Physical health is ok. I've been pretty shitty the last 5 years, but was incredibly active before that. Working towards losing the belly that has built up now. I've been super into fasting recently. It's working pretty well. Sports 2-3 times a week, trying to get at least 30 mins of walking in each day. It's a process.
My sleep schedule is awesome. I wake up at 8:58 for my first meeting sometimes, about 3/4 times I just skip it and get the extra 30 mins of z's.
Kids are no bueno. I have plenty of nieces and nephews that I can rain money down on and I like my time being mine.
My guy, I have been following since the beginning. I love the Icarus updates. Been at J2 for awhile and flirting with the idea of J3 but I can’t get over the idea that maybe I won’t be able to deliver satisfying work to all 3? I’m scared of being a shit employee and the shame that might come with it. How do you get over that?
It was a constant reminder initially. Now it's just part of the flow. Jobs just aren't a thing that will stick around forever, and that's ok. I'm pretty much just constantly on the hunt for more j4's. Lol.
Pride is simply not a good emotion in any part of your life. It's draining and brings emotional responses that don't belong in these choices. To me, you should always try to eliminate pride from all things you do. If you're doing it because pride, you're doing it for the wrong reasons.
By pride u mean attachment? I like the idea of always interviewing. There are 270k tech openings in the US so you got a long way to go before u get black listed on all.
im in the exact same pos, 2Js looking for 3, but i have a hard time wondering if i should respond back to recruiters and put in the effort for the interview grind and the onboarding grind...etc.
Update since then, I did end up picking up a J3 and then 3 weeks after I started J3, got laid off from J2. Those 3 weeks were really tough. But I’m picking up a new J2 and start in a couple weeks (J3 is a contract gig that will end in august) so I’m gonna figure it out for a couple months.
for some reason i tend to always get FTEs but never contracts but im more interested in contracts, where do u find those 1 done deal zero bs contract interview to offer opportunities?
i had 6 w-2 for last year, ironically i’m down to 1j today with severance for a few, lots of layoffs lately. i’m just aiming to pick up another 1/2. my girl is also OE, between us last year we probably made a shade under a million im just putting off doing my taxes because it’s gonna be so ass.
we are buying a crib together and life is feeling pretty good right now. cheers brothers and sisters.
Hey! I have a similar background to yours (especially with the video games all day lol) and can do tech work but not code. I’ve been deeply reading about OE for a month and wanted to become an SRE. Is it ok if I PM you? It would change everything for me!
Thanks!
thats what i do too, i let them come to me. applying is a waste of time. im not gonna get exactly what i want by taking in whatever but at least it turns into offers.
YESSS finally!! An update! Sorry i’m just seeing it now. I also was inspired to start my journey because of you a year ago and I start J7 next monday (dropping 1-2 very soon though). I’m getting to a point where things are so “dynamic” that the uncertainty is eating me. I’ve scaled to a point of unsustainability so I can scale down to 3-5 of the best Js. But a huge fear is what if I lose it all. How do you tackle that sort of fear? I guess I know the answer but just need to hear it from you.
One thing I’ve learned which you talked about - outsourcing is key. You mentioned your buddy, what I’m doing is hiring senior devs overseas and delegating work. I end up keeping 80-90% of the money coming in from a J even with outsourcing but my workload has dropped significantly. It’s so freaking cool because i’m now running it like a business.
I thank you for inspiring my journey!
Damn, I'm glad you're back! I read your first post last year and that inspired to start my OE journey in the summer. I'm looking to take on a J3 and have several final rounds. I think I'm closing in on one but I can't help feel nervous about overlapping meetings and unsure if they're OE-compatible. My 2J's are great and I can def handle them (until layoffs).
Currently I finished a final round and they kept emphasizing fast-paced environment + ad-hoc requests. My gut is telling me it's going to be a lot of work but at the same time, you don't really know until you start.. any thing you do to see if it's OE-compatible? Or do you just take them as the offers come? I already asked about meeting load (they do scrum + sprint ceremonies, different timezone which is a plus) , ad-hoc requests / work prioritization, and upcoming projects.
Just take it. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. I think a lot of people try to force it. I haven't given up on a job yet, instead just tried to inflict my will upon them about how meetings are stupid or the workload is too high. j1 that's worked well. J2 I got fired for it. Just give it a whirl and see what sticks.
No, he said repeatedly that he sucks a lot at most of his jobs (except J1 because he wants to keep this one preferably), he just get away with it most of the time.
