1150 What Can You Do To Survive A Recession As A Developer？- Simple Programmer Podcast
07:37 Share

Hey, what's up? John Sonmez here from simpleprogrammer.com.

I got a question, an interesting question. I've never gotten this question before or any variation of this question, but it is what can you do to survive a recession as a developer, as a software developer? This is from Tim.

He says, "Being that it has been about 8 years since the last recession and in theory we're due for another one soon, what are some tips for surviving a recession as a developer? Also, I noticed that you started your career around 2001, so you've been around for the dot com bust and housing bubble collapse. Could you please comment on how you weathered those recessions and how to survive recessions in general?" I have 2 years of experience, work with .net and Angular. I work in the middle office stuff at a Wall Street bank.

Okay, so Tim, here's the thing. This is going to be a short video I think because I've got the absolute smoking gun answer for how to survive a recession. Be the fucking best. When you're the fucking best, recession doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. When you're the top of your game, it doesn't matter what the economy is doing. You're still getting the job. You're having no problem. The people who have problems in a recession are the people at the bottom rung.

or the middle run. Those are the people that can't get jobs, that get wiped out, that have crap happen to them. Don't ever be at the average or below average or even slightly above average. Be the best. If you're the best, a recession is not going to hurt you. All throughout the time when—and you can check out my software developer career story. I've got a playlist on that.

All throughout the time when all this stuff happened and I've been through plenty ups and downs and I could talk about real estate as well. It's a little bit different, but all throughout that time I survived and I didn't even feel it. I didn't even know what was going on. I didn't even know that people were having a hard time getting a job. You know why? Because I wasn't having a hard time and it really helped when I started my blog. You can check out my course. I've got a free course on how to—

Create a blog to boost your career. You should definitely check that out and you should start a blog if you haven't because that's going to recession-proof you like nothing because you're in high demand. When you're getting job offers every day from people that want to hire you because they've read your blog or because you've built your name or reputation in the industry, you don't care about the recession. It doesn't matter. Now, I'm not saying it's not going to affect you at all, but what I'm saying is that like

Because I consistently invested in my career and invested in myself and made sure that I was at the top of the game and I wasn't always. When I first started my career before the whole crash came down I wasn't in the best condition, but I quickly realized that I needed to invest in myself and I did. When I did that and I was at the top of my game, at one point I was one of the top ranked people on Topcoder and C++.

I didn't have to worry. It didn't matter. I didn't even feel it. I didn't even know what was going on. That's the biggest thing. The other thing, I'll give you one last—one other piece of advice here because it takes some time to become the best, but that's what you should be aiming for.

What's up, guys? John Sonmez here from simpleprogrammer.com. I want to tell you about my free blogging course that you can sign up for at simpleprogrammer.com forward slash pblog. Now, this free blogging course is going to tell you how to create a blog to boost your career. It's something that you definitely don't want to miss. Thousands of developers have already gone through the course, the free course that you're going to get by email and have learned how to create a blog,

to boost their career, to make more money, and even to grow their own side business. It's something that every single developer should do, especially if you're a web developer, you should have your own blog. I'm going to show you exactly how to do it, how to be successful, how to get traffic, everything that you need to know about creating a blog and even making money from it. Just go to simpleprogrammer.com forward slash pblog to sign up now. Once again, it's simpleprogrammer.com forward slash pblog. The other thing that you can do

is have, and I encourage you to do this no matter what, is to have some reserve. Have some money set aside. You should have at a minimum about 6 months worth of living expenses set aside and savings so that if the crap does hit the fan that you're going to be able to survive that and weather that out. I did a video on this. I'm trying to think what it's called. It's called squeeze situations or—

and squeeze situation, the biggest thing that hurts people is not getting kicked in the shin. What hurts people is getting kicked in the shin and because they're kicked in the shin and their shins are weak, they double over and then they get an uppercut to the face and then they get laid out on the floor and then they get stomped on.

That's what happens when you have one weak spot. What I'm trying to say here is basically this. If you don't have money set aside, if you don't have living expenses and recession hits and you're not at the top of your game, whatever you—or even if you are and you have trouble getting a job. Then what happens is that you're living paycheck to paycheck. You don't have a paycheck anymore. You can't make your car payment.

You can't make your car payment. What happens? Well, you lose your car. Now you don't have wheels. Now you can't even get a job at McDonald's.

Great. Now what happens? Now you get unemployment and now you're—you see what I'm saying? Like this whole cascading things happen. Your girlfriend dumps you because you're a freaking loser because you don't have a car and you can't even get a job at McDonald's. You can't get yourself out of the pit. You keep on going further and further. Now you get sick and you don't have health insurance because you couldn't afford that. You see what I'm saying? All this stuff. You get kicked out of your apartment. You're living on the street pretty much

and your life is ruined. What happens is that this chain reaction, this cascading chain of events can happen in life if you don't have some kind of reserve. You always got to be like live below your means and be prepared. Have a reserve set up so that you could live. I could live for a long time. I mean now I could live for the rest of my life without having to have income come in.

At one point when I was in my software development career I had like 2 years worth of savings. I was an entrepreneur. I didn't have a bunch of businesses. I didn't have—I wasn't making a ridiculous amount of money, but I just lived so below my means. I slept on a frigging mattress on the floor for a period of time because what was really important to me was to make sure that whatever happened that I was taken care of, that

This shit can take me down because I know that that chain reaction of events is what really screws people. If you could weather a storm, you got to be able to weather the storm. Make sure that you've got a war chest so you can weather the storm. Two things. One, be the best.

Two, have a war chest. That's it. All right. That's all I got for you today. Good question. If you have a question for me, you can always email me at john at simpleprogrammer.com. Click the Subscribe button so you don't miss any videos and click the bell to make sure that you get every video. You get a little notification whenever a new video comes out. You don't have to watch them all, but at least you'll know that there's a new video out there and you can check it out and see if it's good for you. All right. That's all I got for you today. Talk to you next time. Take care.