Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

For what it's worth, I used to do work on freelancing sites ~10 years ago and just tended to ignore the race to the bottom. I initially charged $50/hr, and regularly raised my rates so that I was up over $150/hr by the time I stopped doing it.

Of course I got passed over for a lot of jobs in favor of cheaper folks. But the jobs I did get were from clients who actually respected me. Also, more than once, a client who initially passed over me for someone cheaper came back a few months later and asked me to do the job after all.

So, perhaps something like that could work for you.

--

Regarding the $1,200 per month limit, I'm not sure what the rules are, but perhaps you could set up a corporation that takes on the freelancing jobs and then pays you a salary of $1,200 a month? That way you wouldn't have to turn down a job for paying too much.

Maybe have the corp owned by a trust rather than you personally?

I wouldn't want you to get in trouble and lose the disability, though, so talk to somebody who actually knows what they're talking about before doing any of this stuff.

Have you considered technical writing? I've talked to a number of folks who are in a similar position, and writing (as opposed to generalist development) has a number of advantages:

- It rewards experience though, except for niche-specific writing, does not require understanding of specific frameworks or programming languages - It is often 'important-but-not-urgent' work, so intermittent availability is less of a deal-breaker - Clear writing is very much an orthogonal skill from programming aptitude writ large, and you don't need to compete with new grads

> I've been disabled since 2018, and my skills in software as such have largely become outdated.

I always find this such a weird claim. Sure, lots has happened in the past 5 years, but there's still tons of software out there that's older than 5 years, most major programming languages are decades old, and anything new can be learned.

If you want to be able to make money quickly, it's far more interesting to look at what you can do, than worry about what you might not yet know. Python is still around and still as relevant as ever.

> I'm in my early-to-mid 30s for reference. I'm not really able to get off disability as the condition is severe.

My personal opinion is that if your condition is that severe, you shouldn't have to work at all, but of course that's of no help to you right now.

It seems that you write well. Perhaps you could do technology writing?

Another idea: try to find a grant for an Open Source project to document it. For a large project like Rust find something not well documented.

In my experience and of that of my friends -- we are Deaf by the way -- about nine of ten projects won't give sustenance. It's like startups, you need to try again and again. Either you will strike gold or you will have several horses to bet on.

Finally consider leaving the country. The US is good for people who are well off and not so good for the rest. With some luck you could work as a digital nomad.

From all the comments thus far posted here, I think you'd be best off finding work "under the table", cash only. Yes, this would be defrauding the SSDI system, in the technical sense. But given the significant rise in damned near everything, SSDI is grossly unacceptable in its benefits and requirements.

(I mean, this isn't a case of a Scrooge McDuck collecting piles of money into the money bin. You've got both feet square in the poverty class, with SSDI serving as the very poverty trap.)

SSDI will remove you from their roles if you make "too much".

You'll be forced to a different disability agency that will do everything in its power to not cover you.

If a workplace does significantly accommodate, that will forever be used to prove that you're not disabled; just lazy.

This country's (USA) politicians do not care about you.

I’ve employed people in a similar position to yours at Instapainting.com. Willing to train and pay you while you train, and also dole part time work as you see fit for software engineering services.

Please email me chris@instapainting.com

It's hard to take Fiver seriously.

For example a quick search for 'Ruby Rails' and one of the top service providers lists a premium service of 'full stack development app' delivered in 3 days, and including a 15 minute consultation, a project plan, and audit, for ... $20.

Hey, sorry to hear about your situation. I'm in a similar boat — very low and variable ability to work for a couple years.

I haven't seen this suggestion elsewhere in the thread and it's worked ok for me so I'll mention it. I started a small SaaS.

It was initially a decent chunk of work (as you indicated in the section about monetizing applications you've written), but now provides consistent income that's not tied to my time or, critically, my energy levels. And even the initial push wasn't that bad since I spread out a lot of the work over time to match my abilities. My physical difficulties were actually kind of a blessing in a way because it forced me to do things that were absolutely critical and cut out everything else.

Needless to say, making a SaaS is an art and a risky one. It requires a good eye for applications that will make money, practice validating ideas and solutions, ways of acquiring new users, ongoing customer support and feature development, etc. One way you might de-risk a SaaS is by doing contract work for companies that give you insights into problems they're having and help you build solutions while still getting paid until you can spin out an app.