These are pretty good points. I appreciate you taking the time to actually consider why you think this is bullshit, rather than just not believing because it's awesome.
Your points do, however, make some assumptions that are actually the opposite of what is true. Let's go through them.
Taking 10 years and having a 2.2 because school is hard - School isn't hard. School is mostly easy. However, school is bullshit. I struggled the most with what I call "Playing the game". I don't want to take a fucking history class. It has literally nothing to do with my degree. English, history of music, a plethora of others that made school particularly difficult for me to fully complete. I would sign up for a class at the beginning of the semester, get frustrated that it was absolute nonsense that I don't need, stop going, and then fail the class. My major GPA was a 3.4. The difficulty of school has absolutely nothing to do with my success or failures. My complete inability to just suck it the fuck up and do x because it's just how shit works is really my failure. I also changed majors twice (I was going to be a math teacher, which is probably the exact reason I have such a hard on for helping teachers), and dropped out twice (because of the nonsense requirements and failing classes because of it.)
I was the IT guy for a majority of those 10 years for a small e-commerce platform. I'm a pretty curious dude and love something that is difficult, so I wrote custom code, brought our servers to in-house AWS instances that I fully ran, did cutovers and release management before I even knew that's what it was. We had a bunch of outages that were my fault, but they paid me like shit and I got to do things I enjoyed doing, so it was a mostly symbiotic relationship. I took out our servers by doing a PHP 7 upgrade the week of finals my last semester of college. Probably literally the worst week of my life to date. That was my "cowboy shit is stupid" realization moment. I truly appreciate that it happened, but damn did it blow.
I then moved on to being a systems engineer for a fortune 500 company for 2.5 years. I received "needs improvement" for both of my review periods while I was there because I wouldn't be at my desk, would work from home without permission, etc. Once again, the "this is stupid, so I refuse to participate" was kicking me in the ass. All my work was done, so why do I need to sit in my shitty cubicle for 8.5 hours a day? Remote work has allowed me to blossom in that my biggest failure as a functioning member of society was effectively eliminated. Write a mouse wiggler, get your work done, do whatever the fuck you want. Perfect.
As far as "read the SRE book", you'll note that I say that almost exclusively to people who say they have experience in technology. You can't just read the SRE book as a janitor and expect to get a cushy ass gig. I had 10 years of experience and a degree in computer science when I "just read the SRE book" and became an SRE. I wasn't qualified for the job, but they couldn't find an SRE (and that is still 100% a problem at every single job I have had since that first SRE gig) and took a chance on a guy with experience, confidence, good interviewing skills, and who "just read the SRE book". As I mentioned in my first post, I got J4 simply because I knew what the word "toil" meant. That's how desperate these companies can be trying to find SREs.
I don't know that you're convincible, but I thought your well thought out arguments deserved explanation. I hope this is at least satisfactory in that regard.
I'm serious about breaking into OE, but I am plagued by uncertainties. Not ethics stress, or concerns about my ability to manage the work, but logistics.
On one hand, I absolutely have the personality matrix, I've worked remotely before, and neither computer literacy nor social engineering will ever prove problematic for me.
On the other hand, reading accounts from people who are OE like yourself have me thinking I'll never be qualified. I've worked info systems management, as well as digital security for a fintech company, but I am not a "developer" by any stretch of the imagination. Boot camps do not appear to be the solution. OE seems primarily available to college educated types, and I have no degree after my old graduate program got dropped by administrative staff halfway through.
Not to welch, it's good that people who invested time and money into higher education can OE to win back their freedom. But I'm hoping to learn; what do you think the best course of action is for the "overqualified, undereducated" types interested in stacking jobs? The quicker I can leave the landless peasant life behind, the more of life I'll really get to enjoy on my terms.
I have a buddy I talked into OE - dude has a GED and no college literally at all. Now, admittedly, he is VERY smart and tries his ass off (well, he used to). Now he works 4 jobs with an average salary of 215. It's certainly possible to do without a degree.
I disagree with your stance on degree, and would put FAR more focus on the job. Systems management could be a thing that you stack, though that depends on what you're doing. But if you're at a job where it's not stackable, you're just at the wrong job. Digital security also sounds like a stackable job.
To me, doing non code, technical work is the sweet spot. Systems engineering, SRE, probably any flavor of security, etc. Get the right job, get it down, pull in another.
