Don’t Let The Developer Community Make You a Victim!

Most developers believe earning the respect of other engineers is the key to success. But if you feel stuck in your tech career, your peers won’t be the ones who help you rise above it. What actually changes your trajectory is learning to see yourself as someone who creates business value, then building the courage and clarity to pursue freedom—even when the developer community tries to shame you back into conformity.

Why does the developer community turn “freedom” into something you should feel guilty about?

Because the developer community doesn’t reward freedom. It rewards conformity—and if you try to leave, it will often treat you like a heretic.

When I launched my first YouTube channel 8 years ago, I was called a sellout, a fake developer, and a grifter. And that was after I gave away hundreds of hours of content and coached over 300 developers for free. In their eyes, anything other than writing code made me a traitor to the craft.

Look, I’ve worked in software for 30 years. And I love the craft, too. But when I wanted more, I was confronted with a harsh truth: the developer community doesn’t reward freedom. It rewards conformity. And just like the mafia, if you try to leave, they’ll try to pull you back in.

And here’s what makes this so sneaky: it doesn’t always show up as direct attacks. Sometimes it’s “jokes.” Sometimes it’s subtle shaming. Sometimes it’s the unspoken rule that the only respectable path is: keep coding, keep climbing, keep collecting credibility—forever. If you step outside that script to learn sales, marketing, positioning, or consulting… you’re “not a real dev.”

When I wanted more, I was confronted with a harsh truth: the developer community doesn’t reward freedom. It rewards conformity.

That pressure can keep you chained to the corporate life even when you’re under-leveraged, underpaid relative to impact, and quietly watching your autonomy shrink. And if you don’t name the pressure, you’ll start thinking the pressure is your identity. You’ll start thinking you’re the problem for wanting more.

One of the reasons I built the Consulting Offer Workshop is to help experienced software pros separate “craft” from “conformity,” so you can keep loving software while still building a bridge into self-employment.

How does outrage-based developer content keep you stuck instead of helping you take action?

It keeps you hooked on anger and fear—while starving the part of you that needs tools, conviction, and a path forward.

Starting in the 1990s, mainstream media discovered something powerful: people respond stronger to outrage than optimism. This negativity bias has become the default way people try to grow their audience online. Just scroll through your YouTube or LinkedIn feed and count how many thumbnails scream, “This is bad and you need to know about it.” It’s so common even I’m forced to use it sometimes, like the title of this very episode.

But here’s the problem. It’s not the clickbait, it’s the content. Negativity bias isn’t just a marketing trick anymore. It’s become an identity.

Now, don’t get me wrong—there is a place for righteous anger. If you see someone get hurt and stay silent, that’s a problem. But most developer content today… it’s just pouring salt on wounds you already know about. It gets you angry, but it doesn’t show you a path forward. It feeds your frustration, but it starves your growth.

That’s why I started this show: to give you tools, not just takes.

Most developer content today… it’s just pouring salt on wounds you already know about.

So here’s a quick challenge. Open your favorite note-taking app and write this down:

Find 10 negative pieces of content to ignore.

Later today, scroll your feed and look for specific types of titles—the ones designed to prey on your fear, anger, or insecurity. Watch one or two and ask yourself: do I feel more empowered or more helpless? Then start cutting out the noise from people who can’t help you rise.

This matters if you want self-employment, premium technical consulting, or any kind of independent career path—because you don’t build freedom by rehearsing helplessness. In the Consulting Offer Workshop, one of the hidden wins is that you start replacing “outrage consumption” with concrete action and repeatable frameworks.

Why won’t your company teach you the skills you need to work for yourself?

Because as an employee, you’re rewarded for solving assigned problems—not for learning how to choose the right problem, frame it as business value, and sell a premium outcome. And a lot of companies will punish initiative even while they claim they want it.

I spent 18 years doing software architecture and agile consulting. And sure, I got to work with a lot of technologies. I helped teams collaborate and I shipped real value. But when I wanted to go out on my own, I hit a wall—because the skills you need to work for yourself, you can’t learn them on the job.

And as an employee, sure, I got to solve problems. But as a business owner, I had to learn how to choose the right problem to solve.

That’s when I realized the ugly truth: companies don’t reward initiative, they punish it.

If you want to own your future, your company can’t be part of the plan—because they’ll never teach you to outgrow them.

I’d offer to help with strategy and get told to stay in my lane. Why? Because I was valuable right where I was—coding, not thinking. Every time I got frustrated, they dangled a new bonus or promotion, a carrot just far enough out of reach to keep me moving, but never arriving.

If you want to own your future, your company can’t be part of the plan—because they’ll never teach you to outgrow them. The only way to truly own your career is to own the business itself.

And here’s the good news: to be a premium technical consultant, you don’t need a team. You don’t need a co-founder. You don’t even need a product. You just need to learn enough about service, sales, and marketing to sell one valuable offer at a time.

That’s a core theme inside the Consulting Offer Workshop: building a simple, premium offer that can be delivered while you’re still employed, so you can learn the real skills without betting your life on a leap.

Why do smart developers build products that nobody buys?

Because technical excellence feels like the whole game—until you realize the market doesn’t pay for excellence. It pays for outcomes, urgency, and relevance.

I’ve had two different coaching clients come to me after building SaaS products no one was buying. These were brilliant developers. They packed their apps full of powerful features. But they both made the same fatal mistake: they assumed technical excellence was enough.

They never validated whether a real market existed because no one ever taught them how.

Own your tech career by crafting a premium consulting offer in 4 evenings that’s worth $300+/hr

And that’s the trap. The internet is full of solo founder advice. YouTube channels, LinkedIn posts, courses by ex-devs. But most of them have one thing in common: they teach you how to build a product, not a business.

