Ask HN: Non-programming part time jobs?
While I am a software developer, somehow the thought of working for another company depresses me a lot at the moment. I guess ultimately I enjoy thinking about concepts more than the actual programming. Programming is a means to an end to realize my ideas. But programming for another company would mean programming for programming's sake. (Just trying to understand why the thought depresses me so much).
And yet, I need money. I wish I could think of any other way to earn minimum living expenses than developing. I'd love to just work in a cafe or a book shop for a couple of days, but I worry that it might not pay well enough.
Part time developer jobs are also hard to come by (which would leave me time to work on my own projects, hopefully alleviating my depression).
Maybe somebody here has ideas for a middle road?
It would also be great to work not sitting at a desk all the time.
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 62.6 ms ] thread(Some at my previous day job once remarked that it would be cheaper to order me to do tutoring than to pay for a freelance English tutor, given the hourly equivalent of what Japanese salarymen my age made versus the typical price of an hour of English instruction in this neck of the woods.)
Edit to add:
That aside isn't quite so useful for folks not here. Let me hum a few bars: students at highly competitive suburban high schools, students studying for the LSAT, working professionals with gaps that are impeding their career growth, and middle class women who are filling a hole in their life through learning stuff all pay rather substantially more than 10 year olds who need help with multiplication.
The thing about a) is that often the kids aren't stupid but they've just gotten a bad explanation. I find that a one on one with a no-nonsense explanation and enough examples clears everything up and suddenly you're a hero. The thin about b) is that you might need to know things specific to the type of thing you're helping with (eg, SATs) but you're more likely to get repeat jobs from the same customer.
The marketing scheme here is mostly word of mouth. You can put up signs and that'll get you some business but once you successfully help your first couple of students the word spreads like wildfire between stressed parents and you suddenly have a reputation. Your reputation is very important so don't scam your clients, work on giving a good impression and maybe even give occasional freebies to regulars.
Anyway, it can be very rewarding and fun work. Once you get that first student, it becomes exponentially easier to find the next by asking for referrals.
Anyone know if something like this exists?
I also know a number of guys that make acceptable money teaching chess at private schools, homeschool groups, etc.
Another friend does something similar teach biology to groups. He also does guided walks and field trips for groups at local parks. He has a collection of interesting animals and even does birthday parties on the weekends. I also know a guy that's an animal trainer that now makes all his income from school events and birthday parties.
Or you should read about The Great Zucchini, a birthday party clown making $300 a party. I'm sure the business has gone downhill since 2006, but it's still good money for a flexible, weekend-only job. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01...
You might consider looking for something you can do online that doesn't require programming, such as e-commerce. Do you have something you can produce or resell that will let you apply your technical knowledge in a non-technical way? Crafts, or writing, or buying and selling used stuff?
I suppose you are talking about summer camps by universities about some technical subject? Sounds good, but wouldn't they mostly hire students?
My suggestion would to find a part time job that has you active physically and mentally. Tradesmen / craftsmen are always looking for some reliable help even if you need to be trained. Go learn cheese making or how to run a printing press.
It resonated with me when you said "I guess ultimately I enjoy thinking about concepts more than the actual programming" because I think I'm that way too. But that's lead me to think a lot about programming concepts and into language design.
Not giving up yet, but at the moment I need money...
Your comment reminds me that there should always be ways to make the programming job more interesting. If it is boring, I should think about creating abstractions/frameworks/IDEs and what not to make it less boring.
So your comment cheered me up at least a little bit :-)
I should probably taper my words with some warning then.
I'm the kind of programmer that has always thought about methodology, design, and best practice. And after thinking about that for years, and talking with other programmers like me (only smarter) and learning from them too, I can tell you not only is it really really hard but the pursuit of the nicest possible programming experience (clarity, simplicity, lack of repetition) can make you very unproductive.
The guy who spends all day writing frameworks, testing tools, and language abstractions is rarely the guy getting the most done. Unless he's a super-genius.
