Side Income Ideas for Software Developers

By Side Income Ideas for Software Developers

While at college we usually think that when we get a job then all our money problems will be solved. But then as we get jobs our expenses increase. Maybe you buy a car, bike, etc. and that money is not enough. If you want to make some extra money, try these side-income ideas.

Software developers are known to have quite high salaries which they can comfortably live on. However, there exists other software developers who want to try side income ideas to add to their full-time salaries.

Our salaries always come once a month and then we spend the money on rent, food, clothing, etc. After two weeks we wait for the next payday and this goes on until our retirement. Maybe you like to have the freedom of having enough money to spend so that will never worry about your financial status. There are numerous reasons you may want to supplement your salary and it varies from one developer to another.

It’s not so complicated to earn extra money. In this article, I will explain how you can earn extra income to help you pay bills without having to quit your full-time job.

1. Freelancing

Freelancing is one of the easiest ways of making a few bucks on the side. There are several websites that offer programming jobs and you can start by joining a famous freelancing website like fiverr.comor upwork.com.

If you have no idea about what Fiverr is, it is one of the largest marketplaces that offers various services including programming, design, writing, music, video, marketing, etc starting at five dollars. So you want to use your programming skills to earn extra income, then Fiverr will be your gateway to freelancing world. I personally joined Fiverr in 2017 and made many dollars thereby creating Java apps, designing jasper reports, and writing technical articles.

Besides making money on Fiverr as a freelancer, you can be able to hire people to do some of your jobs on the website. I hired other freelancers from Fiverr to do jobs for me when I got busy with other work or had many jobs in the queue.

Freelancing on Upwork is another great way to make money. It allows customers around the world to find and hire software developers with the skills they are looking for.

With all the different options out there, if you’re just starting your freelance career, things can seem quite overwhelming. But don’t worry, I recommend you read ultimate guide to being a freelancer by websiteplanet to help you figure it all out.The most important thing is to determine what will work best for you and find your own way to do it successfully.Either way, the freelance life could be perfect for you.

2. Take side projects you can do

If you want instant money after developing a project then you can take side projects from people around you who need them. You can do these projects on weekends or after coming from work. Ask people within your contacts or locality who may want to develop an App or Website for their business. You can take small projects which you complete on time and this indeed will add to your monthly salary. Personally, I take projects from my friends and you can have a look at My Home App.

Also, there are many problems within your domain which you can solve by developing software. These include repetitive tasks or hard work for small tasks. For example, in a financial workplace, you have to do a lot of calculations every day and you do it on excel and you cannot automate excel. So, you can develop software either the mobile app or desktop app that can do these calculations and export data into excel. And you can charge a fee when people use your app.

3. Starting your own programming blog

It is of great significance to ensure that you have a powerful online presence and also make an effort to market yourself as a determined software engineer which will provide you will a lot of opportunities. You will also be of great help by teaching people interested in programming as you enhance yourself as a programmer.In my previous article, I stated the reasons why a software developer should have a programming blog.

One can come up with a blog with little he has got. There are different kinds of ways you can monetize your blog which include:

Advertisements

Advertisementswhereby ads should be your first priority on your blog. Google gives you a chance to put ads on your blog site through Google AdSense which enables you to earn ad revenue which happens when one of your readers comes across it and clicks on it therefore the more readers the more the ads income.

Here is a good in-depth article about Google Adsense.

Being an Affiliate

You can come up with your affiliate system where you are able to sell other people's products after signing up for example Amazon associates. This is an amazing opportunity for developing your blog. Amazon consists of each and every product and it will provide you with a referral link. When your readers access amazon using your referral link and decide to buy something from them then you are lucky to receive a commission that varies according to your accomplishment and the product.

It’s good to recommend products to your readers which are of great value in programming. Be wise and ensure that you build trust with your readers by suggesting products that you have used if don’t make a mistake of giving it as an option because you may later lose your readers due to bad choices.

Selling your own products

Lastly don’t forget to sell your own products in your blog and once you do that you will make more money. Ensure that the product falls in line with your readers. Also, the product involved should be of great value especially to computer scientists and programmers. It will be tough to sell but you have to come up with extremely relevant ways and skills to popularize your product.

4. E-commerce

This is taking over whereby most of the businesses are failing therefore it better coming up with an online store where you can easily sell your products. It is very easy to set up an online store using platforms likeShopify. The only thing you have to do is be creative on how to market your products which will require a lot of time and effort. You have to find the best audience that you want to target in order to succeed. Ensure you come up with great income ideas.

5. Passive investment

When paid less amount and save the rest which will increase your net worth. Don’t just leave money in your account idle it best if you invest it in order to make more money whereby you can choose some of the companies which are safe if and if you are not sure of the companies just use robot-advisors such as Betterment which will help your portfolio grow over time. Robot-advisors are platforms with little to no human supervision that provide financial planning services. They acquire clients' information online to invest their assets and whenever a piece of advice is needed they help which is safer. There are some of the books you can read to acquire more information about the investment.

Conclusion

It’s not so complicated to earn extra money. Just use one or some of the ways I have mentioned in the article because this is what other software developers do to earn extra money. Happy coding and I wish you all the best as you start earning extra amount of money as a software developer.

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Bessy
Eric Murithi Muchenah

Life is beautiful, time is precious. Make the most out of it.