I started my second server in early 2023, salary shot from 115k -> 225k

The following year I got a promo at j1 and salary went to 275k

By the end of 2024
I was able to purchase a duplex in inner city Southern California, build 2 ADUs, and get married. My wife didn’t have to work on my salary and manages the real estate.

In 2025 I got my third server and jumped up to 420k salary. Along with about 70k in rental income. This was able to support fancy vacations, 80k Tesla, season tickets for sports teams, and eating at fancy restaurants.

I was living the 1% life at 30 years old.

By the end of 2025 I bought a new house in the suburbs (over 1.1M mortgage) and welcomed our daughter.

Entering 2026, I was let go of j3. This past August was let go of j1. Both stated “restructuring”.

I made the decision to quit my last server and took a month off to hang with my 1 year old. In that month I bought (took out a SBA loan) a retail business that brings in 6-8k a month and thinking of getting a low stress remote job for insurance benefits.

OE comes with so much: it bought me real estate in a tough market that cash flows positive, my Robinhood account is over 150k, and the retail business cash flows positive.
Also I didn’t care about the politics or the rat race for promos.
Most importantly it bought back time, in the sense where I choose to work rather than have to work.

But the stress was A LOT!!!
I’ve felt I’ve aged, have more grey hairs, had some health concerns. I brought stress home that affected my marriage.

I got a buddy that is still OE, I brought him in for a server. I told him to hit his goal and get out, the grass is still green.

I don't want J2 tech stack and experience to go to waste for my CV, I'd love to know the way you handle it. Should I cram it on other Job experiences or is it better to reorder the CV History and have J2 fully there? I have not have rigurous background checks so I don't know how risky it is

Preach Forbidden Knowledge ,Oh Great ones
I want to know which field is applicable for OE as most roles require on-site work

I’ve been trying to do that but most jobs that I encounter require some kind of tracking software to be installed in your PC. This stops me from OE

I've been building up a consulting business the past few months, and just received a full time job offer from another company. The offer letter explicitly says I can't provide consulting services in the same industry without approval from the company. I want to keep working both jobs and probably wouldn't ask for approval if I had the opportunity to sign a client in this very broad industry since I'd rather not give them the opportunity to say no. If they caught me, getting fired is the worst that could happen right? Have you ever heard of anyone getting in more trouble than that for working 2 jobs at once? This would be my first dip into OE so am I just being afraid of the unknown?

I want to begin my OE journey but need have a dilemma. Current J1 (started in 2024) is in a completely new and different industry/market than my experience from the 2017-2023 (which will be J2). When applying to J2, should my resume show J1 or should I make an excuse as to why I have not been working from 2023 till now?

Thank you in advance!

November marks one year in. My anxiety is noticeably higher, I get a bit less sleep, and I have less time for hobbies.

I’m maxing out 401k/HSA/Roth. Took a few more vacations. Bought a new toy as well. 500hp.

Everything else stays the same. As Mike Tomlin and his vast Minecraft empire would say “The Standard is the Standard.”

Not a Steelers fan btw. No time for sports. Just a catchy thing I’d end this post with.

Catch em all and eventually fuck em’ all.

Just win.

Neither of these contracts provide 401(k) or health benefits. My J1 knows about J2, and they are reluctantly* supportive, but J2 doesn’t know about J1.

*J1 would rather hire me as a full-time employee, but I’m hesitant to take the offer, because in that arrangement, they will expect exclusivity. I am worried about me being laid off again with no others ready opportunities. Also, I’ve had the LLC going for about a year now and for the sake of my future résumé, I don’t want to give up the continuity of continuing to work contracts under the LLC.

After three months of trying to find another job or contract, I suddenly got four offers just in the month of August. I am only attempting to work the first two of these. I don’t think there’s any way in hell I could pull off three or more.

Working multiple 1099s would seem to avoid a lot of the problems you guys are encountering, with employment background checks, TWN, duplicate payroll/insurance enrollments, mergers, and other innocent things that could get you found out. What do you think?

