open source components that are recognized as key by numerous enterprises (and cryptobro ventures) that are flush with cash, and you have ins at some of those, and you have a safety net warchest from years of FAANG, and enough reputation you could probably go back if the whole indie open source consultant thing didn't work out... sure, consider a consultancy like this post describes, as a lifestyle move. Otherwise, it's like the movie star child of a Hollywood producer evangelizing this great career success formula they've found, prompting a bunch of aspiring actors to buy one-way Greyhound bus tickets from Kansas to LA, where most of them will be lucky if the worst that happens is they end up waiting tables.
- rurban 4y ago
  I'm making about €30/month from Github sponsors. Of course I had to get a day job, so my open source time is limited compared to the previous decades. Though my company is fine for me contributing to some GNU projects or openssl.
JamesSwift 4y ago
The number one rule of transitioning to contractor is _do not start from zero_. This can't be stressed strongly enough!! The amount of time and energy it takes to get the ball rolling in that space before momentum kicks in is enormous. Hoping to rely on the goodwill of the anonymous masses, and not leaning _extremely_ hard on your existing direct network is absolutely a failure waiting to happen in 99.9% of cases. If you are working full time, and plan to transition, you absolutely should be moonlighting it first and/or have hard contracts in place with your first 'medium/long-term' client already (i.e. not a one-off engagement).
stakhanov 4y ago
> He's an outlier in the industry. ...even more than that. He's an outlier in the industry and has chosen an industry with access to pyramid scheme money. Neither the investment bubble surrounding FAANG, nor the job market bubble surrounding the talent pool that FAANG recruits from (namely SE talent that happens to be localized in the Bay Area) were sustainable. Now that the market seems to finally be correcting away from that unsustainable local equilibrium, he's hopping right into the next one by becoming an open source crypto bro. > "proves the thesis that it’s possible to be a professional maintainer earning rates competitive with the adjacent market for senior software engineers." "Prove" is a strong word but "possible" weakens the statement. "It's possible to earn 95th-percentile compensation." True, by definition, for 5% of all people. Nothing to see here. "There's more than one way of getting there." True. "Honest pay for honest work will get you there." Probably not. "Just seek out the bubbles and jump right in is a reproducible way of getting there." Probably not, you'd have to get the timing right, and that's mostly luck.
- xorcist 4y ago
  I read that comment as referring to the Bay Area startup bubble. I myself don't refer to anything that isn't paying new customers with old customers money as a pyramid or Ponzi scheme, because I think that trivializes actual pyramid schemes. But a lot of people do, apparently, and it's completely understandable that a self perpetuating scheme where startups losing money at their core business at a varying rate are constantly sold at higher and higher valuations to see who holds the last hand, is regarded with the same skepticism.
  - stakhanov 4y ago
    By "pyramid scheme" I meant crypto, not Bay-area startups. > I myself don't refer to anything that isn't paying new customers with old customers money as a pyramid or Ponzi scheme In Wikipedia's definition, that aspect doesn't seem to be strictly necessary [1]. They define it as "a business model that recruits members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme". In my mind it also plays a bit of a role whether you're doing that with retail investors vs. high-net-worth or institutional players. A retail investor generally can't invest in startups, but might invest in crypto if their neighbor recently bought some and then talked them into it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme
jwr 4y ago
> His experience is totally unique. Please don't let this make you think you can quit your job and earn the same you did at your high paying FANG job. He's an outlier in the industry. …and yet… I run a self-funded SaaS business. I regularly pay (sponsor) developers of libraries that my software depends on. These are not large amounts, but they slowly grow over time. Additionally, there are some libraries (Semantic-UI for example) that are critical for me, but have been unmaintained for a while, and I'd gladly pay significantly more, on a regular basis, to have them maintained. I am pretty sure I am not the only one. The money is there. The problem is in gathering critical mass: both for any single developer, to make a living, and for the entire movement, so that we shift from a culture of "FREE FREE EVERYTHING IS FREE" to a more responsible and sustainable "it's free, but if you depend on it, you better contribute money every month".
- wrldos 4y ago
  Quite frankly you're extremely unusual. As much as I sound cynical here, the only reason we use open source stuff in our production SaaS is because we don't have to raise a purchase order to get it or go through the whole onboarding process which is a pain in the ass. The money isn't even the issue; it's there and available but it's a bureaucratic shit show trying to give it to people. And the same is true everywhere I've worked for the last 20 years. Yes I know this is wrong. Business idea: If there was a single corporate intermediatory who would handle all this sitting somewhere we could create a supply agreement with and funnel the cash through to the right people we could probably deal with it. We currently do this via AWS marketplace regularly so we don't have to deal with the paperwork.
  - stakhanov 4y ago
    > Business idea: If there was a single corporate intermediatory who... Isn't that what tidelift [1] is doing? [1] https://tidelift.com https://tidelift.com
  - reacharavindh 4y ago
    I feel like there is a business waiting to bloom here. Imagine a stripe like company that says “we are the unified B2B transaction company” who takes both sellers of software and buying enterprises as customers and create a easy to use purchase system where a software dev in the US could sell to a company in New Zealand without worrying about 1. Currency conversion 2. Local tax collection 3. Invoicing 4. Any other local formalities That is totally worth day 10% of the value of the product!

