FOR EXPERIENCED DEVELOPERS AND TECH PROFESSIONALS
Everything you know
finally pays off.
Get paid for your judgment instead of your hours.
The Solo Technical Consultant Workshop gets you started in five evenings.
You’ll reach out as a consultant to someone who’s only known you as an employee.
Next cohort: October 26-30, live on Zoom
At some point in your tech career, getting better stops paying off.
DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?
- Your advice shapes what other people do, but you’re still paid mostly for your own output.
- Your role keeps you out of decisions you have critical insight into.
- You’re hitting a pay ceiling, and the only way up looks like a management job.
- AI is changing what you do, and you’re not sure how to maintain your value.
- People you know have gone out on their own, and you haven’t figured out how you’d do it yourself.
What being a solo consultant buys you:
Consultants are paid for what they think. Someone with a budget has a problem. They’ve already spent money trying to fix it, and they’ve probably asked AI too. Now they want an outside view from someone who’s been through it before. You look, tell them what you’d do, and help them decide.
Your technical skills come with you. You might build a prototype or show their team how you’d do it. But nobody assigns you what to build. And the project doesn’t depend on you to ship.
Consultants can tell clients the truth. You don’t report to anyone at your client, so you can say what you see, even when it’s not what they hoped to hear. That honesty is a big part of what clients are paying for.
Consultants own their results. Each client project is a standalone piece of work with your name on it: what you found, what you recommended, and why. If it helps, the client knows it was you. If it misses, that’s yours too.
Consultants can eventually work fewer hours than an employee. On a salary, getting twice as fast just gets you twice the work. On an hourly contract, it cuts your pay in half. AI is making everyone faster, so that gap grows every year. Consultants charge for their impact, not the time it takes. So clients pay the same whether it takes you three weeks or one. As you get better, you can also charge more. Then the same income takes fewer hours.
Consultants build a reputation that carries over to the next technology. A reputation built on knowing the newest technology resets every few years, and AI is making that happen faster. A reputation for sound judgment carries over to whatever comes next, and it grows with every client you help.
Consultants don’t have to chase clients forever. Early on, you reach out to find work. Over time, the people you’ve helped tell others. Someone you’ve never met comes to you with a problem you’ve already solved, because they heard how it went.
Getting better keeps paying off.
Your guide
I’m Jayme Edwards, host of the “Developer Reborn” and “Healthy Developer” YouTube channels. Over 30 years in tech, I’ve worked with more than 25 companies, from finance to healthcare to energy.
One day while working for a consulting agency, I was reading a book during lunch. The problems it described were right in front of me at my client. Without being asked, I built a six slide pitch to diagnose what was wrong. The client said yes. When I presented what I found, eight people were in the room. They stopped asking me what I could build, and started asking me what they should do.
I ran that play for years, but the agency billed my hours and my pay didn’t move. I could have been selling that work myself all along. Instead I kept giving the job more of my time. It was the only thing I knew to offer. Mostly it got me overtime. By the time I left, my marriage was in trouble and my kids were teenagers I barely knew. Knowing what I needed to do was never the expensive part. Not moving on it was.
So I went solo as a consultant. And since then I’ve also coached over 150 developers.
You don’t need to do more research.
Coaching developers taught me this: they get stuck in a loop of researching options. Sometimes it’s a SaaS idea, a new job, or consulting. That loop is procrastination dressed up to look like being responsible.
You’ve been giving advice people act on for years. It changed what got built and how work was done. But you were paid mostly for your output, and your advice was part of the package.
Information about consulting is easy to find. That’s not what’s holding you back. The biggest reason is this: some part of you doesn’t believe anyone would pay for your advice on its own.
That belief didn’t come from anyone turning you down. It came from a career where your technical skills mostly defined you.
Research doesn’t fix that. Talking to people does.
What solo consulting asks of you:
Becoming a consultant starts with conversations. Not forming an LLC, and not picking out a perfect specialty or niche before you start.
You talk to people who already know your work, about a problem you see in their world. And you do it more than once.
Some of the people you’ll reach out to are former managers and colleagues who’ve only known you as an employee.
