There are many guides out there telling you what’s the best way to make money as a programmer. Everyone seems to have the perfect solution for the general programmer.
But have you found the perfect solution for your life yet?
All of these guides seem to know what’s the best for you, but there is no one-fits-all model for a lifeplan!
What are your values?
What is the most important thing to you?
Everyone is unique, that’s why in this article I will share you my knowledge about different routes to go as a software developer, while ultimately following your heart and own character. I will show the 4 major paths you can walk, while taking a special look at the pros and cons of each.
It’s your life, so don’t let other make the choices for you.
Take this as a overview, and ask yourself which approach does work best with your character. Don’t follow a path because of wrong ambitions.
When you are not following your heart, you will never succeed at what you are doing.
“Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.” – Rumi
Once you find it, you will know it. And at that time, you will for sure make money as a software developer!
The Career Guy – Classic and safe, the old school style
The classic lifeplan of most people. Go to school, graduate, work on a job or different jobs, sometimes get a raise or maybe get a promotion. This plan has been the standard approach to life for a long time. And it is still attractive for many.
A job offers security and something you can hold on to and be proud about to a certain degree. You get a fixed income, you work fixed hours (most of the time) and can plan the rest of your life around your daily routine. And that’s where the negative points come in.
You have to plan your life around tasks you do for others so they can succeed in their life!
If you take a normal 40 hours a week job (or maybe even more), add about 10 hours of commute and/or preparing for work, 40 hours of sleep you end with 30 hours during the week for yourself. Sounds fair?
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” – Steve Jobs
Subtract general tasks you have to perform like shopping, maybe taking care of kids, cooking and so on and you will end with not very much time in the end. This is no job bashing, it’s just the truth. Still, many choose this style as they like the security, the structured day, or general what they are working on and with whom.
Furthermore, a job offers more than just security. Working together with others is priceless, and learning lessons from finished projects develops your own skills and personality. At the time writing this article I am in fact working a full time job, and everyone should definitely have made the experience once in his life.
The work culture has it’s own characteristics and a lot of pros and cons, so before you judge it, you might have to be part of it once to feel what’s it all about.
Talking about money, salaries can vary widely. This depends on your skills, experience, country, company…. But one thing for sure, you won’t become the overnight millionaire working a 9-5 job. That’s not what a job is made for (at least as a programmer). Still, you can make a good amount of money in certain fields, especially with solid skills and experience.
You should follow this career path if..
- …you are uncertain what to ultimately do with your life
- …you want to develop your skills and acquire new knowledge
- …you need/want to have a fixed, safe income
- …you want a structured day
- …you want to work together with others
- …you don’t want to take too much responsibilities
- …you have no problem with being away from home about 8-12 hours a day
- …you don’t need to make a huge amount of money
The Freelancer – More freedom, more individual responsibility
Becoming a freelancer is one of the most recommended ways to make more money than on the traditional way or besides it. It seems like freelancing is the ultimate goal for everyone to live a life full of peace, joy and harmony.
Is it really?
To become a freelancer you need to have a certain amount of skill, which you can demonstrate to others or at least get them to trust you that you can deliver something. If you have nothing to show, you will have a hard start.
As a freelancer, you can be your own boss. The boon and bane. You can take only the jobs you really like, and there is a greater variety of projects than in a fixed developer position. But often, not the job will be your source of anger, but the customer.
You are responsible for everything!
“The law of work seems unfair, but nothing can change it; the more enjoyment you get out of your work, the more money you will make.” – Mark Twain
This means also, jobs don’t fly by or are dedicated to you. You have to do a lot of networking on places like LinkedIn to keep your sales pipeline filled up. And this will take at least 20% of your time. And if you can’t sell yourself, you gonna have a hard time.
To make money as a programmer running your own freelancing business you can try to compete for jobs on platforms like
Elance, but those jobs won’t bring in the big money as there is a lot of competition. And again, you need to sell your skills and experience very good!
If you managed to have enough jobs, you can start developing software. And here comes the huge benefit:
Work from anywhere. At any time.
It’s (more or less) completely up to you at which daytime and from which location you work. You could be traveling the world and still get paid. You can plan your working hours around your family times and be master of your own schedule. In general, you can have a better work-life balance.
But. You have to organise!
You need a lot of self discipline, so you don’t end up playing Xbox or doing whatever you like the whole day. The work has to be done. Even if times get tough and you have many other problems on your mind, you have to spend some hours to meat your deadlines.
