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My Side Hustles as a Software Engineer in 2024

Ritesh Verma

'Bots' earned more than my full-time software-engineering after-tax pay in New York City

The speaker is a New York City software engineer who runs five side hustles alongside full-time work: web development, bot development, a self-built SaaS, a paid mentorship, and AI-chatbot services. He emphasizes that modern no-code tools reduce development time (he uses framer for websites and 'voice flow' for chatbots) while recommending learning HTML, JavaScript and CSS via free eight-hour crash courses.

  1. Web development: he builds mostly landing pages with framer, sometimes adding custom code. Last month he made one site and charged $700; some months he makes four sites and can triple income.

  2. Bots: these are programs to automate purchases or tasks (examples: sneaker bots, iPhone bots, bots for hats, server shifts, towing, and baby clothes). Pricing is either one-time fees of $400–$1,200 or monthly retainers of $500–$600. Last month he earned exactly $7,050 from bots — which he notes exceeds his monthly after-tax salary from his full-time job in New York City.

  3. SaaS: he launched a mass-Instagram-DM tool (automates DMing, account cycling and proxy usage) late last month; initial revenue was $225 so far. He frames this as a startup-on-the-side and hopes it scales (mentions an aspirational target of $2,250).

  4. Mentorship: he runs an intensive bot-development mentorship for 5–7 students to accelerate learning he spent three years acquiring. The program connects students with real paid client work; it produced $5,500 last month.

  5. AI services: using no-code chatbot builders he delivers bots that handle booking/orders (example: a WhatsApp catering bot) and charges subscriptions; last month this produced $125.

Overall conclusion: with low cash startup cost (mostly time), tech professionals can combine no-code tools and targeted automation skills to create diverse income streams. The speaker recommends learning core web skills (HTML, JavaScript and CSS) and notes that being self-taught in bots took him three years but can be accelerated with mentorship.