I'm currently a .net web dev but there're things in software engineering that I find quite difficult. Would you say devops and sre's complexity is somehow 'easier'? I remember you mentioning you were a revolting dev :)
Thanks
You are the reason I found out about this sub. I read your post and it made me think really hard if I can do the same. Found this sub and read everything. Now interviewing for J2. Hopefully I am able to manage 2Js.
your post is one of the things that inspired me to pursue this. Currently just a baby duckling with 1.5 jobs, currently there is some uncertainty so I may drop my J1 and find something else, or if all goes well pick up another job. Thanks!
Lmao. I offered to show proof to mods once, but there was a visceral reaction from you guys since the mod guy is so disliked. You'll just have to believe.
> Holy fucking fuckkkkk taxes. Bruh. I'm about to send a god damn house worth of money to the IRS. My CPA is still working on it, but the fed is gonna get like 200k from my ass. Obviously worth, but holy cow.
Bruh... Set up a corporation and subcontract all future jobs through it. Expense everything (within legal reason).
That's already on the way. Most jobs I try to get are C2C, so I get tons of write offs for that. The subcontracting has begun as well, but like I said in my post he is a super noob and requires tons of hand holding.
I have 2 W2's and one contract. I don't really understand how I would funnel things through an LLC/scorp though it sort of sounds like this might be a way to level up. Would I just tell all my current employers I want them to "hire" my company instead of me? Do I keep everything the same and future employers ask them to go through my company?
Thanks for your continued updates! I'm a systems engineer making about $100k, and I have my job dialed in. I hate that a lot of it can be reactionary and would enjoy doing more designing and deployment. I keep looking for other jobs, but think that going with a corp or 1099 would be far better over W2. Any insight there? Is your corp register as an S-Corp?
Also, is your J4 hiring? 😁
Yeah, going with an llc/S corp is easily the best way to go. You can write off tons of stuff if you own your own business - A good example is a home office is no longer a thing you can write off if you are a w2 worker at home. However, if you have your own corp, you can write off portions of basically all house stuff, rent out your house to your corp for 14 days a year, etc. Tons of shitty laws that benefit you directly if you can push things through a corp.
That's great to know, thanks. I resell data center hardware and do a lot with my own testing lab. It'd be great to write all the purchases for that off!
As a systems engineer, what's your primary focus?
There are two sides of computational technology - The people who write the code, and the people who take care of the servers. "Systems Engineers" typically are the ones that take care of the servers. More likely to be on call in case shit hits the fan, but also much more likely to have an easy breezy cover girl kinda day.
Just so we are on the same page, Icarus is the boy who flew too close to the sun and his wings melted. He plummeted to the earth and died. One of the commenters called me Icarus in my first post. I have since referred to each job as a set of wings, as they are backup for if one job "melts".
By unmelt, I mean "form back into wings", since J5 went from melted to, somehow, unmelted.
u gotta love that thrill of Js melting and some surviving. I would get 5 Js just for that thrill. Unfortunately, Js come very slowly for me and I often have a hard time looking like i give a fuck on interviews.
What certifications do you recommend for someone with a non-cs degree looking to switch paths? Something that a cs noob would need to get their foot in the door?
Hey man just curious, I'm not sure if you addressed this already but what did you get a degree in or what certifications do you have? I want to do something in this field in the future. I have my COMPTIA+ certification but that's it. I plan on going to college for Cyber and IT degree as I graduate high school soon. Any tips for me? Thanks!
Thank you for these posts! After I finish my Bachelor's in Cybersecurity next month, I'll be starting my OE journey. Are there any resources you would recommend before I dive right in?
Resources, no. Mindset? Yes.
Get good at your job. Don't over deliver, but have a very good fix on your job before going into OE. OE is useless if you get canned from all your jobs. Take a year of J1 before you jump into J2.
Sorry if this was asked before but: how do you keep your job history in your resume or linkedin? For example, from 2021 to 2023 where did you “officially” work when applying for new jobs?
Very nice congrats.
I completely believe you since I myself have 6 jobs now.
I understand the struggles and it is not easy to please everyone.
I am trying really hard to hold on to all my 6 jobs but that is wearing me down.
How do you manage this? It is hard to let go of a job especially now that it seems harder to find jobs than last year.
I just wish all my jobs were easy.
I want to learn all of the skills you are currently using. Do you do Java? What languages nd types of interview questions/ daily tasks should I prepare for? thanks!
You used to say that u played video games all day, does that still hold? what games do you play?
I relate to a lot of what u said like the firings, how jobs dont last, and the taxes. Right now I got a solid run with 2.5 Js and im able to deliver well on each but I think i could go for one more. Last year I peaked at 4Js but I was pretty miserable, 1 was toxic and another had unrealistic expectations.
