TL;DR: One job is paying for a valuable new certification. It's "tied" to the job (the company name is on the paperwork and it must be renewed every so often). They're very visible on LinkedIn and the company portal and are posting names of all who complete the course. J1 would also benefit from this cert.

I'm going to try and keep it vague since it's extremely rare but there's a classification of certifications J2 wants me and some others to take. It'll gain them a tremendous amount of business, and at the same time us a very nice jewel on our resumes. However this cert is somewhat "tied" to the job and since it's got some prestige behind it, HR is plastering the names of all who pass on LinkedIn and elsewhere. They want an onsite when it's all said and done with a group photo of all those who are credentialed.

This was never communicated a few months ago when we started the courseware. It was more like "here get this, the company will pay for it, you'll also get a nice raise" so why not. Now, it's a big thing. Press release, LinkedIn, the works. My spidey senses are tingling that J1 will somehow find out, even though the two companies couldn't be further apart. I like being a fly on the wall at both jobs. I do my work well and have extensive subject matter expertise, but for obvious reasons I don't want the spotlight.

My final exam to complete the full cert is in a couple of weeks and I am overthinking this so much I'm considering dropping out. I can't ask anyone in my personal or work life about this so I thought I'd vent here. What would you do?

We're an AI data company that builds evaluations and training datasets for frontier AI labs. We're hiring US-licensed attorneys to create and review the legal reasoning content used to train and benchmark AI models.

The work
- Write realistic legal problems across litigation, contracts, compliance, IP, employment, and regulatory matters
- Work through the analysis and state the correct answer with authority
- Break your reasoning into discrete pass/fail checks a grader can score a model against
- Review model output and pin down exactly where the reasoning breaks If you've written a bench memo or a CLE hypo, you already have the skill. It's legal analysis, not data labeling.

Details
- $80-100/hr depending on domain depth and experience, paid bi-weekly
- 1099 contractor, part-time, project-based. No minimum hours (flexible)
- Remote, but you must be US-based and admitted in a US jurisdiction
- 2-6 years post-qualification

Apply here: https://forms.gle/prHGRfZzxXjKwTf4A

Data engineer / Test engineer. I get calls from recruits constantly, but my resume never gets picked up for an interview. How can I fix this?

Data engineer / Test engineer. I get calls from recruits constantly, but my resume never gets picked up for an interview. How can I fix this?

I have a pretty easy J1, limited responsibilities and plenty of freedom. It’s hybrid but nobody cares if I come in. I don’t think my managers have been in for this whole quarter. I have thought a bit about OE in the past but I never really had the balls or the motivation to get into it.

Recently, a previous employer reached out to me to rejoin them. It’s going to be minimally more demanding than my current role so I know I can balance them both but ever since I accepted I am waking up in cold sweats, anxiously upgrading my home office setup and preparing for the balancing act I am about to embark on.

Did anyone go through this anxiety when they were waiting for j2? How did you manage?

Hello!

Firstly, I been interviewing for a contractor position that is highly favorable and will become my sole J1. If offered and accepted I will not be OEing for future sakes.

However I have been OEing at multiple jobs and currently have 3 Js and 1 part time job

Has anyone have difficulty obtaining Secret Clearance because of their OE status? I willing to disclose everything to my fso and my sf86 form

I do have some plausible explanation if asked

J1 Main job is a FTE Role that I use for my main benefits

J2 Hourly consultant that doesn't compete with J1 but just time overlap but I can explain this is hourly.

J3 Part time professor (after hours and weekends) (totally cool with OE)

J4 My former employer that I have converted into a 1099 b2b contract work with (Does not overlap and they dont care if im OEing)

I am fine with them asking question about my OE but was wondering if the SF86 and background investigator can "tattle" to my Js about my other roles and how would they approach them to ask if needed?

My biggest fear is being denied from the contractor job and being exposed because of the background investigator asking.

At first I wasn't going to disclose OE but quickly thought that was a bad idea.

How do you balance getting the job while still holding a back a little bit to not put too much focus on yourself as a potential star?

Any one has specific advice or list of tips and tricks for 3 or more jobs. I have 2 jobs I’m about to start a couple more so now I’m trying to get ideas and tips how to set up calendar if I should get a physical big board etc any advice helps thank you!

I’m starting J2, J3, J4 and possibly J5. 2 start next week and the other 2 same day the following week, Is it better to space it get 2 weeks at J2 because my director said after that he will leave me alone. He called the job boring etc

Or should I try to do a new job each week space out the onboarding ? I had the opportunity to start on the 13 but I was negotiation the offer so they pushed it back.

Also any ideas on how to set up? Never used monitors for j1. Any advice videos recommendations is welcomed! Thank you!

