I’m a member of several popular software developer communities, mostly to stay current on the infinite deluge of Javascript frameworks and dank memes. Lately, I’ve noticed a concerning trend in all of these groups. There’s this idea that the only way to “Level Up” as a developer is to work on side projects. It’s a story seen every day on Indie Hackers, Hacker News, or dev.to: “How I bootstrapped my startup to earning an extra 200k/month by Making an API to Sell Blockchain Backed Widgets”.