Of course I got passed over for a lot of jobs in favor of cheaper folks. But the jobs I did get were from clients who actually respected me. Also, more than once, a client who initially passed over me for someone cheaper came back a few months later and asked me to do the job after all.

So, perhaps something like that could work for you.

--

Regarding the $1,200 per month limit, I'm not sure what the rules are, but perhaps you could set up a corporation that takes on the freelancing jobs and then pays you a salary of $1,200 a month? That way you wouldn't have to turn down a job for paying too much.

Maybe have the corp owned by a trust rather than you personally?

I wouldn't want you to get in trouble and lose the disability, though, so talk to somebody who actually knows what they're talking about before doing any of this stuff.

Look into a Special Needs Trust. You may be able to sock the money into the Trust without it becoming income to you, and thus jeopardizing your benefits. It’s usually used to keep assets low enough for benefits, but maybe there’s an income reducing benefit as well. Your state likely has multiple providers —- fees, if any, are typically quite reasonable

Conversely I've known many people who come from lower class or middle class families that have hit hard times who are seriously mental ill (e.g. addicted to cigarettes but so thought disordered that it takes three hours to smoke a cig after waking up.) It strikes me as unfair that somebody who is "lawyered up" can find loopholes to protect their income whereas for many disabled people the process of applying for disability is like going to the moon or becoming a Navy Seal.

How would you suggest it be ordered differently? I don’t know how we reliably help everyone who needs help if they’re unable or unwilling to seek help. “Moar social workers” isn’t a thing - even with funding, the people don’t exist to scale to the size of the need.

UBI etc seem like basic solutions but doesn’t really help them get help, just helps them not need help to some baseline.

It's an poverty/low income trap. If you're on disability/welfare you should still be incentived and rewarded for making money outside of your government payment.

It could be a constant thing like UBI or a gradual reduction like income tax brackets where more money earned is always more money in your pocket.

This has been an inherent flaw in our legal system since the inception of our country. We do not have a right to equal representation. The right to have representation at all is barely even a thing. There has even been some mumbling about ending the right to an attorney...

I'm not sure that's the case here. It's a matter of knowledge transfer.

Lawyers know things. People with money can afford to get knowledge from lawyers. People without money cannot afford to get knowledge from lawyers.

It's not a problem with the "system" that mathematicians know more about math than the general public, and that people who have the money can hire a mathematician to do math for them.

It's a knowledge transfer problem. How do you solve that? You can't give every person a massive book of every law when they're born. It's impractical to store, and they'd be outdated the next day. All of the laws are online for anyone to read, but who has the time?

Cornell's Legal Information Institute, for instance,

https://www.law.cornell.edu/

hasn't had the easiest time getting funding although it is produced on a shoestring and clearly delivers a huge amount of value for what goes into it.

State legislators and vendors have long tried to make people pay for access to the law, it seems in the long term courts have come to realize that there is no excuse, access to the law is not for high paid lawyers, but can and should be free because it is not expensive to provide in the electronic age and since you have to follow the law they don't need to give you the excuse that you can't afford to read it.

A step towards equal representation would start by heavily subsidizing law school making them accessible to everyone. Also, we would need to fund the creation of more law schools. In addition we should fund public defenders an order of magnitude more than we currently do.

https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-law-school#:~:text....

One of the historical high watermarks in legal history is the existence of the twelve tables, a highly condensed, shortened version of roman law which was prominently displayed in public market places and other easily accessible fora - specifically to allow non-patricians to understand and have access to the law.

Other moments in legal history have ruling classes enacting legislation in languages which the common-folk don't even speak.

We exist along a spectrum between 'everyone knows and understands' to 'nearly no one knows and understands', but don't take the difficulty of fixing the issue with the idea that it isn't a problem in the first place. It is a problem, and it's a large one.

I just don't see how a person without family resources (i.e. most mentally ill patients) could ever qualify and I'm sure that's by design.

https://www.ablenrc.org/what-is-able/what-are-able-acounts/

As of right now it's only for people who acquired their disability before 26. I was born with cerebral palsy so that's how I qualified.