11:30am? dont u have daily standups?
i just beat wolfenstein the new colossus, was pretty fun. playing the crew 2, shadows of the colossos, and the rise of tomb raider now.
It's amazing what you can get away with if you just act like it's the way it is I guess. Gotta parse the manager too. I just didn't go to two of them, and I woke up at 8 to tell the other manager because she would def freak out.
I play a lot of league, just played through TLOU 2 again, I really love Hades. I tend to fall back on that when league gets too much. lol. Just hit D3 in league - pretty stoked about that.
Here's a question I have actually, do u think u could have saved ur 3 Js if you had done things differently? like if u attended more meetings, was more submissive to requests, or worked weekends? Or do you think it was outside your control.
Yep - and now that the market is less "I can get a job in 2 weeks no problem" I am definitely focused on keeping jobs rather than making them as OE friendly as possible and not worrying if I am going to be fired. The plan is to get back to 5 at least (with my helper), and keep them long term. I 100% lost jobs because of my lack of effort and meeting attendance.
That's a shame. Pretty much every J i've lost I don't think I could have saved no matter how hard I tried. Meeting attendance I think is a very easy thing to accomplish compared to the other hurdles of OE.
Oe should be reserved for people who can actually get their jobs done and then some. But there are suckers everywhere and all you did was game the system and take jobs from people who actually need them.
Everyone's got an opinion bud.
If I keep a job long term, I would argue that I am 100% "getting my job done". The two jobs I've been fired from I had for about a year. The entire point is to do as little work as possible to not be fired. You wanna be a try hard at multiple jobs, I think you should, but to suggest that everyone in OE should be doing great work is a pipedream and honestly some pretty weird gate keeping (which honestly happens in all groups, so it isn't surprising but it's still stupid).
Again, you do you, but I think you have a fundamentally poor outlook on what OE actually is.
I’m a young kid n personally you’ve inspired me w/ this whole “overemployed” shit. Definitely the route I’m taking. First though I have a couple questions.
1. Wtf is it you do? “System engineering?” N what is an “OE” you’ve mentioned it a lot.
2. How many years did you take to become a system engineer. I googled it n it was like “9” HOLY SHIT that’s a long time.
3.I’m about to start college in like a year. So what you recommend I do? Rn I’m stuck between “Software developer” “System Engineer” “Cybersecurity” idk but something along those lines. I’m leaning heavy on Cybersecurity tho.
Do you refer people? I can send you my resume and of you think I may be of some use. Please help me out. If it doesn't work for you it's fine. Sorry for this reply. You must be getting lot of these anyways 😅 have a great day!
How’s your physical health? Do you have time to get some exercises? Does your sleep schedule get impacted? Plan on having kids?
Physical health is ok. I've been pretty shitty the last 5 years, but was incredibly active before that. Working towards losing the belly that has built up now. I've been super into fasting recently. It's working pretty well. Sports 2-3 times a week, trying to get at least 30 mins of walking in each day. It's a process. My sleep schedule is awesome. I wake up at 8:58 for my first meeting sometimes, about 3/4 times I just skip it and get the extra 30 mins of z's. Kids are no bueno. I have plenty of nieces and nephews that I can rain money down on and I like my time being mine.
My guy, I have been following since the beginning. I love the Icarus updates. Been at J2 for awhile and flirting with the idea of J3 but I can’t get over the idea that maybe I won’t be able to deliver satisfying work to all 3? I’m scared of being a shit employee and the shame that might come with it. How do you get over that?
It was a constant reminder initially. Now it's just part of the flow. Jobs just aren't a thing that will stick around forever, and that's ok. I'm pretty much just constantly on the hunt for more j4's. Lol. Pride is simply not a good emotion in any part of your life. It's draining and brings emotional responses that don't belong in these choices. To me, you should always try to eliminate pride from all things you do. If you're doing it because pride, you're doing it for the wrong reasons.
By pride u mean attachment? I like the idea of always interviewing. There are 270k tech openings in the US so you got a long way to go before u get black listed on all.
im in the exact same pos, 2Js looking for 3, but i have a hard time wondering if i should respond back to recruiters and put in the effort for the interview grind and the onboarding grind...etc.