Only recently I was trying to apply TDD to a really extreme level. I didn't work. I ended up throwing loads of useless tests and suddenly was much more productive. But I probably lost weeks because of that.
But there is some good news: My hardcore desire to make everything wonderful barely exhibits when I program in Haskell. I think this is because the lack of side-effects, strong type-checking, and high-order functions give you such a good baseline and I don't feel like I need to write lots of abstractions and complicated things just to feel like I've got a handle on the situation. But then I'm unproductive because of inexperience with Haskell and FP in general. But that's a temporary thing.
I've been reffing hockey since the 9th grade and its a great way to get exercise, enjoy the game, build communication skills and make a decent amount of money (at least $20/hour, plus mileage).
And I guess it depends on the situation, because I only got $10/hr.
And on your comment about working in a cafe. I have often thought about how great it would be if someone started a "Startup Cafe" with a rag tag group employees that were all working on their own projects. Somewhere you could pick up a few hours in your odd spare time and still be in a stimulating environment. Maybe have a laptop setup next to the server stand for a few snippets in your downtime. Someone start working on that! I'll buy my coffee there.
Not a bad idea at all.
I would seek out about a dozen clients who cared about carbon and hopefully had small lawns, rich aging hippie types. I would charge about twice what normal lawn service costs; the whole group would arrive and cut lawn and do any other work en masse, otherwise I think it would take too long.
The overall goal was to have enough work to have 1 full day's hard work each week, for which each person would earn about $200. I wanted to design the business explicitly to provide a way to pay the cheapest rent in my area (half the cheapest two bedroom apartment) and a little left over for food and etc.
I wish someone would try this. However, the person who actually starts it for the first time will probably find themselves working full time for quite a while, and it won't be a part time backup job for them.
A side note on lawn mowers -- they are almost all not work horses or indistructable, particularly the $50 ones you will get used. They are garbage. Briggs and Stratton has a good reputation, but I am not sure they are currently living up to it. A good rule of thumb is to get the best ratio of engine displacement to cutting swath you can get. If you get the used ones, get three and expect to be constantly repairing them, which will be fun for a while and then get old.
I like the carbon free lawn service idea. My current mower is actually an American lawn reel mower. Coincidentally, I bought it on craigslist for $35. It's from 72, and still cuts like a champ as long as your willing to maintain it. The "carbon free" service would work great in my area where there is a high density of people in town homes with small front lawns.
Maybe YMMV on the small lawn mowers. But I have had extremely good luck with them. I think that most of the problem people have with mowers is failing to maintain them properly. In my experience, if you can buy a used mower that will start quickly without much hassle it can generally be kept in decent working order for a long time. But purchasing one of these used mowers was why I said the idea scales. It's pretty easy to get enough work out of a used mower to buy a better quality mower.
Thanks for sharing your insight. I hope someone jumps on the reel mower service.
can you name a few?
Also a couple of guys at Yahoo working on Hadoop. Lots of startup founders (of course) who completely decide what to do.
Even a couple of teams at Intuit (which has to be the most manager heavy company in the whole world).
And people paid to work on Open Source projects have significant amounts of autonomy. Now that I think of it almost every developer I know who is not working on outsourced enterprise software seems to have significant (but not absolute) autonomy.
really? do you think you know a representative sample of developers?
I never claimed to. But hey those are the people I know, "representative sample" or not! You asked for examples of programmers with autonomy so I gave a few. As I was writing that, I discovered that except those working on outsourced enterprise sw, most developers I know do have significant autonomy.
Sorry if that didn't answer your question sufficiently. A "representative sample" developer in Bangalore (where I live these days) has a job screwing around with mountains of crap outsourced code no one in the West wants to touch with layer after layer of management wielding the whip and micromanaging him. No autonomy there!
I'm looking at creating 1hr screencasts.
