"I now have six amazing clients, and I’m making an amount of money equivalent to my Google total compensation package,[1] which proves the thesis that it’s possible to be a professional maintainer earning rates competitive with the adjacent market for senior software engineers."
His experience is totally unique. Please don't let this make you think you can quit your job and earn the same you did at your high paying FANG job. He's an outlier in the industry. I was a nobody when I left my job to work on open source full time. It was a year before I found a corporate sponsor and that was only because my friend worked there and he understood the value of what I was working on. Patreon was laughable in terms of what came back. Just be fully aware as you read this. With existing brand and following you can do what he did, without it you'll struggle immensely like I did.
His experience is totally unique. Please don't let this make you think you can quit your job and earn the same you did at your high paying FANG job. He's an outlier in the industry. I was a nobody when I left my job to work on open source full time. It was a year before I found a corporate sponsor and that was only because my friend worked there and he understood the value of what I was working on. Patreon was laughable in terms of what came back. Just be fully aware as you read this. With existing brand and following you can do what he did, without it you'll struggle immensely like I did.