Look, if you want to work for yourself, stop listening to people who never have.

If the person you’re learning from is just growing a following or chasing promotions, they’re not qualified to guide you toward freedom.

You don’t need another tutorial on Stripe integration or building a CRUD app with Vibe Coding. You need mentors who can show you what businesses actually pay a premium for—so you can design an offer worth putting your energy into. And you need someone who can coach you through the fear that’s going to show up before the tactics even matter.

It’s time to stop climbing the wrong ladder. If the person you’re learning from is just growing a following or chasing promotions, they’re not qualified to guide you toward freedom.

That’s why I focus so heavily on a service-based bridge into self-employment: it forces you to get close to real buyers, real pain, real business value—fast—without spending years building in isolation. That’s also why the Consulting Offer Workshop is structured around mapping your experience to outcomes companies will actually pay for.

Can the “lazy developer” mindset sabotage you when you try to go solo?

Yes—because “lazy” can be a powerful coding principle, but it becomes poisonous when it turns into a belief that effort is optional. There’s no coast mode when you’re building a business.

I remember my first software job back in the 90s. Flipflops, t-shirts, and that proud Gen X slacker vibe we all wore like a badge. That’s when I first heard it:

A lazy developer is a good developer.

The idea being: if you automate everything, you never have to do it twice. And that part’s true. DRY and automation can make you a stronger coder.

But the problem is when that mindset goes beyond the keyboard, it starts shaping how we think about effort in general. And that’s a real problem if you want to work for yourself—because there’s no coast mode when you’re building a business. There’s no JIRA telling you what to do next, and there’s no boss making sure you deliver.

When the “lazy developer” mindset goes beyond the keyboard, it starts shaping how we think about effort in general.

Becoming self-employed has challenged me more than anything else over my tech career. Not because it’s harder—because it requires patience.

I had to create content for free. I had to coach people for free at first. And I pitched clients who ghosted me or they just said no. And I changed my entire business model more than once.

But now I work about 12 hours a week and I still make over 100K. And this year I’m on track to triple that.

Here’s the point: you can’t build leverage by playing small. A lazy developer might be a good employee, but a lazy business owner has no business.

One of the things we do inside the Consulting Offer Workshop is help you design a path that rewards patient effort—where you build a premium offer that gets easier and more profitable over time instead of relying on hustle forever.

Why does “keeping up with tech” feel productive but still keep you under-leveraged?

Because awareness is not leverage. Dabbling gives you dopamine, not mastery—and when you go solo, you don’t get paid to explore. You get paid to solve business problems.

In 1999, I was browsing the PC game aisle at Best Buy when I stumbled on EverQuest. It was one of the first big MMO RPGs, and I lost a lot of hours of my life to it.

There were two ways to reach level 60.

One path: explore every zone, collect every item, and try everything.

The other: focus ruthlessly on leveling up and skip anything that didn’t get you there faster.

Guess which path got people to level 60 in a month? And which one kept people stuck for years?

The slow path gave you gear and little dopamine hits, but most of it was outdated junk by the time you reached your goal.

People binge Fireship or scroll Hacker News hoping to stay ahead. But awareness is not leverage. It just feels productive.

And honestly, my early career in tech looked a lot like that slow path.

I tried to touch every new framework or tool I could. Sometimes I’d wedge it into a project just so I could list it on my resume. But I wasn’t building real mastery. I was collecting tech gear that looked shiny but didn’t move the needle.

And because of that, I stayed stuck making far less than I could have.

The sad part: that dabbling mindset is everywhere now. People binge Fireship or scroll Hacker News hoping to stay ahead. But awareness is not leverage. It just feels productive.

When you go solo, everything changes. You don’t get paid to explore. You get paid to solve real business problems with whatever tools you need—and nothing more.

It’s like choosing the fast path to level 60: focus on the outcome. Let go of the rest.

So if you’re worried about income or job security, ask yourself: do I want to have fun at work while losing leverage… or have fun in life because I gained it?

That’s a huge reason the Consulting Offer Workshop anchors everything in business value (growth, efficiency, risk & compliance, and user experience). It helps you stop “collecting gear” and start packaging outcomes.

How do you rise above developer-community shame without becoming bitter or burned out?

You do it by refusing to let conformity, outrage, and peer approval define your future—then choosing a path where your skills create measurable business outcomes that buyers will pay a premium for.

In this episode, I said I’d share five ways the developer community shames you into staying chained to the corporate life—and teach you how to rise above it without becoming bitter or burned out.

Those five forces show up like this:

• It tries to make peer respect the definition of success.
• It keeps you hooked on outrage instead of taking action.
• It trains you to believe the company will “eventually” reward initiative.
• It convinces you technical excellence is enough, even without a market.
• It normalizes a comfort-first, dabbling-first lifestyle that quietly kills leverage.

And the way out isn’t to hate developers, or to become cynical, or to pretend the craft doesn’t matter. I still love software. The way out is to separate the craft from the cage.

That means learning to think like an owner: choosing problems that matter, framing them as outcomes, pricing for impact, and building the confidence to communicate your value without apologizing for wanting freedom.

Now you know how to pursue self-employment without being a victim of the developer community. But becoming a premium consultant doesn’t just let you be more than your average developer. It actually eliminates all the aspects of working in tech that make it feel like a grind.

And that’s exactly why I built the Consulting Offer Workshop: to help you move from “I’m just a developer” to “I create business value,” with a clear offer you can stand behind—without getting dragged back into the old identity.

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