I'm in exactly the same position that you are, except I also need a US Visa. I feel sad reading all those suggestions that I can not do because they won't give me a Visa :(
Agree with those who said lawn care. It's hard to build a long-term business because it is competitive but if you're just trying to make $1-2K/month, you can do it. Being a helper/laborer for a tradesperson also sounds like it might fit your desire to not sit in front of a computer all of the time. Good luck!
I happened to be in college at the time, but many of my co-workers were people who waited tables on the side of their regular jobs. IIRC, one guy was a minister, another owned a catering business, and another was a teacher.
Another big plus if you're not married is that you meet tons of girls :)
I haven't been an employee myself, but I took a few cruises in 2007, and got to know some of the staff members. The pay is pretty basic, and the food apparently sucks, but there was no denying how much fun (and how much sex) they all seemed to be having, and seeing passports so full of stamps they had to order new pages every few months was pretty impressive as well. They hired computer-literate types for tech positions (the ships all have sat Internet) and newsletter-publication jobs - there are probably others for which I didn't speak to the employee.
If you were up for an adventure-type job, this might be something to explore.
You may find it hard to get a part-time job to start off with. It may be easier to work a full time job for a few months, and then ask to cut back. If you save money in the mean time, you can quit if they refuse and seek out a better position.
There are a lot of posts here about the best kinds of part-time jobs. In reality, you are probably not going to be able to pick out the ultimate pay-the-rent-while-I-code-my-startup job; you are going to end up with one of the first few you actually find, and finding that job itself may be a full time effort for a while.
In that light, I'd like to suggest that the actual job and environment doesn't matter so much as you'd think, and that the fact that it is DIFFERENT is what matters.
Ideas for good products come from experience, not from cloistered ivory tower environments. You might come with a great product after working with several different inventory or point-of-sale systems, or observing how an independent roofing contractor maintains all his contacts on his phone, or whatever.
All the great American writers first learned by writing about real life things - Steinbeck filed many short newspaper stories on dust bowl refugees before he wrote the Grapes of Wrath, Clemens did the same and wrote of real experience in "Roughing It" before his masterpieces.
Here's my advice: 1) know your expences and cut them where appropriate; 2) get a job, and quit it within the first 2 weeks if it obviously sucks, and then get another one; 3) while working, agressively attend meetups and similar events so you don't become socially isolated; 4) after 3 months, ask your boss if you can cut back to part time if you need to do that - if he says no, work another 3 months and ask again; 5) if he still says no, quit, re-evaluate working a corporate development job, and start over again at step 1 if that's what you need to do.
Pros:
1.) Work with attractive women/men 2.) Cash in your pocket 3.) Forced exercise/weight loss 4.) Hours can compliment an office job's
Cons:
1.) Dealing with people and their food 2.) Can be stressful
I'm on my third full-time job working for "the man" in 10 years and have learned a ton about what is involved beyond the code. I still very much have aspirations to put all that knowledge and experience to use for my own endeavors.
Best of luck!
Retail - Retail sucks if you hate what you're selling, otherwise it's not too bad. I worked in a supermarket and hated it, but a friend worked for a car parts store and absolutely loved it.
Delivery Driver - Friend who worked at car parts store switched to a driver after awhile and liked that even more. Load up the car and head out, get people to sign off and sometimes collect payments. I always thought I'd like this style job, mostly because it's so independent.
Computer repair/freelance IT work - Most people would give this a big "hell no", in high school I worked for a bunch of small companies and made $25/hr cleaning off viruses/repairing machines/building new PCs. I'd usually go into a place for 3-4hrs on weekends. If you don't hate it, you can make some decent money.
If you're fairly comfortable with computer hardware and windows, you'll get by fairly easily. For all other problems: google. The IT jobs also lead to more side work, typically the companies I worked for didn't have websites. I worked out deals with friends who were designers and asked for a finders fee for referrals I sent. (Knowing what I do now, I would've taken on the work myself at a higher rate for web development and just outsource most of it)
I applied for some fast food jobs.
You could find a 3 month contract and then take three months off.
Some other possible jobs with a lot of downtime for doing your own thing might be security guard or small hotel desk clerk.