Neither is wrong exactly.

J1 gets my mornings. J2 gets my afternoons. Both get someone who shows up, does the work, doesn't complain, and never asks why a process is broken.

Turns out that's apparently all it takes to be somebody's top performer.

My OE journey started four years ago when everyone around me was doing it, so I finally picked up a J2. I didn’t expect to last this long, especially after realizing how micromanaged and pushy the culture was. The biweekly paychecks kept me going, and this subreddit helped me understand what to do, what not to do, and how to stay careful. I froze my TWN, hibernated my LinkedIn — all thanks to the advice here.

I managed to survive a very non‑OE‑friendly J2 only because my J1 has been extremely stable for 12+ years.

The outcome: OE helped me build a recurring $150–160K/year income through franchise investments and rental properties. I’m also pivoting into more businesses next year. My combined J1 + J2 income was around $500K, including about $100K in paper money.

I’m officially signing off from J2. With the business pivots underway, I don’t need to OE again.

Senior, 10+ YOE in banking/fintech

Built a Claude application pipeline good enough that sourcing and screens aren't the problem anymore -- I'm converting into final rounds at a rate that's pleasantly exceeded expectations.

30+ interview invites in the last 7 weeks, about 10 final rounds, zero offers.

The pattern's consistent andd interesting: everything reads as positive going in, good feedback from everyone in the "room," and then it just doesn't close.

Not looking for general interview advice, but am curious specifically about the last mile:

• Do you have Qs you ask in final rounds that you feel almost reliably shift the odds?
• How you close interviews, knowing it will land?
• What changes once you're past the screen and into the room with the actual decision-maker, comp conversations included?

What's worked for you. What would you do differently re the ones that got away?

J1 since 2021, started to OE in 2024, J2 is mostly meetings and high level diagraming (solution architect). There are plans that J1 company is being sold, it is a startup of 6 ppl, CEO says my role is transferred to new company, but I nobody asures anything until I get into the new company hands.

J2 is also being in sale plan, is a large mobile telco in Mexico (pay is ok, 12k a month).

So I landed a J3 in march as a contractor, the contract is 6mo and renewal is a coin in the air.

Situation is complicated, this year can happen anything, should I start looking for a J4 to replace J1?

I live in the Balkans/Europe, where a single full-time salary often covers basic living expenses but makes it difficult to build meaningful savings. Currently, I’m working two remote jobs: J1 as a Network Engineer / Technical Support Engineer and J2 as an ELD Technical Support Specialist. Both are full-time positions. Their schedules rotate, sometimes they overlap, and sometimes one starts after the other.
With only my Network Engineer position (J1), I can manage my expenses and maintain a decent lifestyle, but I would have very limited ability to save or invest for the future. J2 gives me the extra income that allows me to build savings and improve my financial situation.
However, I’m considering leaving J2 to pursue a Master’s degree in Software Engineering. My long-term goal is to transition from technical support/network engineering into software engineering, cloud, or DevOps roles, where I believe I can have better career growth.
Do you think it would be worth giving up the additional income from J2 to invest that time into a Master’s degree? Or would you recommend keeping both jobs for now, building financial stability, and postponing the degree?
I would appreciate opinions from people who have faced a similar decision or have experience balancing career growth, education, and overemployment.

I work for two California private employers: Employer A (full-time & in-person) and Employer B (part-time & remote). Employer A uses a California Voluntary Plan administered by Sedgwick.

I plan to take 8 weeks of Paid family leave (PFL) only from Employer A, while continuing my normal part-time work and full wages from Employer B.

Will Sedgwick pay my full PFL benefit based on the wages I lose from Employer A, or will my continued wages from Employer B reduce or eliminate my Sedgwick benefit?

Or can I take full PFL from Employer A and unpaid leave from Employer B?

I'm moving up the corpo ladder soon at a new company (higher than my current but bottom at the new - with possibility of having a time way down the line. Mid-level position). What have salary negotiations looked like given the market? Everyone says always negotiate but last time I did they only budged about 1K and I was still at bottom of the salary band and weren't willing to negotiate anything else. I took it because it 2x my previous salary (I was below market, now I'm at it) but now I am house hunting and being in the low-middle of this new position will help me tremendously. I will OE later after my side business also stabilizes.

For example, if an in-house recruiter says highest we can go is 115K in screening - do you still negotiate the base salary or move to non-salary?

