Or full time for someone else - only a small number of the professional programmers I know do 'out of hours' coding for fun or profit. The ones that do tend to

Or full time for someone else - only a small number of the professional programmers I know do 'out of hours' coding for fun or profit. The ones that do tend to be restricted to a fairly narrow age range and are working on their own things or with a well-trusted friend. Despite the fact that I am running my own business I frequently get asked to work on <an idea that is sometimes good but usually not interesting to me> by <a person I have met once with no idea of how hard their concept actually is to implement> who seem to be under the impression that because I can code I'd be happy with a 5% equity stake and will jump right on it. I take it as a compliment that they think highly of my abilities and try to be helpful by trying to point them at people who are looking for work, suggesting some ways they can make their pitch more credible (for example, committing to the prospective programmer how many hours they will put into PR and sales work), and resetting their expectations up to about 50% of equity. Right now the tables are turned on me as I would love a good PR and sales person to work with (not business admin - I'm good at that). But I need someone who can fund themselves for 12 months and so that puts me firmly on the wrong end of the supply/demand equation for once. The experience has given me a lot more empathy with the B school grads out there looking for coders.