SSDI allows income from sources other than work, unlike SSI, which bars pretty much all income. SSDI allows you to get things like Financial Aid for school without impacting your SSDI. You can even trade stocks and gain money from stock sales and not have it impact your SSDI. Your spouse can have income and it won't impact SSDI. Most forms of income that are not strictly "work" are allowed by SSDI. SSI is the more strict of the two programs (and is more generally aimed at people who have been lifetime disabled and never worked or paid into social security).

Open source development + accepting donations seems like a sweet spot for the disabled on SSDI. You're not accepting pay for the "work" you do, thus the donation income is legally acceptable.

OP doesn't specify whether they are on SSI or SSDI, but if they had worked for years before they were disabled, its likely they were able to get SSDI.

No, that'll lose you the benefits.

https://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/cfr20/404/404-1575.htm

"We will evaluate your work activity based on the value of your services to the business regardless of whether you receive an immediate income for your services."

SSI is deliberately set up to fuck people over. (Not in this particular loophole-closer, but in general. You get $900/month to cover food, housing, etc.; a pittance. A savings account balance (or any other countable assets) over $2,000 will lose your benefits.)

I know someone with similar problems in the UK: they are part-time, but working more hours would mean paying more in childcare and lose benefits, ending up with less money than before. It's just stupid.

The efforts US politicians go through to make sure that some of the people who have paid a disproportionately large amount of taxes don't get a fraction of them back when they don't need it have been valiant. Considering that you could simply tax them enough to create a universal benefit, effectively refunding part of their own taxes and redistributing the rest, I'd suggest that starving the poor is a goal rather than a side-effect.

We can't give people free college, what if people who could afford college go?

For example, Florida required drug testing to receive welfare; that program cost more than it saved taxpayers in benefits. https://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/florida-didnt-save-mone...

And yet, we have rich people using fraud to get government funds that they have absolutely no need for while the poor get exploited and starve.

The abuse is going on A N Y W A Y; it's just that people get more indignant when one of the "poors" occasionally get that extra soda out of the machine.

It's a chicken and egg problem because it's guaranteed income. There has to be something where they can do partial work and still be on disability. This example of rising rent means for his area that amount is not enough or he will simply have to move which sucks

However, another thing a co-op could do is allocate work among members who do the same kind of work while respecting limits on how much work each member is capable of doing. I assume the rule's purpose is roughly, "Your benefit is predicated on you being incapable of working enough to support yourself, so if you prove otherwise, we can't give you the benefit." Limiting how much each person works seems compatible with that.

But I'd guess the work would need to be allocated based on members' actual capability, not the monthly dollar limit. If someone's work adds up to just barely under the dollar limit consistently month after month, it strongly suggests they're capable of more. Even more so if lots of co-op members have that pattern.

Such a co-op could serve a legitimate purpose because people who can only do limited part-time work may not have much opportunity. Many employers want someone who is full time. Also, some disabilities may make it where someone can only work sporadically. So the co-op could enable someone who is capable of (say) 10 hours/week to do that instead of 0 hours/week.

No. If their business brings in $5k/month, that's what the SSA will consider their income. Doesn't matter if it's just accumulating in the business's bank accounts; it's OP's income. They've seen people try this trick; it's why the provision exists.

https://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/cfr20/416/416-0420.htm

> We generally use the amount of your countable income in the second month prior to the current month to determine how much your benefit amount will be for the current month.

Earning $5k in a particular month would mean zero benefit in a subsequent month, and keeping that $5k sitting in their account to tide themselves over would put them over the $2k limit on assets, making them ineligible for SSI.

> The Social Security office may approve your request for reinstatement. If your request is approved, your temporary benefits start the month following the month in which you made your request. Temporary benefits can last up to six months.

So: it’s not instant. It’s not immediate. And it risks losing the benefits altogether if they mistake a one-time contract for something he could sustain indefinitely.

I suppose the OP will just have to stick to smaller jobs.

So my opinion: if you desperately need some money, freelancing websites are not a good option. It's more about luck and determination. I guess if I would kept applying, with time I'd find more projects, more reputation and so on, but that's not quick money.

Might be my country (KZ). I would expect people from US or EU having better implicit reputation. Also it was around 10 years ago, may be things changed.

It sounds like the OP is also in the US, so they will have that same advantage.

