Part-Time Jobs Held by Developers

This question is basically a generalization of the question posed in the "Breaking into teaching Programming" thread.  Do any developers out there have part-time jobs?  If so, what do you do?  Do you do this extra work for the pay?  For the satisfaction?  For some other reason?

bob
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Teach marching band at a local high school... Entirely for the fun of it and to get away from the screen and be outdoors for a while, at least in the fall.  (Winter, I don't mind being holed up inside).

JT
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

I write miniatures wargames systems. Yes -- for money. Not very much so far, but it's not software engineering at least.

Katie
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Sales associate at a local computer mega-store.  My software position is very solitary, and this gives me a way to actually have conversations with real, live human beings.  Plus I get cool discounts.

anon
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

I am seriously thinking of taking up a part-time mail delivery job. :)

Programming made me fat - I just sit and stare for 8-10 hours, every day, at the screen, with only my fingers moving.

Do this for many years and you'll surely get fat, too.

So - I was thinking of getting a mail delivery job, because for this kind of jobs, you have to walk a lot.

I have asked the post office about this, but I found out that they now use cars and scooters. :-(

MX
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

>I am seriously thinking of taking up a part-time mail delivery job.

Not sure how serious you are but that actually sounds like a reasonable idea in a crazy sort of way.  Get paid for exercising:-)

Any idea what sort of hours (time-slots, duration and frequency) that you have to work (esp. in UK)?

SC
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Write stored procedure documenting tool for SQL Server.

KS
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

i'm doint truck driving (minvan actually) for my relatives when somebody is sick, however there were times when i did it for months, before office hours .. as pm/programmer 11:00 am in the office is doable.

it was / still fun. you do not need a tie, talk to other truck drivers, some excercise.

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

buying/fixing houses

Full name: (Required)
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

This must sound strange, but I teach swing dancing in the evenings.

Fred Ngo
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Ya know, I've always thought that i'd be a lot more fun to work two part-time jobs than one full-time job.  The first full-time job would be programming.  And the second would either be programming (on some completely different problem domain) or working in a coffee shop, bookstore, etc, etc.  Even if they were both programming, I'd find each to be a refreshing change from the other.

But since most companies don't like hiring part-time (non-intern) staff, I'd be stuck going the contractor route, and I don't know that I want to do that.  Plus, I might find it difficult (here in the USA) getting medical insurance, etc, and all the "perks" of full time employment.

Ahh, well.  I can dream...

Michael Kale
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Micheal:

If you are single and male, you can get catostrophic coverage insurance pretty cheap  -- but they don't pay a time until you have paid something like $5,000 in bills in a given year.  Thus, you limit the potential downside.

Of course, this includes babies, so if you're married, it might not be the best idea.  HOWEVER, if you are married, nothing prevents the wife from getting a job with benefits so you can go contract.

Or, price real insurance, and figure out how much you have to make to cover it.  In other words:

min_self_employed_income:=
  current_sal +
  401K_match +
  cost_of_insurance +
  other_intangibles;

Then see if you can make that income.  Building customers at night until you have enough to quit the day job is an option, but it's a tiring one.  Best to find one lucrative contract and quit.

For example:

You make $60K/yr, plus bennies means you want to make 90K/yr to break even.

You find one contract that will pay you $60/hr for 20 hrs a week.

You can quit, buy your benefits, and use the other 16 hours a week to look for more work. (You'll want to save 4 hours a week for vacation.  Remember, you're paying yourself. :-)

It's a risk, but the people I know who have pulled it off did it this way. 

regards,

Matt H.
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

For several years I was a track & field coach. All volunteer though. Never got paid for it. It doesn't pay well anyway, so doing it for no money allows one to feel all high and mighty about his own altruism. I had gotten certification from the USA T&F assn but that is only good for 5 years and I never bothered to get recertified.

I also wrote and posted a freeware app for road race management which may still exist somewhere on the web. I haven't updated it since win95. But recently I tried it out on WinXP and it still worked. One version of it was written in C for DOS and the windowed version was written in VB 1.5.

old_timer
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

I am a landlord part-time (don't know if you consider that a job but I do.

My dream partime job is to own a coin-op carwash$$$$

shiggins
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Thanks, Matt.  That's some good advice.  I am (currently at least) single with no kids and something like that might work out...

Michael Kale
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

>I am seriously thinking of taking up a part-time mail delivery job. :)

Get into pamphlet delivery, they do lots of walking.

Aussie Chick
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

I have been talking for weeks about dumping my full-time job (admin/IT for a bunch of accountants) and doing something fun.

I mean if a career means being stuck in doors with a moody boss, and people who say "we love initiative" but in reality cut it down and....you get the picture.

Really it is no fun.

I used to cotton chip for a living (this is spending 5am to 1pm walking down long rows of cotton, with a long metal hoe in your hand, chipping out any weeds). But all my friends would do it, it wa the hardest of work, there were no toilets (squat in the field, or wait until the end of the row and jump into the water trench).
But it was fun!!! we talked all day, no stop, laughed, joked, and got incredibly tanned.

I almost just want to quit and go work at a retail shop in a shopping centre, at least it would be slightly more fun, and I would get discounts!!!

Aussie Chick
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Aussie Chick,

I wonder if a timeshare could work for you. Your bosses would hate it, but if you're a consultant, you can simply "hire" another consultant and send them in to work instead of you a few days or weeks at a time.

It might be disconcerting to find that their sysadmin did this so she could get a job at the mall though.

www.MarkTAW.com
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

yes, but what you have to understand that I am just an admin in their eyes.