I actually think browser extensions are also an underappreciated way to get started indie hacking but I'm biased: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/why-browser-extensions-are...

Anyway, stay positive, friend! It's hard to be in our position without an ongoing practice of self-compassion and positivity.

You don't say what your disability is (or how it impacts your ability to work), so it's hard to be specific. But my general advice would be just to talk to more companies. Not every company will be open to this, but some will and you just need to find those companies. Get in contact with companies that are hiring for roles that require the kind of skills you have even if the working arrangements they're advertising aren't what you'd want.

I would recommend using your Python skills to write scripts that perform analytics tasks using JIRA Cloud REST API data. Every tech company I have worked in needed some kind of custom reports regarding development performance, time reporting, financial reporting, etc.... and there often weren't suitable plugins for just that task, and the reports themselves are highly valuable either for management purposes or compliance reasons, so they will pay you well. I have written several programs myself to do these tasks (during work hours), and it is quite satisfying to figure out how to get around the API constraints. Could be a nice little line of consulting and development work for you.

$1200/m as a decent software engineer should be really doable, whether writing software directly or not. It just might take some work to get creative and figure out where the right niches are.

I think you really want to explore more non-traditional routes, since $1200 is not much for a full time job, and probably too low end for traditional consulting as well.

For instance:

* I would get on all the expert networks (GLG, Guidepoint, Alphasights, Deepbench, etc) and get really good there. These can be a bit of overhead, but it only takes a few gigs per month to get close to $1200/month. Charge $100-$300/call. reddit.com/r/expertneworks will give you more detail

* Do you know friends/ppl in your network who work at startups or are indie hackers/solo software shops? If you're still a solid engineer, but you have a cost cap, you could be really useful to some startups who need flexible help thats not 40 hrs/week. You can also offer to be a generalist doing software, documentation, other stuff as well since you're not trying to optimize salary. A jack of all trades who can pitch in on software could be very useful for the right startup.

* Some others have suggested it too, but I'd explore the Fiverrs/Upworks and see if you can find an optimal niche where you're working, say, 10-15 hours/month and hitting that $1200. I think it's doable if you figure out what works well on those networks.

I've written a bit more about ways to get part-time work here (https://blog.parttimetech.io/p/work-part-time-as-a-software-...), hopefully some of the tips there and resources can be helpful. I've had friends with disabilities leverage part-time to be able to stay in the workforce, hope you can as well.

Man small and medium sized local businesses need website help and marketing help. Try posting ads on craigslist and facebook. I used to do this 10-15 years ago and had some small success, though it wasn't something I tried to do full time.

You can work as much or as little as you want. People pay way too much for websites, so there's a long tail of customers that you can actually save money and do a decent job for, you just have to seek them out. Many small businesses prefer to work for someone local as well.

Many small businesses are happy to pay $X/month to their web master to keep the site alive as well, since they know nothing about computers. Many web agencies charge over $100/month to do essentially nothing, and charge for change fees.

If you have a very trusted friend or family member to structure a corporation for you, then you can earn a modest 'wage' and they uh, aren't very good at not leaving envelopes full of cash at your place. That part's obviously up to you, probably not legal, but everyone breaks the speed limit now and then.

In early 40's with outdated skills, I am in the same boat except a physical disability. While development only roles have gone out of reach now, I have been able to find QA, documentation, support, generalist roles at a non-profit, academia, and an early stage startup in that order. Reached advanced interview stages with employers looking for outdated skills (Perl scripting) or in-office positions, so you might want to explore similar. LinkedIn, Fiverr never worked for me. My resume generated a lot more interest via HN's monthly threads. Good luck!

You might want to expand your focus - if you can't promise to commit to a long-term project due to your health concerns, try talking to local temp services. It won't be tech work, but it will be work and a paycheck. With low expectations of continued work. Low pay, too, but it sounds like you only want some money, not an amount so large to kick you out of your programs.

I've also gotten tech gigs from temp gigs - "Hey, I know I'm just a temp, but I also do tech work and noticed some things I could automate for you, if you'd like some help."