1. Find a lawyer 2. Consider a corporation 3. Find an external entity (friend, family, form a trust) to run business

Run all plans through lawyer and revive their agreement in writing

I don't think you appreciate how tight the budget of a disabled person on SSI is.

- It rewards experience though, except for niche-specific writing, does not require understanding of specific frameworks or programming languages - It is often 'important-but-not-urgent' work, so intermittent availability is less of a deal-breaker - Clear writing is very much an orthogonal skill from programming aptitude writ large, and you don't need to compete with new grads

I also find most technical documentation teams to be a lot more chill and flexible. Most of them have excellent team-minded work styles.

How to get started in this field? You can't throw a stone without hitting an OSS project that wouldn't want help with its docs. It's a great way to build up a network and some Github activity.

https://lwn.net/op/AuthorGuide.lwn

But there are also permanent type jobs. Some companies are looking for technical writers. Find them at "Who is Hiring" threads.

I always find this such a weird claim. Sure, lots has happened in the past 5 years, but there's still tons of software out there that's older than 5 years, most major programming languages are decades old, and anything new can be learned.

If you want to be able to make money quickly, it's far more interesting to look at what you can do, than worry about what you might not yet know. Python is still around and still as relevant as ever.

> I'm in my early-to-mid 30s for reference. I'm not really able to get off disability as the condition is severe.

My personal opinion is that if your condition is that severe, you shouldn't have to work at all, but of course that's of no help to you right now.

Technology is 90% confidence, and very little skill. The biggest challenge for the OP is convincing himself that he isn’t damaged goods who needs charity, he’s a competent developer with some restrictions on his availability so he’s available for part-time work.

Then the department where he worked was disbanded and everybody was laid off. All his coworkers got unemployment benefits, but he couldn't, because he was disabled. So he had to get disability instead. So he applied, and was told that this wasn't a new disability, so he had to apply for something for inborn disabilities, which was a slightly different agency. So he did, and was told that that was only for people who have never been able to work, and since he had had a job, it didn't apply to him.

Personally I think everybody who manages to work and make money despite their disability, should just be able to keep everything without losing their disability pay. We should be rewarding them, but instead we're punishing them.

Here we have SSI (for people so disabled they were never able to work) and SSDI for people who could work and became disabled.

I have cerebral palsy and I used to be on SSI. I managed to get a CS degree and get off disability, but in doing so I 'crossed the rubicon' and 'burned the ships' so to speak, on ever going back on disability. It was scary for sure, but it ultimately turned out well. The only way I can imagine being considered 'fully disabled' again is if, god forbid, I was struck with some sort of serious cognitive impairment. I suspect the same holds for your friend.

We're not. We're in Netherland, but it sounds like the US system is not all that dissimilar from the Dutch one.

Personally I don't think there should be a Rubicon; if you're severely disabled and you still manage to work, I'd like to see that rewarded rather than punished. Keep the disability pay and have something extra. The fact that you then contribute to the tax base is enough for me. There's no need to create extra pitfalls for disabled people.

That was pretty much the reason why I kept living like a poor grad student for the next decade until I didn't need to work to survive.

I would have been screwed and homeless without my parents house for a decade. Luckily that’s not the case any more. I’m doing a tech interview bootcamp hoping to get a solid job and keep it. Don’t have CS degree nor experience for interviews but I would get a basic programing job if I can’t finish the bootcamp. I don’t know what the problem is but whatever it is, it’s crazy.

As others have pointed out, there needs to at least be tapered thresholds with a significant deadband (in dollars and time) so someone can get some career inertia before being cast out of the system. Beyond that, we should be able to provide some help even after someone starts earning. Living and working with a disability is damned expensive, not to mention the horrendous stress of worrying about whether one can meet expectations at work.

You have the right to your opinion but it pretty close to the mythical "Let them eat cake"

In his situation he has nearly no control over how much he will get paid. You take what the government gets and that is it.

A nice thing when you are working is that you can sort of hope for a bonus, a raise, promotion etc. You have some control, yet that influence good in some jobs and next to none in other jobs.

On SS you cant really hope for a bonus. and asking for a raise aint happening either.

