iwork3jobs

Total. Rates were... not great. They sucked, honestly, at least compared to what I hear on here on HN. Slightly over 45 Eur/h all project rates summed. Somewhere in Eastern Europe. That's great for someone who grew up and went through college on about 150 USD/month, so of course I felt like a king.

There are companies where the level of expertise is so low, you look like a genius beside them. I did this, I worked several jobs in parallel. The pay was... not really amazing, about 8k/mo when I had 3 projects at the same time. And in most of the cases I was a main player in some important parts of the system. I think _some_ people caught on. But I also think they didn't care that much because I solved their problems, unblocked their people and was always responsive, if push came to shove, I would put in the extra time to make the damn thing work and ship it.

So what should I do when I realize that a lot of my coworkers are HIGHLY inefficient? And I can do their work in a lower amount of time? And I have a ceiling on how much I can earn? I just go looking elsewhere in parallel.

OR - I build a startup. But I hate the buisiness ethos.

From experience, if you can take on more work, you will do so until you can't anymore. 2 jobs was fine for me, 3 is too much and some clients felt the heat. I always prioritized the ones that were most burning, technically. Undeserved flak is easy to remove.

It's interesting that you actually spotted them. In my experience it's really hard for people to tell what I'm doing, but I guess the expectations at the companies I contracted for were much lower and by comparison, I actually did my job. Most people seemed pretty happy with what I delivered. I was the most unsatisfied with it, to be honest.

They are long term consulting (or you can call them outsourcing, rather) jobs for quite big companies. I am weary of saying the domain, but it's... Really not the domain most people would expect.

I guess I'm just lucky stuff doesn't overlap. I try to keep meetings at a minimum and solve things as promptly as possible so I avoid being dragged in them. If I have some overlap I reschedule or if it's not critical I simply don't join.

The expectations are pretty fucking abysmal to boot. People in this domain do not know how to fucking write software and I've been at it for a while and I know my stuff petty well. The funny part is the customers are quite happy with my work. If you also them, they will say I am one of the higher performing members of their team. I do tend to solve trickier problems and I understand the parts I build quite well so if issues arise I am quick at solving them. But, again, the level of competence is really really low! Clients will suffer most in a couple of ways. It will probably take me longer to do things than if I were to be uniquely employed for them. But, again, expectations so low, they don't have a good comparison. If one of the clients has a really serious problem, I will pour most my time in it to fix the burning issues, so the others will get neglected for a bit. Sometimes I run out of gas and I have mini burnouts so I will have these mini slumps, but I quickly snap out of it and get back on track.

Just to expand how bad competence is here, at one point we had a team we worked in and out of about 4 people I basically did the whole work, while working 2 contracts at the time.

As mentioned, this field is deeply dysfunctional. I worked in it as a normal consultant for a long time and really really tried improving client's stuff but.. I gave up. Most clients don't even use git and they won't fucking listen when we tell them the decisions they take are bad. They just go ahead out of inertia with horrible horrible standards and bad approaches. So I guess I'm now jaded and kind of... Resigned to be just a pawn and just bill hours.

Just say to have it 30 mins later or whatever, problem solved. Come up with some excuse, or don't say anything at all. And then have the meeting and be as effective as possible during it. Cut bullshit meetings to a minimum. If you have more than 6 people in the meeting and you're not essential, don't attend. If you have meetings longer than 1h, try to go through the points as effectively as possible and underscore the conclusion dor each point until you get a resolution (important, so you don't get invited to _another_ meeting)

Maybe some could, but you need to be _there_. So you create different kinds of opportunities where you are.

High tier are not accessible everywhere. I do this, work 3 jobs in paralel and it is very lucrative for my location. I do not see a path I could make as much doing what I do, without relocating. Only way I could beat it is going the SAAS way or doing my own startup. Being a local early employee would not cut it.

My employers have so far been very happy with my work, although I am aware I could have performed much better and have done very stupid mistakes because I was moving too fast.

Every salary increase I had so far has been 2x. Once I hit a ceiling, I got 2 gigs in paralel, so I 2xed again, I guess. Even so, I did not reach SV income level. I cash in about 100k a year. I am comfortable though.

I work 3 gigs is in paralel. AMA, if you want, I guess.

The FANGMULA salaries that you mentioned I could not dream of reaching. I have 3 gigs and cash in maybe 70k, and that is very good for my location. I could, I suspect, if I applied myself, land a FANG job, but I would _have_ to relocate. And the COL increase alone would probably make it not worth it. A FANG level remote job would not happen and the stupid niche I work in is not as highly paid as FANG.

I work 3 jobs for 1 year, had 2 only for maybe 5. Most of your observations are correct but I can tell you that I do not have it that hard to synch the meetings to make them not overlap. And I make an conscious effort of being really prompt when answering queries. I am perhaps more prompt than many that do not do what I do, since eI would not like people to suspect what I am doing.

LinkedIn has proven a fucking pain indeed, and that is why I am not active on it anymore.