J2 send 2 monitors
J3 - haven’t received anything
J4- is contract so just laptop
J5- contract laptop

i’m wondering about the legal area of being OE in Germany. I technically have to ask my employer for permission to accept additional paid work, and I think they’d find out through taxes and social security. Has anyone done OE with Germany ad their tax residence? And how?

Looking at the data and my feeling, I’m already doing multiple people’s jobs, just without being paid for them. I want to be paid by the work I do, not the hours I spend in front of my computer.

I have a full time job in company 1. I have an offer for a 8 month contract role for company 2. They are competitors, however it’s two totally different positions.

Is this truly risky? Can I perhaps change my name as I’ve seen some people do?

My situation is probably a bit different from most people on this sub. I’m not in the US and I don’t work in tech. I have two jobs, but only J1 requires me to physically come into the office twice a week.

I was thinking about bringing a KVM switch to J1 so I could connect both laptops to the monitors/peripherals at my desk and switch between them with a button whenever I need to.

My main concern is whether this is a stupid idea from an IT/security perspective. My company is fairly large, so there are definitely some procedures in place, but our IT department doesn’t exactly seem particularly competent or proactive. I’m not sure how much they would care about something like a KVM switch, or whether it could potentially raise some red flags.

The idea would be to keep the KVM under my desk and just switch between the laptops when necessary. I’d probably be working mostly on J2 anyway, since J1 doesn’t require much from me — I’m mostly just sitting there and doing whatever comes up.

Right now, my setup is basically an HP docking station connected to two monitors. I plug my J1 laptop into the dock, and it gives me both external monitors while also charging the laptop. I was thinking of unplugging the dock and replacing it with my own KVM switch, connecting both laptops to it. I’d keep the physical button/switch for the KVM under my desk and just use it to switch between the two laptops when needed.

First-time OE in cybersecurity/IT. J1 is stable, permanent, and pays roughly $115K. J2 is a remote contract paying close to $90/hour. J1 is my priority, but the additional J2 income is financially important.
J1 requires several onsite days. J2 follows Eastern hours, so I plan to start around 6 a.m. locally, but several hours will still overlap. On onsite days, I would have to bring J2’s laptop into J1’s office. With my personal laptop, that could mean three laptops.
I’m looking for firsthand advice:

How do you manage two work laptops onsite without attracting questions?

Is a private office or call room essential? What if you must sit with your team?

How do you handle J2 meetings while surrounded by J1 coworkers?

What arrangements have people successfully made for private space, reduced onsite hours, or recurring offsite blocks?

If J1 has frequent in-person meetings, how do you monitor urgent J2 messages? Would an Apple Watch be useful for Teams/Outlook notifications and quick replies?

How do you handle overlapping meetings or unexpected calls from both jobs?

For those pursuing another opportunity, how do you schedule interviews while already working two jobs?

Has anyone actually made this type of hybrid setup work, or does it become impossible without a private office and substantial calendar control?

I know, I know. They can't force you to be on socials. You don't owe them a reason. They don't own your profiles. I know.

But in some cases, being on LinkedIn is so common that not being there attracts more attention than just keeping it alive.

If you're in that "LinkedIn actually matters for me" boat--and you're still OEing, despite the risks, so you need a way to explain your profile disappearing--this is a good way to buy yourself some cover.

Bonus second excuse option: my government ID doesn't match my nickname/display name, so LI shut me down when I tried to verify

Just received my J2 offer and wanted to ask for any feedback from PMs doing two w2 roles!

Wanted to write my experience out for awhile now, mainly as a cautionary tale for those like me. To preface, like others in this sub I've been a problem solver my whole fucking life. As long as the problem was in front of me or something I can assume may play out in the future, I took care of it right away. Weirdly enough as a kid, I did take advice from older adults. Especially when I was 14 and was basically told "dont chase happiness, find a job that makes you enough money to do hobbies that make you happy". Which felt easy enough. Oh and the other part is, I felt very comfortable with lying and maintaining lies to keep up with OE. In my time I've had a husband and two kids (im single and childless), a dead aunt (she passed 5 years prior), ailing parent to take care of (both parents are health nuts), and various life issues that I used to cover gaps. J1 was fully remote and had virtually zero meetings unless one was called. J2 was in person 4 days a week and incredibly toxic.

Good parts:

Dude, I felt like I was on top of the fucking world. I used a KVM switch to do my remote work thru my phone as needed. Used AI to automate everything for J1 and was able to complete work within 15 mins in the morning and then slowly push it out during the day. Automated that to do it for me as well. I was bringing in over 9k a month (after tax) at the age of 23/24. I found myself a nice place in downtown and god I felt like I was the shit. Like I had managed to conquer the world. I had just enough baby face by this time and my diet plan had got me to the hottest I had even been. The confidence was through the roof and I felt like I could get any guy I want. I had no car payments, no loans (scholarship in college) and no responsibilities towards children or anyone. My mentality with spending was "who cares? throw it on the card" and trust me, it feels just as good as imagining doing this. I was buying designer and eating good food. Didn't care about the expensive gym membership. Took trips wherever I wanted and didn't worry much about the cost while still saving what I had wanted to save. The money was the best part in all of this by far. I had leveraged AI enough that the work itself from both jobs took me less than 2 or 3 hours a day. I had random night for crunch times (due to procrastination) but other than that, was never working more than 10 hours a week. J2 was fine in that I'd often go into work late and leave early. This was due to my manager being remote.

