Solved: People who are making 100k+/year working for themselves, what do you do?

🚀 Executive Summary TL;DR: Many tech professionals seek autonomy and a six-figure income outside traditional employment, often feeling constrained by corporate bureaucracy. This article outlines three distinct pathways—Specialist Contractor, Strategic Consultant, and Product Builder—each requiring different skillsets, risk tolerances, and offering varying levels of scalability to achieve self-employment success. 🎯 Key Takeaways Specialist Contractors achieve high income by focusing on deeply technical, niche problems like Kubernetes migrations, allowing them to charge premium rates for specific, high-value solutions without full-time overhead. Strategic Consultants elevate their value by providing high-level architectural guidance and long-term strategic planning, billing for outcomes and foresight rather than just hours, which demands strong business acumen and soft skills. Product Builders pursue scalable wealth by identifying recurring industry pain points and developing proprietary