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If you're capable of being CTO at a mobile games company but have glasses which are an appreciable portion of your net worth, you are not being paid the global

by patio11 12y ago

If you're capable of being CTO at a mobile games company but have glasses which are an appreciable portion of your net worth, you are not being paid the global market wage for your skill set. Consider quitting and hanging out your shingle as an independent iOS/etc developer. Market rates are $100+ per hour even remotely. You being not exactly a paragon of physical fitness will not be a barrier to getting deals -- there exist many people in the industry who are not. (I disagree that the startup will necessarily fail without your contributions. That being said, if a company can't succeed without the CTO slow-motion killing himself, the company has failed a core test of viability and should be garbage collected before it consumes even more scarce resources in the vain pursuit of a future.) After you have the money situation managed for the immediate future, I'd concentrate on getting the health situation stabilized. Resist the temptation to overwork -- that makes you sick and sickness doesn't improve your productivity. All the people telling you "eat right and exercise" are actually not blowing smoke about this. I'd also attempt to cultivate a mindset which is less "I have a bunch of interlocking problems which are a tremendous burden and none can be fixed without fixing the others" and more "Today is Thursday. I will use Thursday to get three things done which I did not have on Wednesday but which will make Friday a bit better." Then you repeat that for as many days as it takes.

speeder 12y ago
I am not much sure how to do that. First there is the issue that iOS pay much more, but I don't own a OSX machine, or a iOS device. And last time I tried I only ended into those freelancing sites where some people from India are offering to do Android and Lua work for 5USD/hour :/ I don't know where I can seek more serious work in that field, neither how to prove I can do it (no github, lots of past jobs was on secret and proprietary stuff).
- patio11 12y ago
  There exist longer answers for building a successful consultancy, but in the short term, you just identify companies which do Android/Lua work, identify people who probably have hiring authority at them, and say "I notice that you do Android games. As it happens, so do I, and I am looking for work. Do you have 15 minutes free next Monday to talk about this?" Websites are not where contract work exists any more than they are where source code exists. The wee little sample of both those fields which show up on the public Internet are a) tiny and b) disproportionately crappy. It is against the interest of engineers for us to think these are the totality of the market just because interacting with them is easy and doesn't require getting outside our comfort zones.
- rmc 12y ago
  Plenty of companies have hired someone remote for $5 per hour. It usually did not work out for them. (If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys). Use that as a selling point and as justification for charging $100/hr

by patio11 12y ago

speeder 12y ago

I am not much sure how to do that. First there is the issue that iOS pay much more, but I don't own a OSX machine, or a iOS device. And last time I tried I only ended into those freelancing sites where some people from India are offering to do Android and Lua work for 5USD/hour :/ I don't know where I can seek more serious work in that field, neither how to prove I can do it (no github, lots of past jobs was on secret and proprietary stuff).

patio11 12y ago
There exist longer answers for building a successful consultancy, but in the short term, you just identify companies which do Android/Lua work, identify people who probably have hiring authority at them, and say "I notice that you do Android games. As it happens, so do I, and I am looking for work. Do you have 15 minutes free next Monday to talk about this?" Websites are not where contract work exists any more than they are where source code exists. The wee little sample of both those fields which show up on the public Internet are a) tiny and b) disproportionately crappy. It is against the interest of engineers for us to think these are the totality of the market just because interacting with them is easy and doesn't require getting outside our comfort zones.
rmc 12y ago
Plenty of companies have hired someone remote for $5 per hour. It usually did not work out for them. (If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys). Use that as a selling point and as justification for charging $100/hr