Best way to make extra money as a programmer? (e.g. contract work) - Developers

I work as a software engineer at a fairly major company. I have some free time on weekends that I feel like I'm currently wasting. What is the best way to pick up extra work as a programmer that won't require a significant time investment?

Firstly I would check that your company allows moonlighting. Secondly I would check if the extra tax you will have to pay from taking on contract work would not actually add up to most of the extra income you will make. You don't want to be working for what amounts to free due to tax. Thirdly it is all down to your own "connections" when it comes to finding work, you obviously have plenty of experience and that will help. I would avoid using freelancer sites etc; it is a bad idea as you will pretty much always get undercut by Indian and Chinese software houses which end up making it a bad deal.

take up a hobby project, polish it until its good enought to release, ???,profit!!

[QUOTE=Dvd;39425334]I work as a software engineer at a fairly major company. I have some free time on weekends that I feel like I'm currently wasting. What is the best way to pick up extra work as a programmer that won't require a significant time investment?[/QUOTE] I don't want to judge, but do you want to program the rest of your life, 7 hours a day, 7 days a week? I get the whole hobby thing and trust me I love programming. I also have no idea how old you are. I do know however that overworking myself landed me at the doctor's office for serious arm problems, and it sure made me discover the whole real life thing out there. I entirely agree with all of HTF's advice, especially the tax thing. Also be careful not to fall into a conflict of interest. EDIT: And I don't mean "hurr durr it hurts but I can still type" kind of problems. It took a month and a half for me to recover, I was in light depression due to possibly having to shift my whole life around, and during that month and a half I could absolutely not touch a keyboard for more than 10 minutes without having pain.

Honestly, if you've got a normal "9-to-5" job in programing, I'd take the weekend to relax a little. Do something very different from programming. Like work on your hobby, hang out with friends/girlfriend/boyfriend, whatever. It doesn't really matter what you do, as long as it's a break from the programming. It's healthy to get away from it sometimes, like gparent mentioned up here, you can get injuries from working too long. If you really need the extra money, though, I think I'd look at something else for a weekend-job, so that you still get that little break from programming, before I'd look at doing some extra programming work.

[QUOTE=Gulen;39428817]Honestly, if you've got a normal "9-to-5" job in programing, I'd take the weekend to relax a little. Do something very different from programming. Like work on your hobby, hang out with friends/girlfriend/boyfriend, whatever. It doesn't really matter what you do, as long as it's a break from the programming. It's healthy to get away from it sometimes, like gparent mentioned up here, you can get injuries from working too long. If you really need the extra money, though, I think I'd look at something else for a weekend-job, so that you still get that little break from programming, before I'd look at doing some extra programming work.[/QUOTE] I don't work, I go to school at the moment. But based on my experiences, doing something else on the weekends will actually probably improve your programming. I think it can be explained similarly to how working out all the time, giving the muscles no time to rebuild, is bad.

Yeah, a lot of people will tell you to take breaks when you're programming, especially if you're stuck with a problem. Doing something else will take your mind of the problem, and when you go back to the problem later, you'll be looking at it from a "fresh" start, and you might see it differently, which could help you solve it.

I work in the industry 9-5 and I think side projects are a great thing, but don't work on them during all your free time or you run the risk of getting burnt out, which not only makes the side projects less fun, but also makes the 9-5 less enjoyable. I have a few side projects going and I keep a long running todo list for each of them, but when I am working on them I will drop them for the night as soon as I get at all frustrated so I make sure i don't burn out. It's good to be able to work on them in quick sprints.

I program really hard on some game/project, and also I often switch projects so I don't get bored. I also make breaks but those are like one months long and so doesn't happen often :D Like twice/once a year.

[QUOTE=gparent;39425761]I don't want to judge, but do you want to program the rest of your life, 7 hours a day, 7 days a week? I get the whole hobby thing and trust me I love programming. I also have no idea how old you are. I do know however that overworking myself landed me at the doctor's office for serious arm problems, and it sure made me discover the whole real life thing out there. I entirely agree with all of HTF's advice, especially the tax thing. Also be careful not to fall into a conflict of interest. EDIT: And I don't mean "hurr durr it hurts but I can still type" kind of problems. It took a month and a half for me to recover, I was in light depression due to possibly having to shift my whole life around, and during that month and a half I could absolutely not touch a keyboard for more than 10 minutes without having pain.[/QUOTE] Kind of off topic, but i managed to land myself a case of RSI, it's no joke, and it can happen to anyone. It's also why I raged when I heard Peter Molyneux being irresponsible.

repetive strain injure? hands?

[QUOTE=HeatPipe;39492525]repetive strain injure? hands?[/QUOTE] I find that happens a lot at work - mostly due to the crappy equipment in place. They all claim to have departments that handle this and blah blah, but no 1 does anything. You have your stock standard mouse, keyboard etc that aren't ergonomic. You have disgusting monitors that hurt people's eyes. Ok, I've seen places with expensive Dell monitors etc but that's a different story.

[QUOTE=HeatPipe;39492525]repetive strain injure? hands?[/QUOTE] Hands, wrists, lower arm, elbow, upper arm, shoulder. It climbs up if you don't take care of it, at least in my case it did. Recovery involves not doing anything, and strengthening your entire arm's length worth of muscles so that they get less tired.