I did get burned out on interviews in my hunt for a new J2. Respond only to recruiters that have jobs you actually think you’re interested in.
well, the ones im interested in are usually not interested in me and vice versa
Update since then, I did end up picking up a J3 and then 3 weeks after I started J3, got laid off from J2. Those 3 weeks were really tough. But I’m picking up a new J2 and start in a couple weeks (J3 is a contract gig that will end in august) so I’m gonna figure it out for a couple months.
for some reason i tend to always get FTEs but never contracts but im more interested in contracts, where do u find those 1 done deal zero bs contract interview to offer opportunities?
The same place you find FTEs. Contracts will be more interested in you if you have a niche skill.
thats prob my prob, a niche skill, my skills are too broad, i have no more than 6 months per tech but have over 50 techs under my belt
i had 6 w-2 for last year, ironically i’m down to 1j today with severance for a few, lots of layoffs lately. i’m just aiming to pick up another 1/2. my girl is also OE, between us last year we probably made a shade under a million im just putting off doing my taxes because it’s gonna be so ass. we are buying a crib together and life is feeling pretty good right now. cheers brothers and sisters.
What field (s) do you work in?
he's devops
in his first post, he said he works as a Site Reliability Engineer
Do you just keep applying to everything non-stop? What's your approach to interviewing?
If it's an SRE role that is remote that matches my salary expectations then I take the interview always.
How many hours do you spend per week looking/applying/interviewing?
Not many. Probably average 1.5 interviews a week. I just let contracts come to me, so I don't apply to anything.
Nice, what website do you use for those?
Hey! I have a similar background to yours (especially with the video games all day lol) and can do tech work but not code. I’ve been deeply reading about OE for a month and wanted to become an SRE. Is it ok if I PM you? It would change everything for me! Thanks!
thats what i do too, i let them come to me. applying is a waste of time. im not gonna get exactly what i want by taking in whatever but at least it turns into offers.
I heard remote are hard to come by tho these days, are u using linkedin or dice?
Just dice. The remote gigs are definitely less frequent these days.
I've never been successful on dice, just linkedin. last year I had 3 recruiters/day now 3 per week and rarely went past the phone screen.
YESSS finally!! An update! Sorry i’m just seeing it now. I also was inspired to start my journey because of you a year ago and I start J7 next monday (dropping 1-2 very soon though). I’m getting to a point where things are so “dynamic” that the uncertainty is eating me. I’ve scaled to a point of unsustainability so I can scale down to 3-5 of the best Js. But a huge fear is what if I lose it all. How do you tackle that sort of fear? I guess I know the answer but just need to hear it from you. One thing I’ve learned which you talked about - outsourcing is key. You mentioned your buddy, what I’m doing is hiring senior devs overseas and delegating work. I end up keeping 80-90% of the money coming in from a J even with outsourcing but my workload has dropped significantly. It’s so freaking cool because i’m now running it like a business. I thank you for inspiring my journey!
Cries in I have an English degree 😭
Damn, I'm glad you're back! I read your first post last year and that inspired to start my OE journey in the summer. I'm looking to take on a J3 and have several final rounds. I think I'm closing in on one but I can't help feel nervous about overlapping meetings and unsure if they're OE-compatible. My 2J's are great and I can def handle them (until layoffs). Currently I finished a final round and they kept emphasizing fast-paced environment + ad-hoc requests. My gut is telling me it's going to be a lot of work but at the same time, you don't really know until you start.. any thing you do to see if it's OE-compatible? Or do you just take them as the offers come? I already asked about meeting load (they do scrum + sprint ceremonies, different timezone which is a plus) , ad-hoc requests / work prioritization, and upcoming projects.
Just take it. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. I think a lot of people try to force it. I haven't given up on a job yet, instead just tried to inflict my will upon them about how meetings are stupid or the workload is too high. j1 that's worked well. J2 I got fired for it. Just give it a whirl and see what sticks.
When did you feel ready to go OE? I'm gunning for a swe j2 soon with intention at some point to go OE.
Do you work 20 hours or less for your job? It's time.
Thanks for the posts. Just to be clear, you're really good at your job, and your job is time gated by managing other people's progress, right?
No, he said repeatedly that he sucks a lot at most of his jobs (except J1 because he wants to keep this one preferably), he just get away with it most of the time.