Depending on the disability there may be organizations that can help. For example, if you're blind or low vision the APH, ACB and NFB (in the states) have great training and placement programs that can potentially match you to employers.

There's also options to reposition yourself. For example, instead of development, look for QA analyst roles. This particular shift won't pay as high, but it might be a good fit for what you need and possibly be easier to land in a shorter time frame

I'm a software developer with cerebral palsy. I hope you don't take this question the wrong way, but what sort of condition disables you from working as a software developer? I only ask because I worked very hard to get into this career imagining that it would be almost impossible to be disabled enough that I could not write code without some sort of cognitive impairment. Your post suggests I'm missing a risk factor I haven't accounted for?

I've found myself doing a bit of side work for small non-profits, and they tend to use older CMSs for their sites. They also tend to not have anyone on staff who fully manages the website - it usually falls under whoever is in charge of marketing or development (in the non-profit sense). One non-profit in particular reached out to have me on a monthly retainer to just pop in to their WordPress site to make sure things are updated and there are no security issues. They also ask me to do some content updates if they're overwhelmed and not sure of the best way to do it. Time wise, I'll spend maybe 15-20 minutes a month going through their checklist of ToDos, and they send a small but consistent check each month.

Maybe you could use your experience in CMS automation and reach out to a few smaller non-profits/businesses to see if you might be able to get a similar situation going? It could be a win-win; you can pull a consistent amount every month, and it's a huge relief to the marketing coordinator to not have to deal with administration they're not comfortable with.

Have you put out your resume on indeed.com, LinkedIn, etc, listing yourself as part time? Getting noticed by recruiters can be a way to get things done. Have you considered going back to school online? Being in school can help with Section 8 housing in the US, as can a disability. It also helps with lots of other public help. Also, you might scour for jobs that require a security clearance that are part time, as the government views disability far, far different than the private sector. Long term, government jobs, even part time, might be your answer. Even companies that have government contracts hire many more disabled folks than others. Actually, I know people who's job it is/has been to help disabled folks get jobs, even part time. Google Vocational Rehab for your area. There's probably a program near you. Sorry to not answer your questions the way you were probably looking, but I'm sharing what I do know of all this. I can probably help if you care to send more specifics.

I feel for you, I'm a bit younger then you and in a similar situation.

Been offered several jobs at tech startups for marketing positions that I had to turn down besides being offered the world and back. Can't risk losing the medicaid/medicare combo.

Have you looked into an efficiency apartment or talking to some old people who are landlords? They'll sometimes have places they'd rather stick a "low maintenance/guaranteed payment" tenant.

I regularly notice my landlord just "Forgetting" to update the cost per month on my rent portal but my lease stating a different amount.

One thing you can do is work for people in the crypto world, building Rust/Solidity games for others can be profitable AND most importantly its paid out in crypto.

Just don't try withdrawing said crypto in your name cough. -- Beyond working in the crypto world/getting paid in crypto I can't see a way out of this hellish hole for either of us.

It's horrible feeling like the world has passed you by, perhaps even more so when it's forced on you by external factors rather than choices you've made.

That being said, I wonder if you should challenge your assumption that it's out of date. I'm definitely clueless on whatever the latest JavaScript library is and whatever's going in machine learning. But my knowledge of foundational data structures, algorithms, and software development practices often makes me more valuable than somebody who is more "up to date". It feels horrible when someone uses an acronym I don't know, but it doesn't actually have much impact.

Then again, perhaps you're right and it really is causing you problems - it's hard to give specific advice on social media because the async nature prevents good Q&A. Could you find someone that will coach you on it?

I feel for you. Besides the obvious fact that you have a disability it also seems like overall society has shunned you . I have an acquaintance in a similar situation who can actually still code and has been out of the market for around 20 years. Nobody wants to employ him.

For those who are worried about a similar fate happening to them ( yes, I'm worried). I'd say that you have to form long term alliances with conscientious long term thinking people to partially alleviate situations like this.

p.s: I'm fully aware that insurance can take into account certain obviously visible disabilities (like a last a lost limb), but there are others where insurance will not be useful, for example chronic fatigue syndrome.