Here’s the message most people send first:
“Hey, hope you’re doing well! I’m starting to do some consulting on the side. If you ever need help with cloud migrations, let me know.”
It’s friendly, and it goes nowhere. The usual reply is “Will do, good luck!” It asks for work and lists a skill, so it reads like someone looking for a job.
An employee asks whether there’s anything available, lists what they can do, and waits to be handed a problem. A consultant arrives already holding one.
Sending the message is just clicking a button. The hard part is sounding like a consultant when you write it. You’ve spent your whole career showing up as an employee, so you won’t notice it in your own writing.
Landing your first client usually takes months, not a week. How long depends on who you know and how urgently they need help.
Most people’s first paid consulting work is a few hours a week alongside their job. Then the consulting side grows until it can replace the job.
If you’re not willing to have these conversations, consulting isn’t the right path for you.
But if you want everything you know to pay off, and keep paying off, this is how it starts.
The workshop is where you do it for the first time, with me in the room.
Why you start with people you know
The way this workshop teaches you to find potential clients came from trial and error. A lot of self-employment advice for developers promises automation and funnels, so you never have to talk to anyone. It’s what people selling low ticket information products and SaaS tools tend to push. I made the mistake of going along with it at first, and coached developers to write LinkedIn articles and do cold outreach.
It didn’t work. Things turned around when I asked them to do the uncomfortable thing that’s always worked in my own consulting career: reach out to people who already know you. One of them landed his first consulting engagement soon after the shift.
“
A year ago I was unsure of what to do and how to do it. It is possible to turn your IT knowledge and experience into a fixed fee consulting offer. What I’m realizing is that we can legitimately benefit the people we reach out to through solo consulting, and it has the potential to create long term, mutually beneficial relationships.
Coaching client, senior software engineer, 15 years
Why attend the Solo Technical Consultant Workshop?
Fits your situation.
When you read a book or take a course, you’ve got to figure out how to adapt it to your situation.
At the workshop you get coached live, by name, in a group capped at 25 people.
Action, not options.
With AI, it’s easy to find options for what you could do.
The workshop is designed so you leave having reached out, not having planned to.
Nobody goes alone.
That moment you’re about to do something new is when doubts creep in. “Nobody else is doing this, maybe I’m wrong?”
At the workshop, everyone else is reaching out the same week you are.
How it works
The Solo Technical Consultant Workshop takes place over five evenings. It’s live on Zoom with Jayme and a small group of tech professionals like you.
STEP 1
Enroll in the workshop
Use the checkout page to pay and reserve your seat. You’ll receive an email confirming your enrollment and inviting you to a Discord channel for your cohort.
STEP 2
Join your cohort’s Discord channel
Use the link in your confirmation email to join the channel before we start. It’s where you’ll post what you send and anything that comes back. It stays open until a week after Friday’s session.
STEP 3
Show up for five evenings
You’ll receive an email every morning of the workshop. It includes a link to join that evening’s Zoom meeting.
At every session:
- I teach for about 20 minutes, to prepare you for the session’s main activity.
- I coach people live, in front of the group.
- You complete the activity with my guidance and support.
- A video replay is sent out the next morning.
OPTIONAL
Attend the breakout session
If you want help staying on course once the workshop ends, I’ll show you what I offer right after Friday’s session.
What happens each evening?
MONDAY
You’ll see advice you’ve given that people acted on, but nobody paid you for directly.
TUESDAY
You’ll ask people who’ve worked with you what they come to you for.
WEDNESDAY
You’ll take a problem you’ve dealt with before and describe it the way the person with the budget feels it.
THURSDAY
You’ll pick one problem to ask people about and say it out loud to the room.
FRIDAY
You’ll send a message as a consultant to someone who already knows your work, with me there. Over the weekend, you’ll send two or three more.
Your own advice is hard to see, because to you it’s just part of the job. That’s why four evenings come before the message.
This is for you if:
- People ask you what they should do, not just what you can build. Sometimes it’s even people outside your team.
- You’ve worked at more than one company, so the people who know your work are scattered across several of them.
