Hi all

I’ve been working as a software developer for the past few years and frequently decided to leave a company/project myself because I could not find the motivation to keep working for it.

First, I was questioning whether software development was really for me. But in my spare time, I still enjoyed writing small useful tools, configuring my linux desktop and self-hosting.

I recently realised that my demotivation is mostly due to the kind of software I was working on for the companies I worked for. Usually building APIs to facilitate sales/marketing for products I don’t really care for. Or configuring some unnecessarily complicated ERP/CRM microsoft stack.

Instead, I would like to work on software that I use myself. Or at least on something that will useful for other people in the future, not just boost the sales of some company.

But I’m not sure where to look. It seems like jobs focusing on free/libre software are difficult to find (Or I don’t know how to look) and the few I find seem to be looking for senior profiles much more experienced than me.

Anybody have some tips or places I can start looking? Honesly I would prefer to just contribute to some project for free, but I don’t really have the option to do so at the moment.

Thanks!

  • makeasnek@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    7 months ago

    You can always add “freemium” or service-based features to your tools and charge for those. Or you can set development milestones and raise money to pay for those features using bug bounties or something like OpenCollective. If you aren’t sponsored by some big corp or just hoping donations will randomly come in (they won’t!), those are the options.

    You can also apply for grants and other funding from non-profits or govt orgs who may have some interest in your software project.