Ask HN: How can I can side money with my engineering skills?
Many nights outside of work, I still read and build ideas that get me excited about tech. As time grows, it would be nice to make some money on the side with the skills I have. How can I work toward this goal?
I'm a senior engineer at a large bay area tech company working in backend/distributed systems. I have experience with UI/UX as well (which I really love to do for fun!).
I started a Youtube channel and get a few hundred bucks a month from that, but am interested in building some stuff outside of videos/teaching.
6 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 20.7 ms ] threadIf you already make a few hundred bucks from making videos, I think you are on a good track.
Do you make money through Patreon or from advertisment?
Some things to think about:
* Can you generate leads from your YouTube channel, at least for consulting?
* Talk to your viewers. Understand their problems and figure out what a lot of them see as as problem. This could go hand in hand with consulting.
* Build something to address this problem and make it a product. You already have people likely willing to at least try and give feedback.
What I see quite often is, that "creators" try to get people to sign up for their newsletters and that kind of stuff. I think there are a lot of ways to make money from content, but building something is probably the hardest... But as a tech person, it feels much more satisfying.
Write a course/book about something you know that can help others do their job better/get promoted, and charge for its value.