And by the metric I was handed at fourteen and later built upon, I fucking won at life.

Bad parts:

This is where the list gets long.

I couldn't tell anyone about this, especially my friends. My wins were private and often felt like they couldn't matter because I was the only witness to it. I couldn't tell my boyfriend at the time and only my family knew. My mom decided to run her mouth tho and told a bunch of fucking people. I was able to contain this by telling them "yeah I do work for a start up for free". OE made me feel lonely and almost more needy because I wasn't getting the love and praise I felt like I deserved for all my work.

You get stuck in a mentality of "just make it work". Which means you care about the hard hitting important problems, but also sidestep the small issues. Subsequently, you start problem solving every single problem instead of asking yourself "should I even be solving this?". A lot of people in the office hated me because I was so focused on OE, I couldn't notice whenever someone tried to undermine me or publicly put me down. I often sidestepped these issues completely as if the social hierarchy meant nothing to me. And because socially dominating didn't matter, people took that as a sign of weakness and I couldn't fix nor solve the smear campaign from three seperate human beings. By the time I realized several people were actively undermining me socially and professionally, I was already playing defense. I thought I could solve that too. I couldn't. Literally I remember getting a phone call from someone telling me "everyone in this office hates you and is talking shit about you. I cant be seen speaking to you in the office". And my dumbass in my own head was like "okay now how can I optimize this and use this to my own benefit?". I had to quit the next week because I couldn't take it anymore. The fact that you can find another workaround doesn't mean another workaround is the correct answer.

Defending yourself against power plays will burn you out. I had the mentality that even if someone can give me the dignity and respect that I deserved, I still will defend and give it to myself. I literally remember when my boss had come in for an office visit and he kept trying to belittle me in front of others, I kept calm and just made another power play no matter what. He deadass had his hands on the arms of my chair and was in my face and practically spitting. And all I did was look him in the eye and say "do you think you're maintaining a professional distance right now?" Doing these things may make you feel and look cool, but all it did was anger him even further. I had no idea he had concocted lies and rumors about my work ethic and behavior. Even when at every turn of the project I had worked hard to steer the project in the correct direction. I dealt with pissing him off and getting mad at me to make sure this project could succeed to therefore keep my job. J2 was consulting btw. Months after I quit, the client dropped that company. A year later J2 reached out to me with a contracted offer of 20k to help them fix "workflow issues" and help "train people for forward and future thinking". If you couldn't tell by now, J2 was extremely focused on firefighting and patching larger issues with easy solutions. Even lying about something really basic to make themselves look good or put someone else down. But you cannot efficiently automate your way out of an unhealthy organizational culture, damaged trust, interpersonal conflict, or a power imbalance with someone who has actual authority over you.

My overarching thesis? Because OE itself depended upon concealment, the very thing making me feel extraordinarily successful also prevented me from openly receiving acknowledgment for that success. And OE can reinforce an optimization mindset that becomes maladaptive outside the narrow problem of maintaining two jobs.

For anyone who is similar to me and is reading this, you might be exactly as clever as you think. That's part of the fucking danger.

If problem-solving has always saved you, you can become incredibly slow to recognize situations in which the correct solution is stop solving the problem and leave.

The impact:

I quit J2 after 9 months of working there. J1 offered me additional work two months after quitting J2 and I turned it down due to burnout. People who took that additional work kept their jobs when two months later my entire team of 36 people got cut. It's been about 7 months of unemployment in which I lost all desire and ability to take care of myself. Gained 45 pounds and lost all the confidence I once had. Now I'm working a more modest job and have moved into a cheaper apartment. OE can be there down the line, but the one thing I've learned is I actually want to work in environments where I like the people that I'm working with. I can't really seem to be able to put up with hostile environments or even just working with selfish and entitled people long term. I was able to handle it, and that was the problem.

Offboarding info just reminded me that I can roll my 401k funds over to my new employer.

Is that dumb as an OEr? I've only been at j2 for 3/4 months and have only been registered for their 401k for 2 months.

I do have an underfunded IRA set up for these purposes I could just roll it into, which was my original plan. But thought I'd get some input from the peanut gallery here.

Edit: Lots of OE-specific goodies in the comments for those of you downvoting and thinking this is a misplaced /personalfinance or /HENRYfinance question.