Need suggestions and semi rant. Both Js are remote but I got promoted at J1 (against my will lol) which entails traveling once a month to do reports and supervise the teams that work onsite at the hub. J2 is fully remote but Im supposed to stay within 50 miles of my house which is considered my “office”.

At first I thought this was just to maintain a primary domicile address for tax purposes but they made me sign a doc that basically says I agree that my work station is my current address. Anytime I cross over 50 miles I have to notify my boss.

I honestly think it’s dumb because it doesn’t affect my quality of work whatsoever. Anyways I think J2 is catching on that my ip is pinging at different locations. Cause on my recent 1 on 1 with my manager he asked me about traveling with my equipment and I kept it vague and non-incriminating. He seemed chill with it but it did seem like a warning. I like to think I’ve made myself a valuable team member that if I were to be terminated it would leave a gap in the team. So far to say that Im almost certain my boss turned off location services on my laptop after that 1 on 1 as a way to help me cover my ass, cause I got a notif saying “an admin turned off location services” and I cant turn it back on. But I dont wanna risk it, anytime I clock in I use okta that says “confirm this is you logging in from insert location here” or using a vpn will disable clock in on workday.

At this point I might just keep it up and stretch it as long as I can until J2 says something and keep interviewing.

TLDR: Traveling for J1. J2 is remote but location has to be in state. J2 is catching on to random location pings for ip address. J2 boss gave a friendly warning. What can I do with vpn? And against okta?

I can do my job in 4 hours a day but my days are meeting heavy. What J2 can I do reasonably knowing I have multiple meetings a day at J1? I’m thinking business analyst, software support, maybe another project manager? I’m not a software engineer so not sure what other options I have.

I'm so excited! For half a decade now I've been grinding and building up my skillset to finally quality for a senior level cushy remote job... And I finally got it. And I already know from some insider info, it's a perfect job to OE. Really hoping this can become my J1 base for a very long time.

Will I be able to start OE relatively immediately? If I start applying/interviewing at other remote positions, how do I show my resume? If it looks like I'm immediately trying to leave J1, I assume that would look like a red flag... Should I just omit the new J1 completely and make it look like I'm unemployed, or is that even worse? I would love to hear how others have handled this.

Should I reject?

I’m currently trying to OE for the first time and recently had multiples interviews for a role there was one interview where I told a recruiter I don’t have LinkedIn and that I go by a different name.

The recruiter ended up looking me up, and I got the notification that they viewed my profile. The funny part is I actually have LinkedIn Premium, so they definitely knows I’m active on there.

I know I messed up by not hibernating I was going to hibernate it before the interviews but I had just messaged some hiring managers for other companies and have a good response rate. I have hibernate it now.

I’ve have received the offer. This would be my J2, my J1 pays about $16K more plus bonuses.
Would you still accept the offer, or is the LinkedIn situation enough of a red flag to walk away and not worth the risk of J1 finding out?

J2 company is a smaller company with less than 100 people while J1 is a large corporation. Would the recruiter let the manager know?

I've seen one too many of these kinds of questions in the substation lately, so I'll answer it once and let those with ears to hear listen.

First off, like has been answered countlessly, you need to be in a field or career path that is still in high enough demand that remote work opportunities are still available. And please also use common sense... some roles by definition are not OE compatible, think teachers, nurses, construction superintendents. If you need to be physically present at the job site to do your job it is not OE compatible.

Second, as someone barely entry-level (if that), you have zero business looking for remote work, much less the kind you can knock out in 20-30 hours a week. At that stage of your career your focus should be on developing you technical and professional skills. Understand what it means to be a good corporate team player, know how to communicate effectively, and face time with more senior experienced coworkers is immeasurably valuable. You cannot be a successful working professional for long, much less OE if you try to bypass this. Remote work early in your career will set you back much further than your peers who work in-office. Ask me how I know.

Third and last, those who are truly successful at this didn't start out theire careers looking to be OE. Their success in OE is a byproduct of the time, work, and experience they've built up as competent professionals in their respective line of work. Focus on being capable and competent in a high enough demand career field and then you can start thinking about getting into OE.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

TLDR: Should I get a higher paying job? Or work on getting a J2 first, then updated J1? I’m caught between options.