I might have something for you. I'm helping out a small company that has web dashboards which sometimes need to be updated. The stack is Python/Flask running on AWS Beanstalk. Frontend is vanilla HTML with JS/CSS. There's currently quite some work to improve the performance of queries by writing things as JSON to S3. "Queries" means Python Pandas. All in all it is a simple stack. The complexity is in the detailed pandas code, but there's a data scientist who works on that. It is a US company. Obviously I'm not the founder so I can't guarantee anything, but if you're interested: My profile contains my contact information.

2018 is not that long ago. I know things develop fast in technology but doesn't mean every single company hiring is keeping up. I would look into agency work and look for agencies that deal with boring enterprise clients. For instance, I used to work for an agency that strictly served pharmaceutical clients. I did full-stack but there were co-workers that only handled front-end, and I'm not talking about modern front-ends using React/Vue/etc, I'm talking about people writing just HTML and CSS, no build steps. These sites ranged from the simplest front-ends ("brochure websites") with simple forms to capture data, to the most basic CRUD app. This is not sexy work but it pays well and can be easy for the more experienced devs. I eventually left because I needed to learn more and do harder things, but if you just need to make money it's not a bad place to work.

Some places to start, there are few top mega companies (known as "the big four") that own most of the advertising companies in this space. Go to their sites and see which of their companies work in the "Health" space and then go to their individual sites and check out their posted jobs

1. IPG (Interpublic Group), look at the multiple "Health" options in the "Capabilities" dropdown on this page: https://www.interpublic.com/our-companies/

2. Publicis Groupe - https://www.publicisgroupe.com/en/services/services-publicis...

3. WPP plc - look into the companies mentioned on this page: https://www.wpp.com/featured/work/list?topic=Healthcare%20an...

4. Omnicom Group - check out https://www.omnicomgroup.com/newsroom/agency/bbdo/

Here are some tangible options, depending on whether your disability status allows them:

* Donating plasma: up to $900/month in my city, note that they may be able to work around medication(s), but it might be considered taxable income: https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/tax-credits-deductions/dis...

* Bacon (no affiliation): usually temp and handyman work, but it's worth signing up to see if they offer clerical/remote work as part of an anti-discrimination effort for the disabled: https://www.baconwork.com

* Support others in your situation: your technical skills are in high demand at agencies that advocate for the disabled, perhaps you could contact someone at: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/disability-employm...

I would add that I struggled for many of the last 20 years under a scarcity mindset. But reconnecting as part of a community really helped me see that we all have equal dignity and a desire to be of service. For me, mustering the faith to try new things for a couple of weeks, while being mindful about setting boundaries and having fallback options, really helped get me back to healthy and sustainable work.

I am not in the United States so I am not the right person to answer your question.

It might be helpful to say how many hours you can work per week, and how much you want to be paid per hour.

COBOL. Spend a couple of months getting back into the coding mindset by digging into COBOL, then find a local company that needs help maintaining old COBOL programs. I've gotten calls from local colleges asking me if: a) I want to teach COBOL courses as adjunct (nope) or b) if I'd have any interest in helping to maintain for them or other area employers (not yet but maybe someday).

There is a lot of work connecting various platforms via API. Marketing agencies in particular need this service.

You could look at the big CRM platforms like Salesforce which require only a modified version of Java called Apex to customize. I find there are a dearth of good programmers working in the platform.

EDIT: Both of these options allow you to work remotely.

I don't know where you'd find it, but seems like one possibility would be match up one of those people who wants to bootstrap a startup with very little money. The kind that would normally use some overseas gig worker site, or used to post on Craigslist, but you'd probably be a better bet for them.

Or maybe a business has an existing in-house Python application they need maintained, including frequent changes made on short notice, and they don't want to hire someone at several times the cost and try to retain them. They have to find a trustworthy contractor for a long-term relationship, and you might look like that.

You could also do two of these kinds of engagements at once (to lower the cost even more, avoid any concern about looking like a de facto employee, add recent stuff to your resume faster, and not have all your eggs in the same basket).

I'm not certain about the accounting details in the USA, but at least in Canada starting a company is a fantastic way to control your income to keep you subthreshold (you pay yourself at the threshold, and defer excess income to future years)

Perhaps someone more aware of US Law could confirm/correct this line of thinking.