by asim 4y ago

pfortuny 4y ago

The “thesis” he speaks about only needs one example to hold, and he is it. So, not much of a “thesis” but a data point. It is possible to survive a shark attack. Well, yes, but do not count on my to try.

usr1106 4y ago

With six clients one could think, ok it's not so expensive for them, but still sums up nicely for the developer. Still I think the situation is highly exceptional. Which employer/client would be happy with someone working for them only 1 day a week? And think about the adminstrative overhead for a single person to deal with 6 contracts all the time. With some clients the paperwork can be significant.

cosmodisk 4y ago
The context switching is substantial with 6 clients, even if it's the same tech. As for 1 day per week: a very senior person can give good advice or point to the right direction. The company I work for isn't a tech company, but we do hire people to provide specialist knowledge and it doesn't require full time position to do so.

lrvick 4y ago

I quit my job a couple years ago and secured several small retainers over a few weeks using my network. My employer at the time generously agreed to be my first client to smooth the transition. Today I have am managing 8 active retainer clients, and regular 1-2 week audit contracts, while rarely working more than 40 hours a week. Virtually all code I write is open source, or on track to be so soon, and I only work with clients okay with that. I am making triple my previous salary, and am actually onboarding new team members as a "tier 1" to help me meet demand without overworking myself. I am a full stack security engineer with 20 years of experience, and most companies can't have access to senior security engineers without paying GAFAM money in the range of $600k+ total comp, which they just can't afford. Instead I offer most companies start a retainer with my team and I for as little as 10 hours a month and we can be there when they need help with security architecture, important code reviews, risk assessments, conducting interviews, or just to help unblock people in general. This model is a win for companies that can't yet afford experienced full time security hires in house, and it is a win for me who can be in control of my time and life with higher income, and only have to focus on the most interesting problems of many different companies with minimal exposure to internal politics. I can't express how much happier I am. Best career choice I ever made. YMMV.

goodpoint 4y ago
> most companies can't have access to senior security engineers without paying GAFAM money in the range of $600k+ total comp It's difficult to believe that even in SV.
- lrvick 4y ago
  High demand, low supply: https://www.axios.com/2023/01/24/cybersecurity-hiring-tech-layoffs https://www.axios.com/2023/01/24/cybersecurity-hiring-tech-l...

neilv 4y ago

> I’m sharing details about my progress to hopefully popularize the model, and eventually help other maintainers adopt it, Hopefully this won't inspire people who don't meet the right conditions and whatever luck contributed to this existence proof. I've known a lot of poor people trying to make it as independents in open source. I once sent a laptop to a homeless kernel hacker (and, earlier, sent them food), and had to find a laptop specifically to be small and discreet, because they feared being stabbed for anything flashy-looking. Another, who has done talks on their novel work at major hacker-as-in-HN conference, as well as other accomplishments, I had to tell them about Medicaid, because they couldn't afford to go to the doctor when they really needed to. One who accomplished something major that most HNers have used or heard of, was living in a trailer, and died. I've also known plenty of people in open source who had modest day jobs and were pretty stressed and depressed from money problems, and the cascading effects of that, despite being at least as tech-skilled as people making FAANG money. If you happen to find yourself as the official maintainer of multiple open source components that are recognized as key by numerous enterprises (and cryptobro ventures) that are flush with cash, and you have ins at some of those, and you have a safety net warchest from years of FAANG, and enough reputation you could probably go back if the whole indie open source consultant thing didn't work out... sure, consider a consultancy like this post describes, as a lifestyle move. Otherwise, it's like the movie star child of a Hollywood producer evangelizing this great career success formula they've found, prompting a bunch of aspiring actors to buy one-way Greyhound bus tickets from Kansas to LA, where most of them will be lucky if the worst that happens is they end up waiting tables.

rurban 4y ago
I'm making about €30/month from Github sponsors. Of course I had to get a day job, so my open source time is limited compared to the previous decades. Though my company is fine for me contributing to some GNU projects or openssl.

