15 Side Hustles Developers can do to Earn Passive/Additional Income in 2023

These are the 15 most effective side hustles for programmers and developers to create additional income streams and passive income in 2023

Hello folks, if you are a programmer or software developer and wondering how to create additional income stream or earn passive income in 2023 and looking for side hustles to earn more money, then you have come to the right place.

Earlier, I have shared my earnings on Medium and my Medium growth tips and In this article, I am going to share 15 most effective ways to earn additional income in 2023, which include side hustles, passive income ideas and even full business ideas.

Though, let me frank, most of these methods require work, they are not absolute passive and they are in no way get rich quick scheme, so if you are in to earn quick bucks by not doing anything then this article is not for you.

But, if you are passionate about whatever you do and committed to create multiple income streams then you will love these ideas. I have shared how much effort each would take and their earning potential so that you can make an informed decision.

In some side hustles, you need to work hard upfront and then you can relax a bit while on other cases like blogging you need to constantly work, albeit you can choose how much time you want to put.

By the way, Medium is full of creative ideas to earn additional income, create multiple streams and passive income ideas and you should join Medium to keep in touch, informed and motivated.

And, if you are not a Medium member yet then I highly recommend you to join Medium and read read story and experience from many great authors and people. Medium is the only place you can read real experience from top companies to startups. You can join Medium here

15 Easy, Medium and hard Side Hustles to create Multiple Income Streams in 2023

So, let’s dive into 15 passive income ideas and side hustles for programmers and Software developers to create multiple income stream and earn additional income in 2023.

1. Blogging

There is no better way to establish your online presence, authority and earn additional income then starting a blog. A blog create not only help you to learn programming better but also showcase your programming and teaching skills to the world, and once your blog is established, you can earn additional passive income via Ads, Affiliate Marketing, sponsorship etc.

Though, a blog require a lot of work and its not easy for everyone to be patient and consistently write articles that’s where passion comes in. You must start your blog in programming, coding or anything you are passionate about and you have real experience to become successful in this area.

1. Effort — medium to hard
2. Earning potential — high to unlimited
3. Passive Income — not much passive, you need constant articles but you can hire freelancers once you start earning money for many tasks.
4. Capital requirement — Nothing, you can start with free services like blogger.com

If you are in for long run, you should start with blogging in 2023, its never too late and there is always readers who want to read your story, no matter which niche you want to write.

2. Become a Medium Author

One of the easiest way for Programmer or developer to earn additional income is to start writing on Medium. You can write about any programming language, software development, your career, your success, your failure and everything else as Medium has vast audience.

Once you have 100 followers and you can join Medium partner program and start earning side income in no time. Based upon my experience, its also quickest way to earn side income as you can earn decent money with bunch of articles if they go viral on Medium.

1. Effort — easy
2. Earning potential — medium to high
3. Passive Income — not much passive, you need to write articles constantly but you can choose how many articles you want to write. In general its more money when you write more article but you can create a nice balance so that quality is not compromised.
4. Capital requirement — nothing

If you want to earn money from right go then you should start writing on Medium. Once you get accepted on Medium’s partner program, you can start seeing money flows to your account. For example, it’s been just one month since I started writing active on Medium and I have already earned $100 as shown in below screenshot. You can further see my medium partner program earning reports for more details.

And, if you are not a Medium member yet then I highly recommend you to join Medium and read read story and experience from many great authors and people. Medium is the only place you can read real experience from top companies to startups. You can join Medium here

3. Create an Online Course

This is probably the most popular way to create additional income stream for not just programmers and developers but every professional out there. Just record and share what you know and you can start money on side.

Platforms like Udemy has really made online course an viable option to earn income as you don’t need to have any follower to start selling your course on Udemy. It can promote your course to millions of registered users.

You also get access to million of affiliates Udemy has and they even use Ads to promote your courses. All you need is to create an awesome course which not only provide good information but also looks good on vidoe and audio quality.

1. Effort — medium to hard
2. Earning potential — high to unlimited
3. Passive Income — After initial recording and publishing, this is not much work, unless you want to create more courses, which many people do and then it become a constant side hustle.
4. Capital Requirement — none to minimum

If you want to start with online courses, I strongly recommend to start with Udemy, its one of the best platform for selling online courses and you can earn a lot of money. There are many million dollar instructors on Udemy, here is one of them who has publically shared his Udemy earning screenshot so that you can get motivated and belief.

4. Write A Book

Just like creating a course, you can also write an eBook or Book to share your programming and development experience and start selling that on Gumroad, Amazon, LeanPub and other platforms.

Amazon Kindle not only allows you to self-publish your book but also allows you to access there huge pool of customers and readers. If you are a camera shy person and cannot create video courses because it also requires video editing skills then you should consider writing your book.

Once you write a book, you must also promote it to get better outcome of your efforts.

1. Effort — easy to medium
2. Earning potential —medium to high
3. Passive Income — its pretty much passive once you create a book. You can occasionally update the book to cover new information but if you don’t revise its write once and earn forever.
4. Capital requirement — none to minimum

If you need motivation, there are many successful author on Gumroad, like Daniel Vassalo who has written books on AWS and Twitter growth strategies and has made fortune by selling books. Here is one of the screenshot from his Gumroad earning dashboard which he had shared on Twitter.

5. Create a SaaS Product

I love the idea of Saas Product because it doesn’t require constant content creation and with membership, you can earn decent recurring revenue. Look at products like RecurPost or MeetEdgar, they just automate Social media posting using their APIs and now have millions of customer, earning millions of dollars.