- There are specific kinds of problems where people want your take before they decide anything.
These are all early signs of a solo consultant: people seek out your advice, and they’re spread across more than one company. If that sounds like you, you’re more ready than you think.
Your first week as a consultant
This is the fourth cohort of the Solo Technical Consultant Workshop, live with me.
You’ll leave having picked a problem you’ve worked on that you think other companies are struggling with too. You won’t leave with a client, but you’ll have sent at least one message about it to someone who already knows your work.
That’s the hardest part: sounding like a consultant to people who’ve only known you as an employee. The 50 tech professionals who’ve been through this workshop weren’t short on information. They’d just never offered their advice instead of asking for a job.
This is the first week of a road that takes months, and it’s the only part with a date on it. I run this workshop almost every month. If you can’t spare the evenings for this cohort, sign up for the next one. But doing more research isn’t a good reason to wait.
Dates: Monday, October 26 – Friday, October 30 2026
Time: 90 minutes each evening, 7 PM ET / 6 PM CT / 4 PM PT
Where: Live via Zoom
Price: $500
Seats capped at 25 people to maintain quality guidance.
Enrollment closes Sunday, October 25 at 11:59 PM ET / 10:59 PM CT / 8:59 PM PT.
The Solo Technical Consultant Workshop is currently only available to US residents. Outside the United States and want access in your country? Join the regional waitlist. Your interest helps shape where I expand next.
Frequently asked questions
For simple problems, many already do. But AI’s advice is only as good as the context it’s given, and the person asking usually sees only their part of the problem. Gathering the rest, from other people and from documents nobody outside the company can read, is slow work nobody inside has time for. Then someone has to decide what matters most. That’s judgment, and it’s what clients pay for. Consultants use AI too, but what to look at and what to recommend is their call.
The people who hire consultants have usually tried the obvious fixes, AI included, and still have the problem. On Wednesday you’ll check whether yours is one of those. If a good prompt could solve it, it’s not a consulting problem.
This is the most common worry, and it’s almost always wrong. You’re not short on contacts, you’re pre-screening them in your head before you count them. The workshop walks you through finding names you’re currently ignoring: former coworkers, people you helped once, people in adjacent roles. Most people find more than they expected once they stop filtering the list before they even write it down.
Junior contacts count too. They often know who has the problem, and a reply like “not me, but you should talk to X” is a good outcome.
Because “networking” usually means collecting contacts with no clear ask. This isn’t that. You’re naming one specific problem you can see, to people who already know your work, with the group and me there. Same contacts, different action.
You’ll use a specific method for reaching out that’s casual and doesn’t put anyone on the spot. You’re not asking them for work. You’re sharing a problem you’re seeing, and asking if they see it too. That’s a normal question between peers.
If it doesn’t land, you haven’t burned anything. Going back later with a different observation just looks like what it is: someone testing an idea. And on Friday, you write the message with me and the group before you send it.
No. Whether and when to go full time is a decision for later, made on what you’ve learned by then rather than forced by a single contract.
The five evenings of this workshop stand on their own. By Friday you’ll have picked a problem to ask people about, and reached out as a consultant to someone who already knows your work. That means you’ve practiced the hardest part at least once: changing who you sound like to people who know you. You’ll have done it whether or not you ever buy anything else from me. And if someone writes back wanting to talk, you’ll have a short guide for that first call.
After Friday’s session there’s an optional breakout where I show you what I offer for the months after. Skip it and you’ve missed nothing from the workshop.
You’ll be in the room while others get coached, and that’s where most of the learning happens, because you watch it happen to someone in a position like yours. Volunteering yourself is encouraged, not required. Cameras on, though. This works because people see each other.
Every session is recorded and sent out the next morning. Plan to be live for all five, because the room is where this works. If you already know you’ll miss two or more, take the next cohort.
This is a commitment-based program, not a trial. I show up fully for everyone in the room, and I ask the same of you. Because I have a limit on the number of attendees, seats are non-refundable once you enroll. Talk it over before you enroll. Enrollment stays open through the weekend for that reason.