Gs Full Time OSE Developer Transition Plan

Introduction

The purpose of this page is to gather thoughts about how I, G, can transition to working towards building the future I want to see full-time.

Creating this publicly on the Wiki has two reasons:

1. It could be useful for other people who want to transition to working on OSE full-time

2. It can help make this a reality as making it public allows others to help me in achieving this goal

General Approach

My general approach is to keep my annual living expenses extremely low. Something on the order of 8k - 12k (USD) per year.

That way, I don't have to receive a lot of income to do what I want to do full-time. Thus making the transition easier.

See Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) movement, Learn FIRE, minimalism, frugality, renaissance man, and self-reliance concepts.

Early Retirement Extreme by Jacob Lund Fisker can be a good overview.

I also need to sort out other big lifestyle decisions to support low annual living expenses, and this goal:

• Where to live (housing)?
• Whether to continue owning and driving a car (transportation)?
  • Plays into where to live.
• Diet and food choices.
  • Food and groceries is my biggest expense next to housing and transportation.

Financial Means

My current thoughts of how I can make money to meet my annual living expense are:

1. Participate in STEAM camps as an instructor during the Summer of Extreme Design-Build, and get paid by the OSE organization

2. Develop software and educational content on YouTube for OSE and FreeCAD, start a Patreon account, and receive donations for people who value the work I'm doing

• OSE has many use-cases for FreeCAD, and FreeCAD is in dire need of tutorials, documentation, and improvements.

3. Investing in index funds

• I don't like being dependent upon the market.
  • We learned with the recent COVID-19 crisis that the market can be very volatile and impossible to predict.
  • This approach assumes infinite economic growth which violates the laws of nature. Our current economy isn't sustainable and has to crash at some point.
• Investing in index funds also supports companies that I might not ethically support.

4. I'm not that interested in selling physical goods made by a 3d printer, but I suppose I could come around to the idea if it was easy, automated, and successful.

5. I've thought about owning a condo or rental property, but I'm not in love with the idea of being a landlord. Even if it is low maintenance, and good income.

It's likely I'll have to do some combination of approaches to support myself, and won't have a single source of income.

Reality and Concrete Approach

I'm currently cutting my teeth on the 3D Printer Workbench 2020, and am planning on finishing the first release before the summer of 2020.

I'll announce this to the broader FreeCAD community, and Marcin can help disseminate it to the OSE community.

This will help build rapport and reputation -- two necessary keys if you want people to support the work you do.

I'm not exactly sure what's next -- likely a break to clear my head and do some high-level lifestyle reflection and planning.

Maybe I'll:

• Build a OSE 3D printer to gain valuable hands on experience
• Plan the next phase of development for the 3D printer workbench
• Start some new project or FreeCAD workbench for OSE
• Contribute to FreeCAD source code
• Take what I learned, and develop some educational FreeCAD programming content for YouTube
• Something different entirely...!?

Emergency Backup Plan

I need a backup plan in case I can't support myself, or money somehow dries up.

This consists of establishing a very generous rainy-day fund to cover two years of living expenses, and continuing to develop my skills and craft as a software developer, and documenting my work in a public portfolio while keeping my Resume and LinkedIn profile updated.

I'll then have two years to:

• Apply for full-time remote opportunities so I can have greater flexibility in terms of where I live and when I can travel.

• If that doesn't work, then I"ll apply for local in-person opportunities and move if necessary.

• If I still can't find a job, then I'm fairly confident I can go back to working at fast food place, or move in with loved ones until I figure something better out! :)