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

20 points arkensaw | 2 comments | 08 Jul 25 13:15 UTC | HN request time: 0.66s | source

Just wondering what are y'all doing for side gigs these days?
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VirusNewbie ◴[08 Jul 25 20:16 UTC] No.44503660[source]▶
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.
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burnt-resistor ◴[09 Jul 25 05:31 UTC] No.44506610[source]▶
You're never going to get moderately rich working for someone else, especially at a corporation without a union.
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VirusNewbie ◴[09 Jul 25 06:27 UTC] No.44506881[source]▶
>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?

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1. burnt-resistor ◴[09 Jul 25 08:12 UTC] No.44507434[source]▶
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.
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2. paulcole ◴[09 Jul 25 11:21 UTC] No.44508638[source]▶
There is quite a big gap between $100k and $250k.

If you happen to find yourself in that gap you can become moderately rich over a period of several decades by living frugally and investing in index funds with excess cash.

Or don’t do that and don’t become moderately rich. That is fine, too! It’s not impossible but you must prioritize the goal of becoming moderately rich over other goals.