The resulting payment varies, starting at a very low range to 150$+ depending on your skills and how you can market yourself. If you want to get started, take a look at How To Become A Freelance Web Developer for a general overview of steps.
You should follow this career path if..
- …you want a better work-life balance
- …you want to be location independent
- …you can live with a flexible income
- …you can motivate yourself
- …you have a solid discipline
- …you want to be your own boss
- …you can socialise with possible customers
- …you are not afraid of selling something
The Indie Developer – The dream of young gamers, at which price?
An indie developer, or often also more concrete in terms of indie game developer, is developing games/apps/software without being a big player and backed by a company. In the last years, indie developers have gotten a lot of attention due to epic success stories like Minecraft. But the success stories don’t cover the tons of failures of many other developers.
“Paul and I, we never thought that we would make much money out of the thing. We just loved writing software.” – Bill Gates
Becoming a indie developer isn’t hard in terms of skills: Learn programming, come up with a cool idea and especially passion to finish this specific product. Delivering that product is what distinguishes a hobby and an indie developer. While you could obviously start it as a hobby, developing a successful indie software takes a huge amount of time and risk.
The dream of making the next Clash of Clan app while traveling the country is awesome.
But facing the reality, you can’t live from love and air. And taking a look at a salary report, chances are big you won’t make money as a programmer this way enough to pursue a life of freedom.
Additionally, just like freelancing, indie development is a lot about selling your software. It’s hard to stick out of tons of applications out there, and you won’t get noticed by just uploading a piece of software to a marketplace. That’s why this career also needs skills like marketing, a small sense of business and monetisation to finally succeed.
Hence, the dream of making exactly what you want, and the vision of a final product which brings joy to thousands of people drives new developers to build indie developer teams every year. And there are success stories which can be your motivation and let you hope for succeeding within this field as a developer.
Will you be the next one?
You should follow this career path if..
- …you want to be more than the developer guy>
- …you are capable of doing business
- …you pursue high goals in your life
- …you want to sell, market and socialise
- …you dream of a passive income
- …you feel like there is more outside
- …you need to realise your ideas and innovations
- …you are not afraidof the unknown
The Devpreneur – Being on the edge of Development & Business
This term might be new to you – maybe not completely. It’s a combination of the classic developer and the mighty buzzword entrepreneur. In general, the entrepreneur is the guy you think of when you imagine a San Francisco startup selling selfmade toilet paper on etsy.
The term Devpreneur seems to be not really invented by now, but I read it once in an article from a developer which lost sight of the business component of his life. I guess it was not meant the way I want you to think about, but as it might not be invented let’s shape the image of the Devpreneur.
You are a true developer, skilled and versatile, but you feel like there is more outside of your office?
You are not only thinking in terms of issues and branches, but as well about your USP, the budget and the automation of work. You are a developer. And you have a business mind.
That’s where the union happens and the Devpreneur exists. The Devpreneur is a smart mind and can code things he need, but meanwhile he also thinks: How could I make money with this piece? How could that idea lead to unlimited freedom and wealth?
“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” – Ella Fitzgerald
There are a lot of awesome paid services out there, which have been created by great developers like you. And all those started with an idea, a vision and a bit of business and marketing sense. And while all the aforementioned careers might grant you some great perspective on life while making money as a programmer, this one is different. Especially in terms of how and on what you work.
I don’t want to unlimited praise this. There are obvious downsides, and if you hate everything business related in general, you might skip this paragraph and go to the conclusion.
Risk. There is risk, especially where there is startup. And Fear. Are you frightened? You better not be, as the business world can be hard. And being the tiny fish in the pool can and will be hard, time consuming and maybe even social critical.
You should follow this career path if..
- …you are generally living and independent life
- …you want to live wherever you want
- …you are fine with a undefined income for a long period
- …you can hold up your motivation
- …you are willing to market your product
- …you want to develop your own product
- …you have unique ideas and a maker gene
- …you have no fear of failure
Final words
Everyone can succeed and make money as a programmer.
The important aspect is whether the way you choose to earn your money matches with your expectations of life. If you are unhappy with your work, you won’t succeed with any of those predefined lifeplans!
Ask yourself: Is what I am doing currently what I really want to do?
Don’t cheat on you. You can’t betray your own inner voice.
Now it’s your turn!
I want you to share the current path you are on, and additionally the path you want to be on!
Also if you like the article, be kind and share it with your friends.
So long,
Simon
The post How to Make Money as a Programmer Following Your Heart appeared first on DevDactic.