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Today, a knowledge planet joined by “code GG Lu Xiaoming” saw an assignment of Mingo, as shown in the picture below:

It should be noted that I changed whether it was worth checking into whether it was necessary, and then I got the title of this article. But the truth is, whether valuable or necessary, my core idea is the same!

My answer

I’m taking private jobs, so let’s not say it’s necessary.

Skilled private work

Here are some of my feelings about private work: I read a lot of articles and wrote a lot of demo, but after all, there is no actual combat project, private work is a good training ground. After all, programming is a skill. “It’s on paper, but you have to practice.”

The stuff I did at my last company used very limited technology. Later, I took a private job. After receiving it, I began to try new architecture, popular technology and cutting-edge framework, and fix various bugs encountered in the record. During the interview with the company, many questions were answered based on the private job. This is my first private job.

The second was to fix a difficult bug for someone else, and was relatively well paid.

So I do private work for two purposes:

  1. In order to practice skills
  2. For the sake of money,

Based on what I’ve been through, it seems like it’s all good. Then the private work is necessary?

But it’s not, because I haven’t told you how I came to work. The last company was outsourced to a private bank. Although there was a certain technical atmosphere, infighting among leaders in such an organization was common. This leads to low efficiency and slow pace of work. On the other hand, the technology used is older (for better compatibility with ultra-low versions of mobile devices). I decided to do my first private job under the circumstances. It’s not that much money, but I need to use it to fill my time, and use it to fill my skills. Those who have done technology should experience such a state of mind more or less.

So it’s safe to say that if the company had more room for self-presentation, I wouldn’t have taken this job for that amount of money.

You said you could write a demo and learn by yourself. I already mentioned this at the beginning and I don’t want to repeat it.

So this private work is necessary and unnecessary according to their time, skill level, position environment and other factors to choose.

The second immediate reason is money. Even if you do it for the money, it’s still a skill upgrade for you. But for some of their own already mastered skills. The amount of money paid, and how much you need the money at the time, are important factors in whether it’s necessary to take on private work

My third private job was to replace a macbook.

For the above “private work” – that is, the narrow sense of the technical direction of private work. My personal views on such “private work” vary from person to person. Each person can decide whether it is necessary or not according to his own situation.

It seems that the above examples are necessary to take private work, here is also an unnecessary one. For example, if you are in a very good medium or large company, there are more people who are better than you, and you have used some popular frameworks on the market. Technical width is not a big problem. At this point you may need to dig deep to explore Android’s underlying implementation, popular framework design ideas, data structure and algorithm applications… . It may take time for you to chew through the source code, which is hard to improve with personal work, which is easy to extend your technical breadth, but hard to extend your technical depth. So if you’re here, there’s really no need to take a freelance job for a while (although it can make you money, it’s not really necessary if you’re not desperate for the money).

The above briefly expresses some of my views on the need for private work in a narrow sense (that is, technical direction).

Unskilled private work

And then I want to talk about technical accidents. This is actually very extensive, such as public account, small column, Gitchat, live… . My personal understanding of private work is that anything other than your main employee’s work that provides you with additional income is called private work.

My personal attitude to this kind of private work is very necessary.

Again, I can only take my personal example. After two years of development, I asked myself a question:

What else can I do besides develop? How can I support myself out of development?

So I opened my first public account (note: I’m going to advertise), the Android Programmer Diary. I learned to write technical articles, tutorials, life lessons, unfunny jokes [sweat]. Although I never wanted to make a living through this public account, I like to express myself in this way.

You might say it’s your hobby, not your job. Attention, I am a programmer speaking is responsible, although this public number intermittently wrote for two years but still have praise, it brought me income, dozens of pieces is also money (manual fill an embarrassed rather than etiquette smile).

Besides, I also like English very much (I always want to go abroad to have a look, work and live). Although my English is not bad, I know there is still a lot of room for improvement. So this year, after trying to translate an English technical book and passing it, I took the job of translating this book, which was really unprofitable. Translations cost only a few dozen yuan per thousand words. This is also a way to expand your technology-related vocabulary. After all, the fastest way to improve your English is to use English.

To start with two personal examples, I’d like to use the above example to illustrate why taking on private work outside of technology is necessary.

In fact, there is still a premise — do what you love. In such a diverse society, t-shaped talents are more competitive. Although the “one” of the WORD T refers to the expansion of general skills, such as learning ability, innovation ability, critical thinking, expression ability, problem solving ability… . But each person can choose from these general capabilities for his own situation and his own expectations of himself.

It’s difficult to develop these abilities directly, but we can expand them indirectly by continuing to do what we love. This is what I mean when I say that it is necessary to do something other than personal work, even if you are not aware that you are doing personal work. Knowing that it’s often easier to do these “private jobs” can help you open your eyes, broaden your mind, and provide multiple perspectives on the world. Until one day, it will answer you, what else can you do but develop? How can you support yourself out of development?

Finally, I want to busk with a keyboard!

That’s my opinion. What do you think about private work? Leave a comment below.

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