Around a year ago, I quit a team lead position in a cybersecurity research/operations team. It was my first leadership role. The experience flowing in was great. Plus, the company was growing, and the potential for further advancement was almost tangible.
However, as I advanced to leadership, my freedom did not increase—the benefits you get by having more say are countered out by the increased number of stakeholders. But, more importantly, the longer I had a full-time job, the more I felt like I had all my eggs in one basket.
Multiple irons in the fire
Since early university, I was used to juggling multiple priorities—school and, most of the time, two jobs or additional side gigs. Their focus varied as well, and the required skillsets flexed different parts of my brain (e.g., data-driven security projects vs. iOS development as a day job).
Importantly, the payoffs were also different, and on different time-scales. School and research projects had great future potential, but were more abstract and without immediate reward (in terms of finances or career).
On the other hand, the jobs were much more hands-on, feet-on-the-ground experience. Still learning a ton of valuable things, but also getting a payoff in the short term.
Getting optionality back
Now, after some years of full-time work, I decided I want some of that back. I switched to a (mostly) remote part-time job as a machine learning engineer, where I build on my previous data-related experience.
This enables me to (1) grow my skills in a day job in a very interesting field, while (2) having, again, enough time to engage in different side projects. That means multiple irons in the fire, all with great potential.
Ideally, this should also translate into multiple income streams, and less reliance on any single source. I am already benefiting from this set up in terms of flexibility—I have more control over my time, and I enjoy all the activities more as they, again, engage very different parts of my brain.
Of course, this is not without drawbacks. I have yet to start generating income on the side, which is a risky endeavor. If you’d like to follow how this is going (or not going), I am on Twitter, and will report back.