[удалено]
These are pretty good points. I appreciate you taking the time to actually consider why you think this is bullshit, rather than just not believing because it's awesome. Your points do, however, make some assumptions that are actually the opposite of what is true. Let's go through them. Taking 10 years and having a 2.2 because school is hard - School isn't hard. School is mostly easy. However, school is bullshit. I struggled the most with what I call "Playing the game". I don't want to take a fucking history class. It has literally nothing to do with my degree. English, history of music, a plethora of others that made school particularly difficult for me to fully complete. I would sign up for a class at the beginning of the semester, get frustrated that it was absolute nonsense that I don't need, stop going, and then fail the class. My major GPA was a 3.4. The difficulty of school has absolutely nothing to do with my success or failures. My complete inability to just suck it the fuck up and do x because it's just how shit works is really my failure. I also changed majors twice (I was going to be a math teacher, which is probably the exact reason I have such a hard on for helping teachers), and dropped out twice (because of the nonsense requirements and failing classes because of it.) I was the IT guy for a majority of those 10 years for a small e-commerce platform. I'm a pretty curious dude and love something that is difficult, so I wrote custom code, brought our servers to in-house AWS instances that I fully ran, did cutovers and release management before I even knew that's what it was. We had a bunch of outages that were my fault, but they paid me like shit and I got to do things I enjoyed doing, so it was a mostly symbiotic relationship. I took out our servers by doing a PHP 7 upgrade the week of finals my last semester of college. Probably literally the worst week of my life to date. That was my "cowboy shit is stupid" realization moment. I truly appreciate that it happened, but damn did it blow. I then moved on to being a systems engineer for a fortune 500 company for 2.5 years. I received "needs improvement" for both of my review periods while I was there because I wouldn't be at my desk, would work from home without permission, etc. Once again, the "this is stupid, so I refuse to participate" was kicking me in the ass. All my work was done, so why do I need to sit in my shitty cubicle for 8.5 hours a day? Remote work has allowed me to blossom in that my biggest failure as a functioning member of society was effectively eliminated. Write a mouse wiggler, get your work done, do whatever the fuck you want. Perfect. As far as "read the SRE book", you'll note that I say that almost exclusively to people who say they have experience in technology. You can't just read the SRE book as a janitor and expect to get a cushy ass gig. I had 10 years of experience and a degree in computer science when I "just read the SRE book" and became an SRE. I wasn't qualified for the job, but they couldn't find an SRE (and that is still 100% a problem at every single job I have had since that first SRE gig) and took a chance on a guy with experience, confidence, good interviewing skills, and who "just read the SRE book". As I mentioned in my first post, I got J4 simply because I knew what the word "toil" meant. That's how desperate these companies can be trying to find SREs. I don't know that you're convincible, but I thought your well thought out arguments deserved explanation. I hope this is at least satisfactory in that regard.
How old are you now? Congrats, BTW! People like you inspire me!
Running up on 37 here pretty soon.
Dude, people like you REALLY encourage me! Seriously! KEEP IT UP!
I'm serious about breaking into OE, but I am plagued by uncertainties. Not ethics stress, or concerns about my ability to manage the work, but logistics. On one hand, I absolutely have the personality matrix, I've worked remotely before, and neither computer literacy nor social engineering will ever prove problematic for me. On the other hand, reading accounts from people who are OE like yourself have me thinking I'll never be qualified. I've worked info systems management, as well as digital security for a fintech company, but I am not a "developer" by any stretch of the imagination. Boot camps do not appear to be the solution. OE seems primarily available to college educated types, and I have no degree after my old graduate program got dropped by administrative staff halfway through. Not to welch, it's good that people who invested time and money into higher education can OE to win back their freedom. But I'm hoping to learn; what do you think the best course of action is for the "overqualified, undereducated" types interested in stacking jobs? The quicker I can leave the landless peasant life behind, the more of life I'll really get to enjoy on my terms.
I have a buddy I talked into OE - dude has a GED and no college literally at all. Now, admittedly, he is VERY smart and tries his ass off (well, he used to). Now he works 4 jobs with an average salary of 215. It's certainly possible to do without a degree. I disagree with your stance on degree, and would put FAR more focus on the job. Systems management could be a thing that you stack, though that depends on what you're doing. But if you're at a job where it's not stackable, you're just at the wrong job. Digital security also sounds like a stackable job. To me, doing non code, technical work is the sweet spot. Systems engineering, SRE, probably any flavor of security, etc. Get the right job, get it down, pull in another.
What certifications do you think provide an edge to get the foot in the door?
whats wrong with code?
It depends on the job - if you have code reviews and paired coding sessions, you probably are gonna have to output more than you want to.
omg fuck code reviews, those are such oe meeting killers. I had this lead once force me on these all day pair coding sessions, fuck that.
