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Hey there,

Most of us have a folder of side projects. Very few of them ever made a dollar, because they were built to learn, not to sell. That's fine for learning. But with tech layoffs still landing (Challenger counted 155,126 announced US tech job cuts through August), a second income line that someone actually pays for is worth more than another unfinished repo.

Here are five options, ranked by how fast the first payment usually shows up. No income promises: what you earn depends on the hours, the niche and how well you sell.

1. Contract and freelance work (fastest)

Companies are leaning on flexible talent: 66% of tech leaders expect to bring in more contract professionals. Small, fixed-scope jobs (a bug bash, an integration, a migration script) fit around a day job better than open-ended hourly work. Check your employment contract for moonlighting rules first.

2. Websites for local businesses

Plenty of local businesses still have no site, a broken one, or one they can't edit. A developer can set up a clean site on a builder in an afternoon and charge for setup plus a monthly care plan. Using a builder like Wix means the owner can change their own hours without calling you at dinner. (Affiliate link: we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.)

3. Small digital products

Templates, starter kits, scripts, a well-made checklist. You build it once and sell it many times, but the first sale takes longer because you need an audience or a marketplace. Start with the thing people already ask you for at work.

4. Micro-apps and tiny tools

A single-purpose tool for one type of customer: a calculator for contractors, a scheduler for tutors, a report generator for one industry. AI builders shorten the first version a lot. Base44 turns a plain-language description into a working app, which is a fast way to test if anyone will pay before you write the real thing. (Affiliate link: we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.)

If what you'd sell is physical (merch, prints, a niche product), Shopify is the usual starting point. (Affiliate link: we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.)

5. Teaching and mentoring (slowest to start, steady later)

Mock interviews, code reviews for bootcamp grads, a short course. It builds slowly, but it compounds: every student is a referral source, and it sharpens your own interview skills.

The 30-day rule

Whatever you pick, give it 30 days and one test: can you get one stranger to pay for a first version? Not a friend, not a like, a payment. If yes, keep going. If no, change the offer or the customer before you write more code.

1. Days 1 to 3: Name one customer type and one problem in a sentence.

2. Days 4 to 10: Talk to five of them. Ask what they use today and what it costs them.

3. Days 11 to 25: Build the smallest version that solves it.

4. Days 26 to 30: Ask for money. Put a price on it.

5 jobs for people who like to ship

If building things people pay for is the itch, these teams hire for exactly that. All were open on their company job boards when we checked this week. Pay is the range the company posted.

• Replit: Product Engineer, New Products. $180K to $250K plus equity. Foster City, CA (hybrid). Small team, new products from zero, the closest thing to a paid side project.

• Anthropic: Product Engineer, Computer Use. $300K to $320K. San Francisco, New York or Seattle. You ship the product side of Claude using a computer.

• Suno: Software Engineer, Fullstack, Pro-Create. $188,640 to $247,590 plus equity. San Francisco (on-site). Tools for paying creators, so the feedback loop is real customers.

• Harvey: Frontend Platform Engineer. $193.4K to $290K plus equity and bonus. San Francisco (hybrid). Legal AI with paying enterprise users; frontend work that people use all day.

• Baseten: Software Engineer, Partner Platform. $265K to $330K plus equity. San Francisco (hybrid). Building what other companies plug into, which is a product skill as much as an infra one.

Want the full list, not five? It's in Pro, right below.

Sources: Challenger data via Second Talent; Robert Half data via Consultadd.

See you next time,
Dev List