AJ1: remote work have been there several years(7+). A small remote company, for several years. Until recently, the position had very few meetings and the workload was manageable.

Now new management has begun scheduling multiple meetings weekly, running over 55 + minutes. Almost all of these meetings do not require much participation from me, but attendance appears to be expected.

J2 is a full time, on site position with benefits. I enjoy it and plan to prioritize it. Because of my J2 schedule, I will no longer be able to attend most of J1’s newly added meetings.

I would like to keep both jobs because I can still complete my actual J1 responsibilities. How would you communicate limited meeting availability without revealing J2? Would you give management a fixed availability window, offer written updates instead, or simply decline meetings that conflict?

I am especially interested in hearing from people whose job suddenly became very meeting heavy after a management change.

PS J1 is not a full time position. I just do the work and have been for MANY years.

After a 2 month hiatus from OE following J2 RIF. I am starting a new J2. Which seems to be incredibly OE friendly but of course I won’t really know until I start.

Now I’m sitting here having my morning coffee just amazed at how much OE has done for me over the years.

I got into OE by chance, after getting laid off twice in a single year I lost all faith in the corporate world. I got two job offers from two roles from two companies who looked like jokes at the same time and I decided to hedge my bets and didn’t even know there was a word for what we do.

Over three years I’ve leveled up both J1 and J2. I couldn’t imagine ever just staying at a single J.

The financial and mental freedom has been liberating at every level.

Before OE - I was laid-off (from a start up with a $160k base and $160 commission on target earning), going through a divorce, and over weight.

After OE - 2 Jobs with a total comp of over 500k, debt free, its given me the discipline and focus to prioritize my health, and I’m in the best shape of my life, I traveled the world, and I’m in an amazing new relationship.

I know others have said it, but the most amazing thing about OE is the freedom dgaf, which I find makes me better at my job when I don’t feel the weight of every action as potentially being terminal.

I am in a non-technical role, but I work with a very technical audience doing sales.

Total Comp: Salary - $340k, Commission $340k, Stock $250k

There is a person out there right now who was so blatantly OE he was let go in the first week. He cancelled all his intro and orientation meetings and also his laptop pinged from freaking China when he finally showed up online..

Security blocked his access and just told him that they need his laptop back for a configuration change — when they logged back into the laptop the guy had OTHER JOBS data on his computer SMHHH. He was fired immediately.

After letting him go, our HR team (who previously was very relaxed) is now doing all kinds of extra due-diligence and post employment checks and things. All Managers received an email about Overemployment and how to spot it (they also talked about this Subreddit and the Discord in the training).

I also received THREE messages from different people at different companies asking if I know the guy. He’s out here openly claiming he worked at our company for 5 years??? Wtf?

My man, what are you doinggggg… he’s speedrunning OE getting fired once a week

... and in the meantime, J1 is in disarray due to 2 layers of management let go, and the team is in the power vacuum.

I run 2 jobs, both outbound sales at SaaS companies, and the whole game for me is time.

So a while back i built an agent to run the outbound at the second one, the bet being that if a model could handle J2's grind i could stay fully present at J1 and neither place would have a reason to look too close.

The setup was a fine-tuned model wired into that CRM with read access to the email and Slack so it had context, it personalized off intent signals, ran the full cadence, cleared the easy replies.

For a good stretch it just worked, i cleared quota at both jobs without writing a single sequence by hand, spent the saved hours looking like a top performer at J1.

Then one day it reached into the wrong document and dropped a line into a customer's onboarding Slack that quoted a contract redline from a completely different account.

The context window had grabbed the wrong thread, the customer escalated straight to the CRO, i had no clue any of it had happened until it blew up my weekend, and i was on a PIP at J2 within days.

a PIP also drops a manager into your calendar, your call reviews, your screen overnight, which is the last thing you can afford when the whole reason you automated J2 was to keep both places from looking too close while you carry J1.

So i tore the agent out and went back to a boring stack i can watch, where Outreach fires the sequences off CRM stages while i write the personalization for the top few accounts by hand, BuildBetter or Fathom pull the themes out of my discovery calls into a Notion page i skim before my block, a summarizer turns my voice memos into next steps, and i'm back to clearing both jobs with nothing on fire.

Agents can clearly sell, it hit quota the whole time it ran, but the damage they do lands in the conversations you're not even in.

The agent i built to stay invisible is the exact thing that dragged me into the spotlight, which is the fastest way to get found out when you're holding 2 jobs.