I suspect you meant to respond to someone else or you severely misunderstand me, because my opinion is the exact opposite of that. Of course these payments (and many others, including minimum wage) should be automatically corrected for inflation, but that's apparently not happening, and as I pointed out, not of much help to him right now.

It depends a lot on what you are working on.

If you work on a big legacy system, you can probably walk in after 5 years and pick it up. Same C on an established embedded platform. And certainly, Cobol on a mainframe. Perl you are good as well

It seems like if you writing front - end code shit is changing on a monthly basis , framework come, disappear, new hotness, cargo culting. Or at least I think that is what a lot of the cursing I have heard from people who do it.

Myself i have never down that road but it seems chaotic.

I have worked a lot with C#. It has changed so much over 5 or 7 years that if you are all up on the latest changes you can write code that is not easy to read for someone a while back. (Here I am talking language changes) Of course the .Net framework has changed a lot, .core now it.

You can pick it up but it would take work.

Really it depends on what, where and how.

We're taking about from 2018 until now. React was already 5 years old back then. If one was a productive frontend dev in any of the popular stacks of 2018, what exactly do you think they would be missing in order to be productive today?

People familiar with older techs AND have the ability to pick up new things are very valuable.

If you are curious how to find things like this:

- look for talks by hedge funds on the tech they use

- if you see one in which your are knowledgeable, look up some of the recruiters for that firm on LinkedIn and reach out to them pointing out your expertise (bonus points for looking for a connection in common)

- go from there

Another idea: try to find a grant for an Open Source project to document it. For a large project like Rust find something not well documented.

In my experience and of that of my friends -- we are Deaf by the way -- about nine of ten projects won't give sustenance. It's like startups, you need to try again and again. Either you will strike gold or you will have several horses to bet on.

Finally consider leaving the country. The US is good for people who are well off and not so good for the rest. With some luck you could work as a digital nomad.

(I mean, this isn't a case of a Scrooge McDuck collecting piles of money into the money bin. You've got both feet square in the poverty class, with SSDI serving as the very poverty trap.)

SSDI will remove you from their roles if you make "too much".

You'll be forced to a different disability agency that will do everything in its power to not cover you.

If a workplace does significantly accommodate, that will forever be used to prove that you're not disabled; just lazy.

This country's (USA) politicians do not care about you.

Please email me chris@instapainting.com

For example a quick search for 'Ruby Rails' and one of the top service providers lists a premium service of 'full stack development app' delivered in 3 days, and including a 15 minute consultation, a project plan, and audit, for ... $20.

1. Put the cheapest junior they have to install and configure their default platform for you and present it.

2. You see progress, and decide spending another $20 will get you over the finish line.

And people remain stuck on #2 forever. The more they spend, the more the sunk costs convince them to keep paying.

Usually that $20 is just to get you in the door (which is why it's hilariously low), very very rarely have I experienced that being the actual cost.

I haven't seen this suggestion elsewhere in the thread and it's worked ok for me so I'll mention it. I started a small SaaS.

It was initially a decent chunk of work (as you indicated in the section about monetizing applications you've written), but now provides consistent income that's not tied to my time or, critically, my energy levels. And even the initial push wasn't that bad since I spread out a lot of the work over time to match my abilities. My physical difficulties were actually kind of a blessing in a way because it forced me to do things that were absolutely critical and cut out everything else.

Needless to say, making a SaaS is an art and a risky one. It requires a good eye for applications that will make money, practice validating ideas and solutions, ways of acquiring new users, ongoing customer support and feature development, etc. One way you might de-risk a SaaS is by doing contract work for companies that give you insights into problems they're having and help you build solutions while still getting paid until you can spin out an app.

I actually think browser extensions are also an underappreciated way to get started indie hacking but I'm biased: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/why-browser-extensions-are...

Anyway, stay positive, friend! It's hard to be in our position without an ongoing practice of self-compassion and positivity.

(Granted, it's worth finding out how easy/hard it is to reactive them.)

And SSDI is really badly set up, as other posters have noted.

It takes me 3~6 months for me to find a job each time I’m out of work.

Finding a specialist to manage the medical side of my disability is similar.

Through fortunate circumstances (and inheritance), I have successful career and enough energy left over to have some kind of life.

