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Ask HN: Side projects vs. day job beyond a day

5 points by zorba ↗ HN
I am a software engineer with over 15 years of industry experience. I mainly design/architect software now a days and as part of that write enough code so my team has something to go by. I am fluent in C#, JS, Python and not so fluent, but comfortable in Ruby (RoR), Lua, C++, Java. I have tried doing side projects but without much luck. Either I get bored or lose motivation to continue or both. However, I see myself putting in extra time towards my day job, work that extends beyond a day, completely voluntarily because I really enjoy it and there is an end goal, something achievable.

So the question becomes, am I doing this all wrong? Should I really put in the effort to disconnect from the day job at the end of each day and try to really focus on some side projects? Or should I really give my day job 100% even if that means going above and beyond a typical 8-9 hour day boundary? This is a quandary I have had for a while and I am not able to resolve it on my own. So I figure I would ask the collective wisdom. Dilemma is this: if I put in extra time and energy towards my day job, I would probably only get some recognition and may be a raise, but the latter would be a long shot. However, I know I can push our company's tech limits if I did put in time outside of work hours and make us kick some ass out there. On the other hand, if I successfully get a side project of the ground, I might actually make some real side income. But again, historically I haven't been able to do so.

I always wonder if other software engineers have such a dilemma or am I the only one and the rest of you guys are absolute clear about your priorities?

7 comments

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justintocci
perhaps you should advertise your side projects first. collect email addresses of interested parties. if you had a list of people that wanted something you could probably motivate yourself to complete it.
aburan28
If you can contribute a meaningful side project and you are great coder then by all means put the time into a side project if you can think of a project that is worth something to others
uptownhr
what projects are you working on your day job? Would it be possible to open source these and make it into a side project?
uptownhr
Also, I'm currently on the opposite spectrum of not being able to concentrate on my day job but have a blast working on my side projects. It may be that you are working in an awesome environment! Enjoy :)
uptownhr
Your side projects may not earn you income directly but will definitely give you more leverage on earning more money through jobs. What ever work you have out there is ++ in my book and your boss or future bosses will put value on that.
sheepmullet
In general... It depends.

In your specific case I would lean towards putting in extra effort on work projects. You know the domain already and probably have a lot of interesting contributions to make. But a word of advice: don't tell your manager etc that you are working more hours lest it become an expectation.

With 15 years experience nobody is going to pay you more for having a basic side project.

philjr
To me this comes down to long term priorities. It's easy to lose focus on a side project if it's just a side project. The discipline required to maintain a side project for most people is really difficult.

What's the priority for you, let's say ten years out? ... Make a successful career working for someone else or eventually build something you own / created?

If you can't answer that question then you're always going to struggle.

Now once you have your long term priorities, now stop looking months ahead and start looking in terms of short term commitments to yourself and your project. Carve out some time every week to "plan". Make commitments to yourself in terms of days/weeks. Actually plan out your work and execute based on a plan of small iterations. Treat your side project like you would a work project except with much stricter time/resource constraints. This comes difficult to most people without the checks and balances of work, colleagues, bosses etc.

But it's much easier once you make much much smaller commitments about what you're doing and actually plan your work without jumping in to coding, which for coders on a side project is always the best part. You start tackling the most interesting bits in your head first and never want to get through the grunt work and the passion fades.