I spent all day yesterday taking client working, printing out the tax returns and financials, binding them together and adding a letter (we call this the 'final').

Boring as anything, but it is what they want.

My job is to help people when there computer won't turn on, or there mouse won't work, install the odd bit of software.

I had a great twelve months because someone (before I got given this role) decided to switch from a netware3.x server to a terminal server, and then 10months later we added an SBS server, so I have spent 12 months dealing with all sorts of problems related to this, but they are finally under control.
Management is happy because they can finally have me doing something useful like admin work, and answering phone calls and typing letters and......

Aussie Chick
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Did I mention I am bored out of my brains?

I keep looking for part-time work that I could do from home (ie programming etc).
Plus I keep looking for ways to get some work experience so that I can get one of the few serious programming jobs that pop up aorund here.
I am even considering taking a job in Brisbane (1.2 hours away) the commute would be harsh, so it is still only a thought but I need something!

Aussie Chick
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Outdoor Volley ball ref - 3 nights a week, the other 2 nights I play....  ref-ing pays for my bar tab the nights I play :)

apw
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Aussie Chick, you might consider doing what I did at one point.

I had a stretch of time where I was working a 9-5 sort of job over the summer (I was in college at that point) but kinda wanted better.

So I spent a summer coding in the evening and built an Impressive Demo that I was able to use to open doors that would not have been opened otherwise.

Now, the legalities of this can be a smidge fun depending on where you live and what your employment agreement is like.  At the very least, you have to be careful to do nothing at all related to your evening-project with your day-job's resources.  Depends on where you live, of course.

Writing someting on your own time gives you two alternatives -- you can either polish it off and sell it, or use the demo to demonstrate your coding skills.

Flamebait Sr.
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

That is exactly what I am doing.
I am writing a small Word Add-in in Visual Basic, for those very reasons, to hone my skills, to learn more about the language, so I can show it to potential employers, so I can sell and make money and maybe solve my problems by creating my own business!

Still I would like more experience, I want to get my hands dirty in code full-time, and I keep wondering if it is a pipe dream, maybe it is impossible, maybe nobody really gets paid to write code, it is just something that you imagine happens…..okay well it just seems that way sometimes.

Aussie Chick
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

I meant to ask, when you said ‘impressive demo’ what was it.

I mean, what were you aiming for, a full-blown app, or just a hunk of code, what did you show people? Did you send a disk with your resume? Or just turn up with your laptop?
Very curious/interested.

(so if this has become OT)

Aussie Chick
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Full-blown app.  I'd give a copy to recruiters and put it up on my web page.  Something large enough to show that I had spent some dedicated time working on it but small enough that I could get it done.  At the same time, I made sure that everything was carefully designed so that if somebody wanted to look at the code or something that it would be a good display of my coding skills.  It should be the sort of programming you would like to get paid to produce. ;)

I'd generally turn up with my laptop anyways simply because I was generally flying out and I could play games on the plane.

Flamebait Sr.
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Do you still have it on your website?
Could I have a look?

Do you think it made a difference?

Aussie Chick
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Aussie Chick:

Do you still have it on your website? Yes
Could I have a look? Unfortunately, no. :(
Do you think it made a difference? Yes

(Sory, I had to chose between censoring my commentary or anonymity.  I'm obnoxious, so I chose anonymity ;) )

Flamebait Sr.
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

I do understand.

You said this opened doors, did you actually cold-call businesses? Or was this more as a clincher in the interview process?

Aussie Chick
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Some combination thereof.  It will make your resume less likely to be discarded in the stack.  And then it would make you look better as a prospective employee.

Since most people don't do such things, it also means that people *will* remember you, out of all the other people as the dude/chick who handed them a disk.

Flamebait Sr.
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Thanks.

Aussie Chick
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Yeah, no prob, Aussie Chick.  You'll have to tell us how the strategy works. ;)

Flamebait Sr.
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

When I finally get started, beit working somewhere where I don’t have to type letters, or my program sells enough for me to live off, well you will hear about it.

Joel and his cronies will have to delete threads to try and quench my excitement.

Hey ho Silver away…… (not sure why I wrote that, it just felt appropriate).

Oh gosh, why wouldn’t you want to hire someone like me?

Aussie Chick
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

hey aussie chick, if I were you, I'd keep plugging away on your software, and try to figure out how to make a living selling it yourself, rather than using it as a demo for getting a development job.

nothing kills the desire to program like programming for other people! :)

seriously though, after I sock away a few more dollars, I'm taking a coffee shop job (if i can't get a job at the skateboard shop/park)  and working on my software ideas on my own.

hell is other people, and the level of hell reserved for software project managers is somewhere between the level for university bureaucrats and the one for hollywood executives.

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

What’s wrong with university beuracrats?

Let just say I am keeping my options open and willing to explore all avenues.

I have stuck it out in this job longer then I though I would, it is so boring, I tell you it is boring as boring, with no fun! I came very close to applying for a no-brainer part-time job so that I could do my programming on the side.


We shall see what happens, and never fear I have no intentions of stopping writing software. I think using a demo is a great idea, and there is no reason why that demo cannot be a full-blown app that I have written to sell. But I also want to have a run in the big wide world, a ‘real job’ so to speak. Just for the fun of it.

Aussie Chick
Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Hi,

We are whole saler of very elegant greeting cards in Austria and Germany. we are looking for some sales representative agents in Berlin, München, Frankfurt and any other cities of Germany (and Italy).

If you are intrest on this Job please contact us at: contact@samsrainbow.com
and also visit our Web site on www.samsrainbow.com .

Best regards

Mehrdad Afshar

Mehrdad Afshar
Thursday, June 17, 2004

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