1. Effort — medium to hard
2. Earning potential — high to unlimited
3. Passive Income — Once you create a product, its pretty much passive unless you require constant support but then you can build team and hire freelancers to support you.

6. Online Tutoring

This is similar to online course but in this case instead of creating courses, you prefer to teach people online. This one is good to start with as you will know whether you enjoy teaching or not and you can also earn quick bucks without much marketing.

Once you establish your authority, you can take your game to next level by creating online courses which are very scalable and have immense potential to earn you a lot of money online.

1. Effort — easy
2. Earning potential — high to medium
3. Passive Income — not much passive, require constant work
4. Capital requirement — none to minimum

If this side hustle, you earn money by teaching people so you will have to trade your time for money but on the plus side you can charge premium and you can start earning immediately.

7. Create a YouTube Channel

If you have heard about Mr Beast and watch YouTube then why not create your own channel, you will not only learn but also earn. There are also a lot of inspiration around like Mr Beast if you lack motivation.

1. Effort — medium to hard
2. Earning potential — high to unlimited
3. Passive Income — not much passive, you need to keep creating videos so that your channel has fresh content but you can hire freelancers once you start earning money for many tasks.
4. Capital Requirement — none to minimum

8. Freelance Writing

If you like writing but want to make quick buck then instead of blogging you can choose freelance writing. In this case, you will write for others but you will get paid immediately unlike blogging where you monetize your content after you get traffic.

1. Effort — easy
2. Earning potential — medium
3. Passive Income — not much passive, you need constant articles to kep earning money.
4. Capital Requirement — none

9. Conduct Mock Interviews

Many people don’t know but you can also get paid for conducting mock interviews. If you have good experience in Software development then you can join online platforms which pays you for taking mock interviews.

1. Effort — medium to hard
2. Earning potential — high to unlimited
3. Passive Income — not much passive, you need to constantly trade your time and skill to learn money here
4. Capital — none

10. Affiliate Marketing

Another great way to earn side income for writers, programmers and developers but you need persuasive skill so that people trust your recommendation and then buy the product you are suggesting.

1. Effort — medium to hard
2. Earning potential — high to unlimited
3. Passive Income — not much passive, you need constant articles but you can hire freelancers once you start earning money for many tasks.

11. Investments

If you have money, you can also put them into stocks and bonds to earn some passive income but make sure you know what are you are doing because you can pretty much lose all your money in stocks.

If you are new, better put money on fixed deposit, bonds and other fixed income assets where you will earn less but your capital is secure. Slowly you can put money on Mutual funds and Unit trust to earn bit more but with market risk.

1. Effort —easy
2. Earning potential — medium to high
3. Passive Income — passive, you can do it online in few minutes
4. Capital requirement — medium to high

12. Rental Properties

This is my favorite way to earn Passive income because its one of the truly passive way to earn additional income, but it require huge capital investment to buy properties, sometimes in million dollars.

You can start small and build your portfolio, if you can buy properties where rental is higher than your EMI and other cost then that property is pretty much on auto-pilot and you are free to work for your next property.

1. Effort — Easy
2. Earning potential — medium to high
3. Passive Income Indicator — It’s one of the best way to earn passive income but you need huge capital investment. If you don’t have money then you can try co-living or subletting model where you need to devote your time.

13. Freelance Coder

If you love coding, you can do freelance coding and web development. You can create tools and websites and sell them or you can take freelance gigs on Upwork.com and Fivrrer.com

1. Effort — medium to hard
2. Earning potential — high to unlimited
3. Passive Income Indicator — Low, not much passive, you need constant work but you can hire freelancers once you start earning money for many tasks.

14. Influencer Marketing

This is another way, programmers and developers can make money online in 2023. All you need is a social media account and followers which are not so difficult to gain if you care to share useful content.

Once you have decent following, you can earn a lot of money by promoting products and giving shout outs. I am not sure if there is a service or tool which can bring Advertisers to Influencer but companies generally reach Influencer on social media platform itself

1. Effort —easy to medium
2. Earning potential — high to unlimited
3. Passive Income — not much passive, you need to constantly post useful content to become Influencer but you can do it on your free time and it doesn’t demand much. You can start with minimum 10 minutes everyday or 1 hour a week.

15. Create an App

As a Developer this is the best thing you can do to create additional income stream. There are many example of people who created million dollar apps like FlappyBird, AngryBird etc. There was once a term coined called “Appenuer” to refer people who have made millions using apps.

Both iOS App Store and Google’s PlayStore makes it possible to create apps which can reach to masses and once you create an app which is useful, solves a pain in user’s life or create a game, you can earn a lot of money on side.

1. Effort — medium to hard
2. Earning potential — high to unlimited
3. Passive Income —it require substantial initial work but once you are live, its minimal work to support depending upon the kind of app you create like games.
4. Capital requirement — none to minimum

Here is also the 10 steps you can follow to create great apps and earn money from app development

That’s all about the 15 side hustles and ideas for programmers and Software developers to earn additional income in 2023. I am a big fan of creating additional income streams and passive income as they help in achieving financial freedom and they also provide confidence and security.

From my experience I have found that nothing is free in this world, you either need to spend time, money, or your expertise to earn but how effectively we do it so that we create a balanced life is the secret of success.

Now, its time to hear form you? How are you generating additional income as programmer or Software developer or a professional in 2023? Do share your thoughts and ideas on comments.

By the way, Medium is full of creative ideas to earn additional income, create multiple streams and passive income ideas and you should join Medium to keep in touch, informed and motivated.

And, if you are not a Medium member yet then I highly recommend you to join Medium and read read story and experience from many great authors and people. Medium is the only place you can read real experience from top companies to startups. You can join Medium here