I love the idea of this but you read so many stories about the owners of open sourced projects not making a penny, whilst millions use their work and benefit financially.
It’s difficult to do this when there’s belly’s to fill.
That’s great at your parents house but when you have kids to feed and a mortgage to pay, doing it for free is off the cards, no matter how much you love it.
So what’s the point? You want to work forever? There’s no goal to retire early and just enjoy life or start your own company?
> I’m very far from making a lot of money
The software engineering career is a ridiculously “fast paced”. career. 5 years experience in programming is the equivalent to 20+ years in another industry. There’s very few industries where you can make a 200k+ salary in your 20s.
I'm facing this exact problem. The guy that works on the weekend, is unfortunately the most senior engineer on our team (it's quite sad really. He has nothing to prove, a wife and kid, yet he works weekends with no reward).
He's setting the benchmark higher and higher with everything he's doing. It adds zero value, yet he still does it. It leaves us other devs having to keep up for the sake of it.
I guess it's a really foolish way to think but whenever I think about those who suck up to their bosses and work weekends for no reward, I just think about the story of the CEO that pulls up in the expensive car. He tells his employee, "if you keep working hard, I'll be able to buy another one."
LOL. Correct. This guy who works weekends without even being asked to, is genuinely a genius in that area but he just churns out complete sh*t. Mindlessly building.
I'm currently reading "Manifest. 7 steps to living your best life". It's pretty much exactly what you've described. It sounds like you're going through an amazing transformation. Embrace it and change your life. They don't come round often.
The outcome of working weekends on my own project is the chance that I may actually build something that can feed my children, give them a good life, give us freedom etc.
The outcome of me working weekends for a company I work for is potentially having a pat on the back from my project manager and to have my name on a powerpoint at the end of the a sprint if I'm lucky.
The CEO doesn't even know your name. Know-your-worth.
Very, very good points here. You're right, the stress part is 100% a personal and perspective issue. I do try to convince myself that "no-one is dying" but the sad reality is that if I don't constantly meet deadliness, prove myself, and go above and beyond for the company (over-time and over-work); as "over the top" as it may sound, it's my kids that "die" when I lose my job and cannot provide.
It’s difficult to do this when there’s belly’s to fill.