If I lived in Europe, the amount of sick and vacation time would allow me to actually heal between episodes. I live in the US, so I’m in a constant state of near burn-out.

It takes me 3-6 months and I'm not disabled.

That's pretty much the norm in tech, unless you fit into the very small group of people who get lucky and find a job overnight.

I think you really want to explore more non-traditional routes, since $1200 is not much for a full time job, and probably too low end for traditional consulting as well.

For instance:

* I would get on all the expert networks (GLG, Guidepoint, Alphasights, Deepbench, etc) and get really good there. These can be a bit of overhead, but it only takes a few gigs per month to get close to $1200/month. Charge $100-$300/call. reddit.com/r/expertneworks will give you more detail

* Do you know friends/ppl in your network who work at startups or are indie hackers/solo software shops? If you're still a solid engineer, but you have a cost cap, you could be really useful to some startups who need flexible help thats not 40 hrs/week. You can also offer to be a generalist doing software, documentation, other stuff as well since you're not trying to optimize salary. A jack of all trades who can pitch in on software could be very useful for the right startup.

* Some others have suggested it too, but I'd explore the Fiverrs/Upworks and see if you can find an optimal niche where you're working, say, 10-15 hours/month and hitting that $1200. I think it's doable if you figure out what works well on those networks.

I've written a bit more about ways to get part-time work here (https://blog.parttimetech.io/p/work-part-time-as-a-software-...), hopefully some of the tips there and resources can be helpful. I've had friends with disabilities leverage part-time to be able to stay in the workforce, hope you can as well.

You can work as much or as little as you want. People pay way too much for websites, so there's a long tail of customers that you can actually save money and do a decent job for, you just have to seek them out. Many small businesses prefer to work for someone local as well.

Many small businesses are happy to pay $X/month to their web master to keep the site alive as well, since they know nothing about computers. Many web agencies charge over $100/month to do essentially nothing, and charge for change fees.

If you have a very trusted friend or family member to structure a corporation for you, then you can earn a modest 'wage' and they uh, aren't very good at not leaving envelopes full of cash at your place. That part's obviously up to you, probably not legal, but everyone breaks the speed limit now and then.

Wordpress powers like 40% of the web, unless you really, really, really hate PHP, your skills aren't outdated. It's probably tough to connect to the right people but there are endless companies and individuals out there that need help with their sites that run on WP.

Just as a reminder that there's the Modern-Software-Development Paradise where you need to keep learning new technology and everything is futuristic and shiny, and then there's the Wordpress-Running-On-Php5.6 Real World which is gigantic but few people blog about because it's not fancy and it smells bad sometimes.

I've also gotten tech gigs from temp gigs - "Hey, I know I'm just a temp, but I also do tech work and noticed some things I could automate for you, if you'd like some help."

There's also options to reposition yourself. For example, instead of development, look for QA analyst roles. This particular shift won't pay as high, but it might be a good fit for what you need and possibly be easier to land in a shorter time frame

Personally, I have hEDS, nTOS and thoracic myelopathy. I was barely able to type for months. There's dictation software, but the learning curve is substantial, everything becomes slow and error-prone, and you have to spend much of your concentration on dictation itself. That and fatigue kept me from working for six months while I rehabbed and adapted.

I believe I was disabled and am still disabled. I found left wing politics and felt more at home. They provided answers to why my life had been so bad. Same politics convinced me I have to start working soon. There’s no excuse. So I began a tech interview bootcamp to break into the industry. I’ve programmed for for years (freelance a bit, partial SaaS attempts, community projects, half done portfolio projects). I am sure I will be fine from here on out.

I don’t think you’re missing anything. I don’t know about cerebral palsy but I’m sure you will always have work. Good job succeeding at life even with cerebral palsy!

Maybe you could use your experience in CMS automation and reach out to a few smaller non-profits/businesses to see if you might be able to get a similar situation going? It could be a win-win; you can pull a consistent amount every month, and it's a huge relief to the marketing coordinator to not have to deal with administration they're not comfortable with.

Been offered several jobs at tech startups for marketing positions that I had to turn down besides being offered the world and back. Can't risk losing the medicaid/medicare combo.

