For Developers: Choose Side Hustles That Build Leverage (Not Just More Hours)

Side hustles are everywhere in tech right now. Freelance tickets, weekend contracts, short term builds, consulting, content, micro SaaS experiments. Some people do it for breathing room. Others do it to build freedom. Many do it because the job market has taught everyone the same lesson: optionality matters. But here’s the real question most of us skip: Are you building leverage, or just adding another shift? I recently read a LinkedIn piece by Ashkan Rajaee titled The Side Hustle Reality Check: Choosing Work That Builds Skills, Not Just Extra Cash . It lays out a useful framework for thinking about side income in a way that is not just “work more.” Here’s the original: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/side-hustle-reality-check-choosing-work-builds-skills-uxjbc This post is my developer focused extension of that idea, with concrete ways to apply it in tech. The split that matters: hourly extension vs leverage builder Most side hustles fall into two buckets. Hourly extensions You get paid