JamesSwift 4y ago

The number one rule of transitioning to contractor is _do not start from zero_. This can't be stressed strongly enough!! The amount of time and energy it takes to get the ball rolling in that space before momentum kicks in is enormous. Hoping to rely on the goodwill of the anonymous masses, and not leaning _extremely_ hard on your existing direct network is absolutely a failure waiting to happen in 99.9% of cases. If you are working full time, and plan to transition, you absolutely should be moonlighting it first and/or have hard contracts in place with your first 'medium/long-term' client already (i.e. not a one-off engagement).

stakhanov 4y ago

> He's an outlier in the industry. ...even more than that. He's an outlier in the industry and has chosen an industry with access to pyramid scheme money. Neither the investment bubble surrounding FAANG, nor the job market bubble surrounding the talent pool that FAANG recruits from (namely SE talent that happens to be localized in the Bay Area) were sustainable. Now that the market seems to finally be correcting away from that unsustainable local equilibrium, he's hopping right into the next one by becoming an open source crypto bro. > "proves the thesis that it’s possible to be a professional maintainer earning rates competitive with the adjacent market for senior software engineers." "Prove" is a strong word but "possible" weakens the statement. "It's possible to earn 95th-percentile compensation." True, by definition, for 5% of all people. Nothing to see here. "There's more than one way of getting there." True. "Honest pay for honest work will get you there." Probably not. "Just seek out the bubbles and jump right in is a reproducible way of getting there." Probably not, you'd have to get the timing right, and that's mostly luck.

xorcist 4y ago
I read that comment as referring to the Bay Area startup bubble. I myself don't refer to anything that isn't paying new customers with old customers money as a pyramid or Ponzi scheme, because I think that trivializes actual pyramid schemes. But a lot of people do, apparently, and it's completely understandable that a self perpetuating scheme where startups losing money at their core business at a varying rate are constantly sold at higher and higher valuations to see who holds the last hand, is regarded with the same skepticism.
- stakhanov 4y ago
  By "pyramid scheme" I meant crypto, not Bay-area startups. > I myself don't refer to anything that isn't paying new customers with old customers money as a pyramid or Ponzi scheme In Wikipedia's definition, that aspect doesn't seem to be strictly necessary [1]. They define it as "a business model that recruits members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme". In my mind it also plays a bit of a role whether you're doing that with retail investors vs. high-net-worth or institutional players. A retail investor generally can't invest in startups, but might invest in crypto if their neighbor recently bought some and then talked them into it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme

jwr 4y ago

> His experience is totally unique. Please don't let this make you think you can quit your job and earn the same you did at your high paying FANG job. He's an outlier in the industry. …and yet… I run a self-funded SaaS business. I regularly pay (sponsor) developers of libraries that my software depends on. These are not large amounts, but they slowly grow over time. Additionally, there are some libraries (Semantic-UI for example) that are critical for me, but have been unmaintained for a while, and I'd gladly pay significantly more, on a regular basis, to have them maintained. I am pretty sure I am not the only one. The money is there. The problem is in gathering critical mass: both for any single developer, to make a living, and for the entire movement, so that we shift from a culture of "FREE FREE EVERYTHING IS FREE" to a more responsible and sustainable "it's free, but if you depend on it, you better contribute money every month".

wrldos 4y ago
Quite frankly you're extremely unusual. As much as I sound cynical here, the only reason we use open source stuff in our production SaaS is because we don't have to raise a purchase order to get it or go through the whole onboarding process which is a pain in the ass. The money isn't even the issue; it's there and available but it's a bureaucratic shit show trying to give it to people. And the same is true everywhere I've worked for the last 20 years. Yes I know this is wrong. Business idea: If there was a single corporate intermediatory who would handle all this sitting somewhere we could create a supply agreement with and funnel the cash through to the right people we could probably deal with it. We currently do this via AWS marketplace regularly so we don't have to deal with the paperwork.
- stakhanov 4y ago
  > Business idea: If there was a single corporate intermediatory who... Isn't that what tidelift [1] is doing? [1] https://tidelift.com https://tidelift.com
- reacharavindh 4y ago
  I feel like there is a business waiting to bloom here. Imagine a stripe like company that says “we are the unified B2B transaction company” who takes both sellers of software and buying enterprises as customers and create a easy to use purchase system where a software dev in the US could sell to a company in New Zealand without worrying about 1. Currency conversion 2. Local tax collection 3. Invoicing 4. Any other local formalities That is totally worth day 10% of the value of the product!