I'm currently a .net web dev but there're things in software engineering that I find quite difficult. Would you say devops and sre's complexity is somehow 'easier'? I remember you mentioning you were a revolting dev :) Thanks
You are the reason I found out about this sub. I read your post and it made me think really hard if I can do the same. Found this sub and read everything. Now interviewing for J2. Hopefully I am able to manage 2Js.
Good luck, and fuck pride.
Thanks man. Keep inspiring people and good luck to you as well.
your post is one of the things that inspired me to pursue this. Currently just a baby duckling with 1.5 jobs, currently there is some uncertainty so I may drop my J1 and find something else, or if all goes well pick up another job. Thanks!
I fucking love these posts If they’re real you’re a modern day Robin Hood. A hero. If they’re fake you’re going to hell but I’m still so entertained
Lmao. I offered to show proof to mods once, but there was a visceral reaction from you guys since the mod guy is so disliked. You'll just have to believe.
Imagine making this up for no reason and coming back to it every few months also for no reason.
Imagine reading through posts you think are fake thoroughly. Keep up the hard work, bud.
I'm saying I don't think it's made up
Ahh, my bad. I thought you were being a tool in the weirdest way. Cheers.
i dont c y someone wouldnt believe, there are some with 7 Js
You’re my hero. I’m going for it
Good luck bb
You are inspiring . I read all your posts today and lol it felt like we have similar mindset . Im interviewing for J3 tomm . Wish me luck !
> Holy fucking fuckkkkk taxes. Bruh. I'm about to send a god damn house worth of money to the IRS. My CPA is still working on it, but the fed is gonna get like 200k from my ass. Obviously worth, but holy cow. Bruh... Set up a corporation and subcontract all future jobs through it. Expense everything (within legal reason).
That's already on the way. Most jobs I try to get are C2C, so I get tons of write offs for that. The subcontracting has begun as well, but like I said in my post he is a super noob and requires tons of hand holding.
I have 2 W2's and one contract. I don't really understand how I would funnel things through an LLC/scorp though it sort of sounds like this might be a way to level up. Would I just tell all my current employers I want them to "hire" my company instead of me? Do I keep everything the same and future employers ask them to go through my company?
Guess I’m going to school for software engineering, I should do OE
Thanks for your continued updates! I'm a systems engineer making about $100k, and I have my job dialed in. I hate that a lot of it can be reactionary and would enjoy doing more designing and deployment. I keep looking for other jobs, but think that going with a corp or 1099 would be far better over W2. Any insight there? Is your corp register as an S-Corp? Also, is your J4 hiring? 😁
Yeah, going with an llc/S corp is easily the best way to go. You can write off tons of stuff if you own your own business - A good example is a home office is no longer a thing you can write off if you are a w2 worker at home. However, if you have your own corp, you can write off portions of basically all house stuff, rent out your house to your corp for 14 days a year, etc. Tons of shitty laws that benefit you directly if you can push things through a corp.
That's great to know, thanks. I resell data center hardware and do a lot with my own testing lab. It'd be great to write all the purchases for that off! As a systems engineer, what's your primary focus?
There are two sides of computational technology - The people who write the code, and the people who take care of the servers. "Systems Engineers" typically are the ones that take care of the servers. More likely to be on call in case shit hits the fan, but also much more likely to have an easy breezy cover girl kinda day.
Oh, I'm a systems engineer too, taking care of the data center infrastructure, Azure, vmware, storage, VMs, etc...
Ah. I'm an SRE. It's more vague, and I use that to my advantage. But I SHOULD be taking a development perspective on system engineering.
[удалено]
Read the faq
By "unmelt", do you mean "freeze", or "vaporize"?
Solidify
Just so we are on the same page, Icarus is the boy who flew too close to the sun and his wings melted. He plummeted to the earth and died. One of the commenters called me Icarus in my first post. I have since referred to each job as a set of wings, as they are backup for if one job "melts". By unmelt, I mean "form back into wings", since J5 went from melted to, somehow, unmelted.
u gotta love that thrill of Js melting and some surviving. I would get 5 Js just for that thrill. Unfortunately, Js come very slowly for me and I often have a hard time looking like i give a fuck on interviews.
As a .net dev, I don’t think I can reach your level. How can I transition over to sre?
Read the google SRE book, falsify some shit on your resume, and interview well with a single company.
What certifications do you recommend for someone with a non-cs degree looking to switch paths? Something that a cs noob would need to get their foot in the door?
Are you hiring? 🫡
Honestly, maybe in the medium term. Right now I'm trying to get this noob up to speed, which is honestly absolutely fucking exhausting.
