Ask HN: How are you making money on the side?

Side gigs aren't worth it. If you're at a decent company, my boss feeling slightly more enthusiastic at my potential could mean tens of thousands of dollars more in bonus/stock at the end of the year. I'd rather work harder on work.

I think the current instability is changing that.

A sidegig can bring you happiness that a few thousands of bonus won't tho. Also, the current market sucks.

It's a good practice to question the premise of the question when writing an answer. (In this case interpreting the question as "how do I make money on the side.")

There are indeed other reasons for side gigs, but the parent question here does seem to be focused on the financial side of things.

I would agree that work-related progress is likely to be more profitable in the long run. IF (and it's a big IF) there is a route at work to more compensation then that is likely the best use of your time.

Of course not all jobs offer that path, and in some organizations it can take a bit of detective work to find out where things pay better, or where more value can be recognized.

You're never going to get moderately rich working for someone else, especially at a corporation without a union.

>You're never going to get moderately rich working for someone else, especially at a corporation without a union

I don't know what you mean by 'moderately rich', but I know multiple people who have saved millions of dollars (including myself), some of which who were able to retire early by working for 'someone else' - also none of which are union shops.

Do you really not know that many people have gotten quite rich working for FAANG companies? Do you also not know these people are much richer than union workers?

MS+MAANG only. That's a survivor-biased anecdotal example, not a widely-applicable strategy. Most people outside of the supersized corporations make around $60-100k, not $250k-1m+ TC at MS+MAANG. Founders exiting make much more, usually/hopefully several million per (successful) exit. I was making $10k/week doing tech consulting 10 years ago. Ordinary people, in specialized fields like contingent tax credit audit accounting, make much more on their own rather than working for someone else. This type of worker is, by far, more numerous in the real world™ of America than software engineers on HN.