Have you looked into an efficiency apartment or talking to some old people who are landlords? They'll sometimes have places they'd rather stick a "low maintenance/guaranteed payment" tenant.

I regularly notice my landlord just "Forgetting" to update the cost per month on my rent portal but my lease stating a different amount.

One thing you can do is work for people in the crypto world, building Rust/Solidity games for others can be profitable AND most importantly its paid out in crypto.

Just don't try withdrawing said crypto in your name cough. -- Beyond working in the crypto world/getting paid in crypto I can't see a way out of this hellish hole for either of us.

That being said, I wonder if you should challenge your assumption that it's out of date. I'm definitely clueless on whatever the latest JavaScript library is and whatever's going in machine learning. But my knowledge of foundational data structures, algorithms, and software development practices often makes me more valuable than somebody who is more "up to date". It feels horrible when someone uses an acronym I don't know, but it doesn't actually have much impact.

Then again, perhaps you're right and it really is causing you problems - it's hard to give specific advice on social media because the async nature prevents good Q&A. Could you find someone that will coach you on it?

For those who are worried about a similar fate happening to them ( yes, I'm worried). I'd say that you have to form long term alliances with conscientious long term thinking people to partially alleviate situations like this.

p.s: I'm fully aware that insurance can take into account certain obviously visible disabilities (like a last a lost limb), but there are others where insurance will not be useful, for example chronic fatigue syndrome.

By the way, speaking about this subject, I'm reminded about the War Apms : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Amps

Some places to start, there are few top mega companies (known as "the big four") that own most of the advertising companies in this space. Go to their sites and see which of their companies work in the "Health" space and then go to their individual sites and check out their posted jobs

1. IPG (Interpublic Group), look at the multiple "Health" options in the "Capabilities" dropdown on this page: https://www.interpublic.com/our-companies/

2. Publicis Groupe - https://www.publicisgroupe.com/en/services/services-publicis...

3. WPP plc - look into the companies mentioned on this page: https://www.wpp.com/featured/work/list?topic=Healthcare%20an...

4. Omnicom Group - check out https://www.omnicomgroup.com/newsroom/agency/bbdo/

* Donating plasma: up to $900/month in my city, note that they may be able to work around medication(s), but it might be considered taxable income: https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/tax-credits-deductions/dis...

* Bacon (no affiliation): usually temp and handyman work, but it's worth signing up to see if they offer clerical/remote work as part of an anti-discrimination effort for the disabled: https://www.baconwork.com

* Support others in your situation: your technical skills are in high demand at agencies that advocate for the disabled, perhaps you could contact someone at: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/disability-employm...

I would add that I struggled for many of the last 20 years under a scarcity mindset. But reconnecting as part of a community really helped me see that we all have equal dignity and a desire to be of service. For me, mustering the faith to try new things for a couple of weeks, while being mindful about setting boundaries and having fallback options, really helped get me back to healthy and sustainable work.

It might be helpful to say how many hours you can work per week, and how much you want to be paid per hour.

You could look at the big CRM platforms like Salesforce which require only a modified version of Java called Apex to customize. I find there are a dearth of good programmers working in the platform.

EDIT: Both of these options allow you to work remotely.

Or maybe a business has an existing in-house Python application they need maintained, including frequent changes made on short notice, and they don't want to hire someone at several times the cost and try to retain them. They have to find a trustworthy contractor for a long-term relationship, and you might look like that.

You could also do two of these kinds of engagements at once (to lower the cost even more, avoid any concern about looking like a de facto employee, add recent stuff to your resume faster, and not have all your eggs in the same basket).

Perhaps someone more aware of US Law could confirm/correct this line of thinking.

I think it has similar downsides as consulting except that it can provide a very fixed income while the amount of work to do varies instead of having income swings.

If a particular job requires several days of work, you could ask the client if you can bill them $1200 at a time over several months.

It might be very difficult to get back on disability benefits after they go above that limit.

This is a common trap with many disability benefit programmes worldwide - they have these inflexible hard numerical limits on earnings that effectively disincentivise people from getting back into work or becoming independent all in the name of fraud prevention. The systems lacks the flexiblity to recongise that people's health and ability to work ebbs and flows.