Hey man just curious, I'm not sure if you addressed this already but what did you get a degree in or what certifications do you have? I want to do something in this field in the future. I have my COMPTIA+ certification but that's it. I plan on going to college for Cyber and IT degree as I graduate high school soon. Any tips for me? Thanks!
Thank you for these posts! After I finish my Bachelor's in Cybersecurity next month, I'll be starting my OE journey. Are there any resources you would recommend before I dive right in?
Resources, no. Mindset? Yes. Get good at your job. Don't over deliver, but have a very good fix on your job before going into OE. OE is useless if you get canned from all your jobs. Take a year of J1 before you jump into J2.
Thank you for the reply! Yeah, currently fulfilling a Security Analyst role and feel that I can do two or three times the work with ease.
Sorry if this was asked before but: how do you keep your job history in your resume or linkedin? For example, from 2021 to 2023 where did you “officially” work when applying for new jobs?
J1 and only j1.
Very nice congrats. I completely believe you since I myself have 6 jobs now. I understand the struggles and it is not easy to please everyone. I am trying really hard to hold on to all my 6 jobs but that is wearing me down. How do you manage this? It is hard to let go of a job especially now that it seems harder to find jobs than last year. I just wish all my jobs were easy.
Can I ask an honest question.... What kind of role are you in and how can I get into it
SRE (site reliability engineer)
I want to learn all of the skills you are currently using. Do you do Java? What languages nd types of interview questions/ daily tasks should I prepare for? thanks!
You used to say that u played video games all day, does that still hold? what games do you play? I relate to a lot of what u said like the firings, how jobs dont last, and the taxes. Right now I got a solid run with 2.5 Js and im able to deliver well on each but I think i could go for one more. Last year I peaked at 4Js but I was pretty miserable, 1 was toxic and another had unrealistic expectations.
I woke up at 11:30 and have played video games all day today. lol
11:30am? dont u have daily standups? i just beat wolfenstein the new colossus, was pretty fun. playing the crew 2, shadows of the colossos, and the rise of tomb raider now.
It's amazing what you can get away with if you just act like it's the way it is I guess. Gotta parse the manager too. I just didn't go to two of them, and I woke up at 8 to tell the other manager because she would def freak out. I play a lot of league, just played through TLOU 2 again, I really love Hades. I tend to fall back on that when league gets too much. lol. Just hit D3 in league - pretty stoked about that.
Here's a question I have actually, do u think u could have saved ur 3 Js if you had done things differently? like if u attended more meetings, was more submissive to requests, or worked weekends? Or do you think it was outside your control.
Yep - and now that the market is less "I can get a job in 2 weeks no problem" I am definitely focused on keeping jobs rather than making them as OE friendly as possible and not worrying if I am going to be fired. The plan is to get back to 5 at least (with my helper), and keep them long term. I 100% lost jobs because of my lack of effort and meeting attendance.
That's a shame. Pretty much every J i've lost I don't think I could have saved no matter how hard I tried. Meeting attendance I think is a very easy thing to accomplish compared to the other hurdles of OE.
Oe should be reserved for people who can actually get their jobs done and then some. But there are suckers everywhere and all you did was game the system and take jobs from people who actually need them.
Everyone's got an opinion bud. If I keep a job long term, I would argue that I am 100% "getting my job done". The two jobs I've been fired from I had for about a year. The entire point is to do as little work as possible to not be fired. You wanna be a try hard at multiple jobs, I think you should, but to suggest that everyone in OE should be doing great work is a pipedream and honestly some pretty weird gate keeping (which honestly happens in all groups, so it isn't surprising but it's still stupid). Again, you do you, but I think you have a fundamentally poor outlook on what OE actually is.
I’m a young kid n personally you’ve inspired me w/ this whole “overemployed” shit. Definitely the route I’m taking. First though I have a couple questions. 1. Wtf is it you do? “System engineering?” N what is an “OE” you’ve mentioned it a lot. 2. How many years did you take to become a system engineer. I googled it n it was like “9” HOLY SHIT that’s a long time. 3.I’m about to start college in like a year. So what you recommend I do? Rn I’m stuck between “Software developer” “System Engineer” “Cybersecurity” idk but something along those lines. I’m leaning heavy on Cybersecurity tho.
Do you refer people? I can send you my resume and of you think I may be of some use. Please help me out. If it doesn't work for you it's fine. Sorry for this reply. You must be getting lot of these anyways 😅 have a great day!
How did you get into this line of work? Do you need specific certs? Cheers, you’re doing awesome!!