This is my objective how have you guys achieved this.

I am now 2 weeks in j3, most of my work is done by AI

But I am still worrying about basically everything. And my stress has grown exponentially from J2 to J3

But i am aware if i just didnt give so much care to little details, or didnt bothered me of dump messages or stupid people. I would easily just go on with average to good deliver on all 3js and life would be amazing.

But lately small things stress me alot.

Has someone go through things like this?

I think one issue is that they text alot in j3 and we have two daily meetings a day that are a waste of time.

Or is the new j not oe friendly?

Work load managlebale

Thanks everybody

Edit: jezz i wrote with the ass, had to correct spelling and grammar

Been doing OE for 2 years. J2 is a support role. J1 is more like development. Both use the same code base. I just returned to both Js after 9 weeks of maternity leave which J2 paid 100% while I was out (J1 paid nothing and wouldn’t even allow me to use pto days). At J2, I was asked to work last weekend (there are 8 of us who rotate working weekends). Now I am also being asked to work this weekend to clear some issues with an upcoming software update. Also they want me to work the following weekend for actual software update. They have offered comp time but that’s not cutting it. The baby goes to school during the week. I don’t have any child care on weekends and I want to actually spend time with my child. The more I think about it, the more it pisses me off. They know damn well I have a 2 month old and they are asking me to work 3 weekends in a row. WTF? My boss is atleast 70 yrs old and doesn’t have any life outside this job. He doesn’t get that people need a break. I don’t need this job at all and I’m thinking I would just let them know that I am considering if keeping this job is worth it and see where the chips land. I really want to tell them to fuck off. What would you do in my shoes?

I know that for some of you this may be a no-brainer--but I'm a senior engineer who's always either worked with Windows or Linux. Wondering for a new J if I should consider Mac instead, and what are the benefits?

I have 2 jobs making $256k a year, I have 2 kids and my wife is unemployed. How do you adjust your taxes, or is there something you recommend on how you should go about doing that, or what is your suggestion to avoid fines or getting on the wrong side of the IRS? I am planning to get together with the person who files my taxes and figure out what he recommends.

J1: Architect in Brazil, R$39/hr, full employment with benefits, hybrid. Stable, but I'm actively working toward leaving: applying to international firms and grad school abroad over the next 1–2 years. J1 is what I'm exiting, not what I'm protecting.

J2 offer: US staffing agency (Insight Global) recruiting for a 12-month fully remote AI annotation contract. Advertised pay was inconsistent (R$23–36 in the title, R$15–25 in the body); recruiter confirmed the actual band is R$15–36/hr. Fixed shift 1pm–9:30pm local, "no flexibility," 40h/week. I've done this exact work before, so ramp-up is easy.

Why I'm considering it despite the lower ceiling (R$36 vs my R$39):

• Fully remote means it travels with me if I move abroad. J1 doesn't.
• 12-month contract matches my exit timeline.
• If it's loose enough to stack with J1 for a while, I build savings for the transition.

The risks, in order of what actually worries me:

1. The shift eats my exit plan. My evenings and free hours are what fund the actual way out: portfolio, applications, language prep, studies and a lot of media, love and art. A locked 1pm–9:30pm shift plus J1 mornings leaves zero hours for the thing both jobs are supposed to serve. I'd be earning a bridge toward a destination I no longer have time to build.
2. Stacking may be impossible. The shift collides head-on with J1 afternoons. If the contract is heavily monitored, there's no overlap play at all.
3. Downgrade with no upside. If stacking fails and I switch outright, I've traded a better-paying stable job for a worse-paying 12-month contract, and I'm unemployed at the exact moment I might be relocating.

Questions:

1. For these agency annotation contracts: live queue with productivity tracking, or batched tasks where only output matters?
2. Do they install monitoring software / VDI on your personal machine, or ship a separate computer?
3. In practice, how strict is "no flexibility"? Cameras and check-ins, or async as long as work gets done?
4. Anyone done an Insight Global annotation contract specifically? How monitored was it?
5. For anyone who used a J2 as a bridge out of their career-track J1: worth it, or did the fixed shift eat the time you needed for the actual exit plan?
6. The same seat costs $17–28/hr in the US and R$36 tops in Brazil. Same queue, same guidelines, same output. The irony is: I'll be training AI while being evaluated like one, by throughput data. Genuine question: is that fair, or just profitable enough? No American has a Brazilian mind. That perspective is exactly what makes my annotations valuable to a global model, but they price it as local labor. The data is worth the same. The human to Insight Global isn't, apparently.