The moment they earn more than 1200 USD they might no longer be considered disabled by the state. The baked in assumption is that not that we should be providing an accessible offramp to independence and a fallback to support if it goes wrong, but that any demonstration of independence should be met with treating your future claims as fraud.

I would like to share with you this article: https://www.ratherlabs.com/post/the-roadmap-to-become-a-bloc...

It was written by Federico Caccia, CEO of Rather Labs.

From understanding the basics to mastering advanced concepts, this comprehensive guide has it all.

Let me know if it was useful for you! Good luck with everything!

As with anything, the hard work is finding the first jobs. Connect with China or Japan based folks and go from there. OP feel free to email me (my hn handle at icloud) if you'd like to talk more about this.

Edit: Wish you good luck, whichever path you choose.

It's just not the problem unfortunately. I cannot actually work consistently due to my disability and because of the way disability is setup I cannot really work and get a 1099 or W2 or I risk losing coverage which is just entirely unacceptable right now.

Another option could be to freelance as a code reviewer, I've never tried it but it seems interesting [1]

[0] https://www.moonlightwork.com/ [1] https://app.pullrequest.com/signups/reviewer

Often hard to find people that can do the job right, and I’d imagine post COVID that remote is very doable. Unsure on flexibility but for escalations it’s nice to have somebody you can call whenever they’re available.

Edit: sounds like this type of job might lose you part of your disability so this may not be an option.

Staffing-type companies work MUCH better. Someone in IT dept is on maternity leave until March, do whatever you can to help them for two months. Shockingly you can sometimes get 2x to even 3x their "regular" pay for temp. Plenty of companies have never read their Fred Brooks and think if a project is late they can throw talent at it and it'll get done quicker (spoiler alert, more bodies = later due date every time), regardless I don't mind profiting off their project management inexperience. A permanent-ish "grind away at the desk for years" at the corporate job is probably completely off the table; look for big upgrade projects, 2am maintenance/upgrade projects, etc. Baby sitting server upgrades at 2am is not glamorous, but it can be very profitable... Even less glamorous is taking the on call shift at 2am, but when you bill per hour it feels better... I could never work on call permanently, just a few months will burn most people completely out, but this contract ends on march 31st so I can wait it out.

Recruiter-type companies are hit and miss. They usually take a HUGE percentage cut (so you're taking a huge pay cut) but its usually a fixed-ish percentage so they want you billing 40+ hours every week to maximize their cut. Its the same hoops for them to jump thru for a 3-month part time contract at $75 as for a 12-month full time contract at $175 so you're at the back of the list unless they're infinitely bored. Spoiler, they're almost never bored.

Its kind of important to note if you need to report income monthly or annually. Monthly could be tricky, annual would likely be pretty easy. The work tends to be feast or famine; think of your relationship with your car mechanic, either you want it done yesterday and him working 24 hrs/day or you have zero interest in paying him a penny; this is how your clients will look at you. So if you're close to your income budget it'll be pretty easy to not sign a short term contract for awhile or until next year or whatever. On the other hand if you have to report income monthly that might be painful as you'll run into places that bill net-30, net-90, net-seems-like-forever and you'll suddenly get a check large enough to buy a car, but it'll be one and only one check. Here's two totally different phrases "So I see your monthly income is $30K" vs "Once, one month I got a single check for $30K, but that was the only check I got for about half a year".

https://github.com/sixhobbits/technical-writing

https://fossjobs.net/ https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources

Expand your network a little. Ask them for their help for new jobs. You helped them, maybe they can help you?

How about becoming a (software) tester?

On a side note, this is why means testing kinda sucks. Sorry that you have to deal with it.

We can discuss further from there.

None of it is well understood and there aren't good treatments. Some treatments help some people, but it is kind of hit or miss and most of the potential treatments aren't cheap.

It is actually similar in many ways to some forms of long covid, so bizarrely, covid and subsequent research may lead to better therapies that could help her as well. At least that's the hope...

https://evansdisability.com/blog/social-security-disability-...

If they come to you with money in hand and are just a little intellectually lazy or have worse time management than you’d like, you can still make a mutually beneficial trade.

Only offering tutoring to the most motivated students with the best time management skills is a self-limiting market.