Become a full-time creator as a software engineer

I earn my living by writing, full time. My newsletter is the #1 paid tech newsletter on Substack. I am what some describe as a full-time designer.

As remote work becomes more common in the tech industry, I get more and more messages from people asking the same thing: how can they do what I do?

Despite being considered a successful creator, I don't think "creator" is a real thing - at least not a category everyone can or should be aiming for.

This article brings together my thoughts on how to become a full-time creator. Or, as I prefer to think of it, run a single-person, seeded, profitable startup.

My journey

When I left my job as head of engineering at Uber at the end of 2020, I hadn't done anything on purpose and decided to spend the next 6 months writing a book, then found a startup related to platform engineering, probably with venture capital funding.

Things turned out differently.

18 months later, I've published several books, but I'm still writing The Software Engineer's Handbook.

However, I have never raised funds to create a startup. Instead, I redoubled my efforts to write, starting my newsletter in September 2021. 4 months later, the newsletter reached category #1 for paid tech newsletters on Substack – here's the summary of what that meant.

My advice is controversial

The "creator economy" is booming, and there are many examples where people apparently make a living from having a large number of subscribers. They live off their "fame".

Excel Girl with a million subscribers, and making six figures is such a story. If you work in technology, a former Google and Facebook engineer under the TechLead brand regularly boasts of being a millionaire. TechLead makes most of its living from endorsements in its YouTube videos and questionable activities like selling its own cryptocurrency, misleading its subscribers, and profiting millions of dollars.

A lot of people assume that a large audience, and somehow "cash in" a following is what they should be aiming for.

I think these examples are poor. They're both outliers as far as they're known, but they also don't reflect how most job leavers make a living.

My advice is controversial because it goes against the traditional advice that most creators share, which is usually limited to building an audience or audience. I won't go into this topic: even more, I advise you to make audience building your main end goal.

Instead of talking about success as a creator, I'm going to talk about how to be successful as a small business.

Earn a living, but NOT as an employee

Making a living as an employee in a tech company is simple: get the job, perform to expectations, get paid. Get a promotion or change jobs for more money, more challenges, or both.

What happens when you quit your job?

Assuming you want to earn a similar amount as an employee, you have several options:

1. Become independent or an entrepreneur. Do almost the same work for similar companies. You get paid at a higher rate, but you have to manage your own books and find your job. Contracts are often fixed term, and you need to find your next contracts. Even if you have longer contracts, you are more easily fired than if you are an employee.

2. Start your own business and employ yourself. Start a business offering services or selling goods. As a freelancer, you may sometimes do this for tax reasons or if you get more business than you can handle and need to hire other people. To sell goods, most of us in tech would sell digital goods like building a SaaS and selling seats for it, selling digital educational goods like courses or books , etc.

As the business generates profits, you either employ yourself, pay dividends from the profits of the business, or do both. You really are your own boss now!

3. Raise funds and start your own business by employing your...