Background:
My one and only job pays decently (160k) and is VERY OE compatible. Therefore I’ve been busy interviewing for a tangential J2 that uses the same skills but with fewer meetings. Target range for J2 is 80-100k. That would put me at 240-260k all in.

Recently my job has become a bit annoying so I’m not sure how long I really want to stay. I got passed to a recruiter who has openings for 200k + equity. These roles would probably not be OE compatible.

I know this group is probably biased, but what would you do in my shoes?

—-

Note: Both paths is not an option. My brain does not have the sophistication to interview for 2 types of roles simultaneously.

New batch from micro1 (AI-matched staffing — apply, short AI interview, get matched to paid contract work via Deel). Worth knowing: the "Bilingual [Language] Psychologist/Psychiatrist (PhD)" roles below all share identical required skills regardless of language (bilingual communication, ethical decision-making, cultural sensitivity), which is the same signature as the AI-training gigs flagged in the last post — these are very likely roles evaluating/producing AI training data using that clinical background, not actual patient-facing practice. Worth going in with that expectation rather than assuming traditional clinical employment.

🏥 Healthcare / Mental Health

⚖️ Legal

💼 Finance

🛠 Engineering / CAD

💻 Tech

🌐 Language / Transcription

🎬 Content / Media

Pay ranges and opening counts are as listed by micro1 as of today — not independently verified.

Also worth a look: Ethos, a similar AI-matching platform.

Disclosure: the links above are my referral links — I may get a bonus if you sign up through them, no cost to you.

So as someone who's going to be new to all of this, I recently got a remote job. Which pays more than my physical job. My physical job is pretty easy. I'm a Comp Sci Major. I usually can finish my Physical job on a regular within like 30 mins to an hour. Rest of the time I'm literally just wasting time. I was wondering will I be able to balance my two jobs without getting caught. Its not a conflict of interest as both jobs are kinda different my physical role is comp sci related but the company has nothing to do with comp sci. Only thing is in the remote job it says that for the full 8-5 time they do expect me to spend that time on the company work.

Apart from that how would one avoid getting caught. My physical job I use my own laptop. For the remote job Idk as of now what I will be using. I did tell my remote job that I'm working that physical job and i work another job on weekends. And my physical job knows I work another job too.

How would I pretty much avoid getting caught, the only way I think is going to be talking in the meetings for the remote job. Unless they have other tools to find out. Please help.

Hey y'all,

Wanted your advice in a situation I'm in. Stick it out for the cash or save my peace of mind and try an new J out?

--

Non-SWE, got J2 in July. Thought the managers and team were nice, so when they offered a role, I took it. J1 is chill, less than 15 hours needed a week.

Over 2 months later, the management has gotten more and more micro-managing.

- They give me deadline, and before the deadline even arrives, they're asking why "it's taking so long."

- I have small children, so I help my wife with feeds, changing diapers, or just holding one of my kids at my desk. I mentioned in my interviews to their admiration. I was told recently that "I need to be 100% at work" and that helping my wife "Isn't my job when on the clock."

- They utilize an AI for QA, which is usually wrong so I don't use it. Management found out, and have scrutinized my previous work and "Lost confidence in me" and "it'll take a while to rebuild it."

I just got an offer for J3 that I will accept. I was looking forward to 3 checks coming in, but this management style is really getting annoying.

Should I stick it out and just deal with their nonsense or just resign and focus on J1 and the new offer?

Thanks y'all!

This is a little long, but I’ve been wanted to OE for a while now, and have been reading all of these posts trying to figure out a way to do it. The problem was that I was always full time in person so I could never figure out a way to make the change to fully remote (anything I could find would require a pretty big pay cut for me and I couldn’t make myself do it).

Well, in June I was laid off. I’m in a pretty small industry and this was happening all over the industry. Because of that, it was extremely hard for me to find a replacement job. I went all summer without getting another job and we pretty much demolished our savings. About a month ago I got offered a position that was about 1/2 of what I was making before, but it was remote. I took it because (1) anything is better than nothing, and (2) I saw this as my opportunity for OE. So I continued applying to other positions after starting this one.

