How I Made Money Coding and How I'd Do It If I Had to Start Again
04 Feb 2025 #careerThese days, I got a question from Venkata on LinkedIn. Here’s an edited version of that question:
I need your guidance on how to turn my skills into an opportunity to earn income by solving a real world problem or project.
Here’s my answer. Of course, this is free Internet advice. Take it with a pinch of salt.
I won’t tell you what to do. Let alone do I have a step-by-step formula. I’m telling you what I did and what I’d do if I had to start again.
I’m assuming you’re a new graduate from university or a bootcamp with a few years of flight time.
1. Take a tour of the corporate world
As crazy as it might sound, take a corporate job in a company in your city. Even if it’s at a boring non-tech company without a big name.
A boring job in a non-tech company is not the dream destination. I know. When we all start, we dream about joining the next rising startup or a FAANG. But you don’t have to stay in the corporate world forever.
In a corporate job:
- You can get some training and learning opportunities.
- You will learn to work with legacy codebases.
- You can make mistakes on somebody else’s business with almost no consequences.
My first coding job was at a boring non-tech company. I had to learn about coding, deal with bosses and coworkers, and survive office politics. You won’t learn that at a university or a bootcamp.
If you choose this route, don’t try sending CVs like crazy to anywhere and everywhere. Use your network and try to skip hiring lines.
Don’t stay too long at a corporate job. Your skills will get rusty. Stay long enough to increase your hours of flight time before jumping somewhere else.
2. Get good at one skill and join a high-paying market
Once you have enough hours of flight time:
- Get good at one skill: frontend development with React, backend development with .NET, or whatever skill you can put time and effort into learning.
- Get good at a foreign language: Good enough to work professionally in that language.
- Join a software agency and work for high-paying markets like North America or Europe: You can take advantage of currency strength between countries.
Based on your country of residence, you can make good money with this route compared to local markets.
3. Going on your own
Points #1 and #2 were like getting someone to feed you. This is like hunting on your own.
Find small businesses in your city and see how you can help them with automation. You’d be surprised how many small businesses and mom-and-pop shops run their daily operations with pen-and-paper or Excel.
If you choose this route, you can’t tell clients “I write HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I care about Clean Code and I’m not a coder, but a craftsman.”
Sure, those are nice-to-haves. But that’s the lingo you and I understand. Small businesses don’t care about those things. They care about what you can do for them and their business.
You have to sell yourself in terms that your clients can understand. “I can help you implement a system that will cut in half the time it takes you to deliver your restaurant orders. Your clients will receive their food while it’s still warm.”
And don’t even think of writing code from scratch. Go with no-code solutions or easier ways for you to implement. Even installing existing software and training small companies on how to use them.
I’ve done #1 and #2. And if I had to start again, I’d try something like #3. Good luck!
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