The semi-tech-savvy small business people I encounter tend to manage CMS, WordPress, etc, sites for less tech savvy small businesses as a kind of support contract.

I think it has similar downsides as consulting except that it can provide a very fixed income while the amount of work to do varies instead of having income swings.

Depending on your disability, you might already be qualified to be an expert consultant on software development to accommodate users with your disability. If not, that's fine too, and you can quickly become knowledgeable in disability consulting for web applications (how to structure html/css so that pages can be read by screen readers). There is a lot of work in this field and when you're really good, you can make that $1200 in one day.

If a particular job requires several days of work, you could ask the client if you can bill them $1200 at a time over several months.

It's easy for me and I don't know your situation to say but try not to be so fixated on the $1200/mo. Seems to be that a solid job with Python skills could make the $1200 look small very quickly.

Have you thought about becoming a Blockchain developer? You mentioned that you wrote Python scripts for automating and you did other front-end web development.

I would like to share with you this article: https://www.ratherlabs.com/post/the-roadmap-to-become-a-bloc...

It was written by Federico Caccia, CEO of Rather Labs.

From understanding the basics to mastering advanced concepts, this comprehensive guide has it all.

Let me know if it was useful for you! Good luck with everything!

Teaching conversational English online can easily earn $15-25/hr, especially if you have an American accent. The hours might be weird but once you have some students, they become consistent.

You say you have problem solving competence. Then if you can do 3 easy to medium algorithmic coding problems in 1.5 hours, you do stand a chance at some remote work companies like Toptal. You may have to brush up your skills to do a mock project as well. Example React for UI and a backend language (Python/Java/Go anything really). Also you can work part time via this, its not necessarily full time.

Edit: Wish you good luck, whichever path you choose.

You could try moonlight work, they seem to have some python jobs available. I like it better than Upwork and Fiver.

Another option could be to freelance as a code reviewer, I've never tried it but it seems interesting [1]

[0] https://www.moonlightwork.com/ [1] https://app.pullrequest.com/signups/reviewer

Unsure what is possible but perhaps remote tier 2-3 technical support for some might be an option? Potentially for a federal agency that hires contractors for such purposes?

Often hard to find people that can do the job right, and I’d imagine post COVID that remote is very doable. Unsure on flexibility but for escalations it’s nice to have somebody you can call whenever they’re available.

Edit: sounds like this type of job might lose you part of your disability so this may not be an option.

My experience is once you step off the path, you're done with corporate W-2. HR will blacklist you if you didn't work 40 hrs in the same job title or one step down last week. Its all about risk minimization and blame minimization for the hiring team, never about "finding someone who can do it" or "finding someone who has done it". Maybe the way to put it is we all know what it takes to work and do a job is not what it takes to get hired. I haven't worked W-2 in some years and its probable I'll never be allowed to work W-2 again beyond McDonalds-level jobs. If you step off the path once, you'll never be permitted the risk of stepping off again.

Staffing-type companies work MUCH better. Someone in IT dept is on maternity leave until March, do whatever you can to help them for two months. Shockingly you can sometimes get 2x to even 3x their "regular" pay for temp. Plenty of companies have never read their Fred Brooks and think if a project is late they can throw talent at it and it'll get done quicker (spoiler alert, more bodies = later due date every time), regardless I don't mind profiting off their project management inexperience. A permanent-ish "grind away at the desk for years" at the corporate job is probably completely off the table; look for big upgrade projects, 2am maintenance/upgrade projects, etc. Baby sitting server upgrades at 2am is not glamorous, but it can be very profitable... Even less glamorous is taking the on call shift at 2am, but when you bill per hour it feels better... I could never work on call permanently, just a few months will burn most people completely out, but this contract ends on march 31st so I can wait it out.

Recruiter-type companies are hit and miss. They usually take a HUGE percentage cut (so you're taking a huge pay cut) but its usually a fixed-ish percentage so they want you billing 40+ hours every week to maximize their cut. Its the same hoops for them to jump thru for a 3-month part time contract at $75 as for a 12-month full time contract at $175 so you're at the back of the list unless they're infinitely bored. Spoiler, they're almost never bored.