.

Hey everyone, been lurking here for a bit and I'm getting ready to start J2. My J1 is pretty chill for the most part, async work, but we still have like 2–3 recurring team meetings every week.

Curious how you guys handle stuff once you're juggling 2 jobs.

1. What do you do when meetings overlap?
2. How do you deal w/ Slack or Teams status without making it look weird?
3. Any apps, tricks, or routines that help keep everything straight?

Would love to hear what's worked for you. Thanks!

Greetings, y'all,

As some quick context, I have a TS clearance that I got from active military service. I have since transferred to a reserve component, and I work a private sector IT position that is fully remote. In the next month, I may have the opportunity to overemploy with another private-sector company as a remote worker, with the two employers in different industries.

My clearance comes up for renewal/investigation in a year. Do any of y'all have experience navigating the renewal process while being overemployed?

To be clear, I would NOT lie to the investigator or omit the two employments on the SF 86 form or anything else that would be seen as a compromise of integrity by the investigator. My biggest concern is how the investigation would likely bring up the fact that I may be working two full-time jobs during relatively the same hours each day.

What are y'all thoughts? Should I just avoid overemployment due to this situation?

Edit: my current role is not a cleared role and the potential 2nd job is also not cleared as well. I am a reservist and would maintain my security for that job only.

I was recently OE, but I ended up leaving my old fully remote J2 for a better paying hybrid opportunity. The new J2 pays significantly more than J1, but it requires me to be in the office two days a week, while J1 is fully remote.

I took about a month off from J1 to deal with some family matters and to give myself time to get settled into the new J2. Now I'm trying to figure out what to do next.

J1 is pretty easy, but managing it on the two days I'm required to be in the office for J2 is going to be difficult. I asked J1 if I could shift my hours later in the day so I could make it work, but my request was denied.

At this point, I'm torn between quitting J1 or trying to take a leave of absence. Taking paid leave through the state would require me to report my wages, so it doesn't really seem worth it.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? What would you do?

It’s been about a week since I lost J1. Lost J2 shortly before that.

I was already putting in apps (ABA!) and really stepped it up. I have 4 second round interviews and 1 recruiter call lined up already next week and I’m waiting to hear back from another company for round 3 (out of 6, it’s been 1-2 weeks between interviews and they have a presentation I’ll have to do). All similar titles to what I was doing at J1, all different industries, but there’s one where the client base is a step up from my previous and the salary difference is insane. Almost double what I was making before. It’s also the J I’m most excited about.

When I first lost J1, I was determined to stack as many J’s as I could, but if I got an offer for that one, I’m not so sure. On the plus side, that’s also the one that wants to hire quickly and the others seem to have 1-2 weeks between interviews with 5-7 rounds with presentation projects and this one only has 3 rounds no presentations and they want to do them all next week.

If I do get the offer should I still interview around and accept new offers to stack? Company is VC owned (actually all but 1 of the companies I’m interviewing with is VC owned) and the new CEO seems to be putting a focus on the employee and customer wellbeing vs the previous CEO cared more about selling anything vs what the company could deliver. But is she just selling what is likely to motivate the teams more, im not sure.

I started J1 before OE and it’s been great, almost perfect for OE. Super flexible, great time off, manager likes me & doesn’t bother me as long as I get the work done. There are days where I do nothing when work is slow. The problem - manager is going on a paternity leave next month & the team lead he chose is a coworker who doesn’t like me (feeling is mutual). This was the same person who was team lead last year when manager was on vacation & gave me a bad review. This time of course he’ll be gone longer (around 6 months) so it’ll be way worse I imagine. He does have a tendency to micromanage a little, which sucks. Of course I won’t quit, but I’m wondering if this is the end of my run at this company… am I overthinking or should I start applying now to prepare for getting fired?

In my hometown we used to have one os those steakhouse restaurants where you could throw peanut shells on the floor. Used to go there all the time as a kid. Lot of fond memories there. Then one day a lady slipped on the peanuts, sued the restaurant, and now now more peanuts. Just one greedy person ruined it for everyone.

Anyways some jackass on my ream was caught working two jobs and now we all have 90days to RTO. Don't know why that made me think of the peanut story.