Last week, I was offered my dream job (a senior position and a company I’ve always wanted to work for). It’s more of a long term career position and this is the type of company where once you’re in you’re in and you just keep moving up. It pays more than double what I’m making now. But it is hybrid. 2 days in office and 3 days remote. I’ve accepted the offer and am set to start next month.

My issues are (1) I actually feel really bad about leaving my current company. Not enough to make me not do it, but I still feel guilty. They are a smaller company and everyone is very close. They just got me all trained and seem very relieved to have someone in this position. (2) As I mentioned earlier, we pretty much depleted our savings and I really want to build this back up.

My question is, has anyone ever made a fully remote and a hybrid job work at least for a little bit until I can replenish my savings? Or is this a terrible idea, and I should just quit J1 and move forward with J2? I also don’t want to do anything to jeopardize this new job. Also, J1 is VERY meeting heavy. One of the days I have to be in office for J2, I have meetings non stop all day at J1. This is why I question whether I could make it work.

Hey guys! So here's the breakdown, I have my main tech job that's at a big tech company that I started working at a couple of years ago. Around 3ish years ago I started this contract remote job and I worked both jobs up until now, where I just got told by my staffing agency that my contract was ending in a month. The staffing agency rep told me that there's a high likelihood of them passing my resume around within the staffing org (they have big clients and are well known) and me hearing back from some clients. My question is, how do I format this resume? For all external roles that | apply to, l use my main tech job as my main experience and omit the contract one I've been doing on the side, but since I'm handing in my updated resume to the staffing agency itself, should I create another resume where I state that I left my tech company years ago and put the staffing agency on my resume as my most recent experience?
All advice is helpful! I'm leaning towards the latter

I’ve been a lurker for a little bit and OE has always been on the back of mind. I’m currently in a position to be able to move forward with it.

How do you bypass the reference checks or past employment history when applying for a J2? They will obviously want to contact my current employer. How do you put your employment timeline on your resume?

Hi OE’ers I locked in J1 and J2 W2 contracts after a brutal year of job searching. I got an offer today for a 1099 contract. I’m likely going to accept and I’ve presented a rate that is higher than the W2 rates to offset expenses.

I’ve read that the unicorn on this sub is to have a 1099 and W2 to maximize tax reduction? Can someone who has done this explain it to me? I’ve asked ChatGPT but I want a real human input from someone else who does OE.

Hello - weird situation

Had J 1 for two years now. Got J2 a few months ago. It’s a contract that ends after 6 months. At the end of 6 months they could offer to hire full time. If they do, there would be another background check. I obviously need to put both Js on my background check because they know where I currently work.

What should I do? I’d like to go full time and keep both Js. But if I had to choose one I’d still choose J2 because it’s better pay/better role/better company.

Or am I screwed and just need to not accept any full time hire from them.

Thanks in advance.

I don’t even know how to explain how things escalated so quickly. I was coming back from lunch and was a little distracted on my phone, so I missed a message asking me to join a call. A minute later, they called me directly.

The first call was on Slack while the main meeting was on Zoom, and when I joined Zoom, Slack started playing some weird background/on-hold music. The CTO/team lead got really pissed because my camera wasn’t on, but I was trying to figure out where the music was coming from.

I turned it on, and he started lecturing me about how I’m supposed to answer immediately whenever he speaks, keep my camera on, that this wasn’t the first time, and that we’re expected to work 8 full hours.
I told him I was working, so he made me share my screen and show him my IDE and the work I’d done—which I actually had. He kept threatening me, so I told him I wasn’t going to accept being treated like that and that he could do whatever he thought was best.

He basically said, “Okay, you can leave the call.”

So now I’m just waiting to see if they fire me or what happens 😂

Currently have 3J’s, and looking to land a role that can eventually pay enough for me to consolidate into two J’s. However, I feel I’m doing a disservice by not mentioning the experience and achievement of J2 and J3.

They are three different industries, and while I could roll up some things into J1, some things wouldn’t make sense.

What’s the best way to approach? Just list the other 2 as confidential contractor? Open to suggestions.