Its kind of important to note if you need to report income monthly or annually. Monthly could be tricky, annual would likely be pretty easy. The work tends to be feast or famine; think of your relationship with your car mechanic, either you want it done yesterday and him working 24 hrs/day or you have zero interest in paying him a penny; this is how your clients will look at you. So if you're close to your income budget it'll be pretty easy to not sign a short term contract for awhile or until next year or whatever. On the other hand if you have to report income monthly that might be painful as you'll run into places that bill net-30, net-90, net-seems-like-forever and you'll suddenly get a check large enough to buy a car, but it'll be one and only one check. Here's two totally different phrases "So I see your monthly income is $30K" vs "Once, one month I got a single check for $30K, but that was the only check I got for about half a year".

a few people mentioned technical writing so I will also just plug my repo quickly which has my favourite resources to learn more about tech writing and also a list of companies that pay for it (often per article so very flexible).

https://github.com/sixhobbits/technical-writing

You mention Python and CMS - are there not thousands of Django development jobs out there? A quick search found them in high income areas and tons of remote positions as well. Even if you don't know Django itself, if you have python and CMS - it should be a natural step. It's not super sexy or new but it's very embedded in some companies.

Maybe some of the open source bounty services listed on the FOSSjobs wiki?

https://fossjobs.net/ https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources

Also have you considered becoming a remote-actuary? We refi'd our house in the US and had to sign documents while living in Berlin and the bank allowed the use of an actuary which we found via a broker online -- I can't remember which. Apparently they can make decent money and you can decide how many gigs to take.

Maybe work in some field that isn't software. In retail part timers are more accepted for instance. Where I am companies typically expect 40 hours if you are a man so unless you're a woman you are out of luck. Even then you might still be out of luck. I've never seen anyone do two days a week for instance.

>I've written some scripts and other little projects for people I know here and there for small amounts, but it is extremely inconsistent availability even though they trust what I deliver.

Expand your network a little. Ask them for their help for new jobs. You helped them, maybe they can help you?

How about becoming a (software) tester?

I did about 6 months as a part time TA for a virtual coding bootcamp a while back to earn a little extra cash. The pay wasn't great, but it was easy work and not too many hours. Might be ideal for someone in your situation.

On a side note, this is why means testing kinda sucks. Sorry that you have to deal with it.

2018 is not that far out of date, dude.

If you're not working, you have lots of time to learn new things. Why limit yourself to your existing skill set? You don't mention vision issues, so frontend, which is what I do, is probably well within your reach.

Learn to trade. Trade stocks, options, or futures. Just pick one and get good at it. It takes 2-4 yrs to be profitable due to needed behavior changes and knowledge and experience needed.

Remote email/chat based technical support could be an option. Mostly repetitive and rote but it would give you the chance to use some detective skills and help a few people.

Look for a “support” contract type roles. “I’ll be on call to support your XYZ system for $1200 a month.” Or y’know, how every many clients you want to take on to get there.

Hey, get in touch with me at andrea@techinterview.coach - we are expanding our coaches #s and it's a fun and rewarding side gig :)

outco is almost always hiring for tech coaches. Lots of bootcamps are always hiring for coaches. It really doesnt mater what your background is, you will probably know more than the typical person coming through the progress. These are typically 1099 or part time W-2 positions which allow you to pick your hours.

What's the best way to contact you? How many hours are you looking to reasonably put in?

Maybe this could help get you by? https://www.userinterviews.com/hello

disclaimer: I have no relationship with them. I just heard they were a sponsor of Talk Python To Me -- a podcast I listen to and I thought the idea was interesting.

Naive question but can you do it through a friend? You get the contract on your friend/relative name, you do the work, you pay his/her taxes for that work and whatever overhead then the friend dispenses you enough money so you don’t lose disability?

Maybe creating a python udemy course with simple ai applications?

How many hours can you potentially work?

disability caps out at 185 or 195? (One of these two numbers) a week...where are you getting 1200 from?

unpopular opinion on hn but crypto and web3 is an amazing industry

You could try Toptal. It's a bit different from other freelancing sites.

Depending on the rigidity of your conscience you could whip up some buzzword laden project with "blockchain" written all over it.

Some suckers will throw money at that if you give it a colourful website with plenty of vague promises that you never have to deliver.