How are you storing and sharing these docs? Is it a common Sharepoint library or something similar? I've found the biggest problem is often getting people to look at the document resource / archive when they have a problem whose solution might already be documented.
Does anyone know if there's a decent, comprehensive library that handles all authentication / login for .Net Core apps? Bonus points if there's a SSO addition (even if that part is commercial).
Identity.NET for embedding a library, Identity Server for hosting a service.
They're not the simplest, and unfortunately the scaffolding story with Identity.NET is a bit of a nightmare for MVC apps (if you're not careful, you can end up with a ton of hidden-but-accessible razor page endpoints), but the code is robust and most cases are covered.
Identity.NET will also need you to write your own implementations of a couple of database access classes if you don't want to drag a dependency on Entity Framework Core along for the ride.
Documentation is fairly dry and mostly complete (Microsoft style) but be careful with versioning because dotnet core moves fast.
Medium hate comes up again and again here, and I get it to a degree. But, Medium delivers an audience that hosting your own rarely does.
Fair enough if all you want to do is post to HN, but if posting to HN is only one delivery channel, you're giving up a huge audience just to placate techie UI sensibilities on this site.
Posting on my own blog gets me single digit views, because I don't have an audience of my own. Sure, I could and probably should work on that, but working on that is a long term plan. Posting to Medium via an established publication such as The Startup, HackerNoon or The Mission has delivered 5k to 50k reads (not views) for me in the past.
I think a sanity check is required here. Annoy a few techie users or have your work read by many thousands who would not otherwise read it. To me that's a no brainer.
What stopped you from moving to the UK? If it's Brexit, consider a move to Ireland instead. While PHP is not a strong language here, Python developers are in high demand.
Ask for a three month Sabbatical. If you've been working for a company for some time and have done well there, you might be surprised how eager they are for you not to leave outright. The reason for the Sabbatical? Have a couple of ideas in your head if you feel the need to explain yourself, but don't say burnout:
Trip around the world, meditation retreat, extra-tech study, family reasons, whatever.
And of course, have your mind made up in case the answer is no. Make it clear that you've decided to take the time off regardless, but would really like to return to work for them in three months.
I've done this very thing myself. 2-3 months off, going part-time, etc. The cost of losing your experience and abilities down the road usually out-weighs any short term difficulties it presents to the company.
Look into charging per developer, with a site license option. Libraries / components, especially for enterprise development is big business. In the .Net space you have $100m+ companies like DevExpress and Telerik, and smaller, more specific and niche component providers (example: componentspace.com) selling successfully at a few grand a copy.
A few hundred bucks is way too low for any library of substance that saves the local developers a few weeks work.
Contracting at medium to high rates is great if you want to bootstrap your own startup. I use it for that purpose myself. A few of the best reasons.
1. It allows you to work for 6-12 months and save up enough to take 2-3 months off to work on your startup — something that’s often required to build a version 1 of your app.
2. Contracts tend not to include the usual clauses such as "We own the ip to everything you invent, even in your spare time." And if they do they can be removed without difficulty.
3. It’s extremely forgiving of job hopping and spending short amounts of time with a company before leaving to work on your startup.
4. Contractors are usually not expected to work overtime, eating into side-project time.
On a different note, your use of the term "side project" instead of product, app, startup or business suggests you don't see this side project as a business or potential business. Maybe that's why your focus is on the money and not the business you might build.
I've always felt that "side project" is a terrible phrase to describe the early stages of a new business, even if you're starting that business while working a day job.
Very easy to jump jobs, though permie jobs have more hoops to jump through. Most jobs are big corporate, very few startups.
Working as a contract developer (rolling 6 months) at $11,500 per month (25 days holidays factored in). A similar permie role would pay about $8,500 a month + perks (health insurance, pernsion, etc.)
The work is generally not that challenging - a good dev with 5 years behind them could do it.