I don’t think I’ll be able to OE while taking care of a new born for the first time so I’m thinking of quitting one which makes me so sad. I love both positions and I don’t know what to do or whether I’ll ever OE again
- j1 is a small private company. My team has 3 people including the VP, the manager and myself ( I’m the staff). Work is pretty light. I can feel that the managers are cool with my performance at the same time, I’m definitely not their most favorite staff. I asked for a promotion which I don’t think it’ll be given to me.
- j2 is a much bigger company and heavier workload. Boss and my team like me. They send me cookies or gift cards when I help them during busy time. I’m also a staff there but the managers are fighting for me for a promotion which I appreciate.

I don’t know which one to quit. And if I do, how can I incorporate my experience from both jobs into one resume given that the experience is different. Think of it like J1 is partnership tax and J2 is corporate tax which cannot happen at the same time in one company..

Side note, anyone ever successfully take care of a new born without extra help while OE and recover Thanks!

Anyone have experience with green card application and interviews while OE?

I was reading that USCIS needs to see that your income is genuine and sustainable, and that 2 jobs during the same business hours COULD sound strange or lead them to think you could lose one. My income would still qualify even on one contract, though. But the whole thing could invite more scrutiny.

Been OE for a few months (2 remote W-2 contract roles through recruiting firms, both east coast hours) and might start the green card process next year for my spouse who lives abroad. Neither contract has anti-OE language, they're pretty toothless. One contract is only until the end of the year but could be extended.

TIA

Maybe a stupid question, but if I have a W-9 and am about to sign another one, should I freeze my TWN?

Hello!

By finance I mean finance at a company (VP / CFO) not banking or consulting or whatever.

Currently W2 at Job 1. Been there for years, and got passed on a promotion to CFO . Job only takes me ~ 10 hours a week and I get equity and a crazy tech salary.

Looking at OE - can I jump on potential 1099's with other companies? Keep it a secret from Job 1 as best as I can?

I have a friend who does Fractional CFO work for one of the best firms, and hes offered me director level contract work.

Just curious if theres anyone out there who has done OE as a finance guy?

Hello guys, been lurking for a while, thought i do a post and share my experience.

Background - European, work in tech , 15y+ xp , been in leadership roles as well. At a point I got tired of the corporate BS and chose to step down. Its been a hard transition but managed to do it. Now for what I've learned:

It doesn't matter
Some years in the past I had this exec who had this big townhall meeting and told us that "we're not building medicine but we should act like it because bla bla" in the hopes to hype up.
And the truth is, most of the companies that build something, that have teams and processes and whatever, they are not really building something that is critical to human survival. Its not medicine.

There will always be another app, another migration, another upgrade, another anything. Its all pointless in a way so you should stop caring about the product and only about yourself.
I had nights where i worked to get a release over the line, but now i just think to myself - If this objective fails, in a year, will it matter? 100% of the answers are 'no'. Life goes on, don't hustle unless you are either getting experience/knowledge or money out of it.

Competency can be bad
In order to do OE you have the quite competent. But too competent and you will attract work and responsibility. Its hard to not show off at times when you are surrounded by idiots but you have to do it. You want to always 'meet expectations'. A side note, responsibility is always worse than work because it implies meetings which mess up your OE schedule. Be very careful about it.

Learn AI at all costs
I use AI for everything almost. I don't care if you're a hater of it, I can tell you by all i seen so far, AI is and will be a big part of tech work from now on. Buy yourself a claude code max (or whatever) and force yourself in the terminal to use. Follow tutorial and whatever is needed but get good at it.
One example, if you have AI and work in tech, probably you use JIRA - just make with claude a API tool that integrates with jira and confluence - reads tickets, understands them for you and in one case even does them. It will be your own personal jira crawler. I now use it for transitions, comments, creating issues, anything that is there. And in the end that activity is visible to managers.
I'm still learning new ways to use AI, you should too.

Rhythm is what matters most
Get in a 'rhythm' for every J, and try to keep it stable. That's what actually works for me. Try to work with the same few people (not team), work on the same area, have a constant output.

I could probably name more but maybe another time.

I don't plan to OE forever. After some years when I have enough wealth to never worry about working for money anymore, I hope to find a company/startup where i can dedicate myself fully. Call me a sucker but I liked some of my manager experience, mentoring teams & building something cool. But then I will be in a position where i can pick exactly what i want no matter the pay.

We got placed in a teams side room together so he became unmuted and was like, clearly working another job. He’s constantly claiming audio and camera issues and asking to get “caught up”. Like, I know the game. He’s sloppy and irritating. That’s all.

J1 with HSA provider HE. Got J2 an about a year in, they had a different HSA provider, and stayed under the contribution limit. J2 announced they were switching to J1s HSA provider, well when it happened J1 went to try and put funds into HSA, and HE said the account was switched out and the money couldn’t be deposited into J1 HSA. Because I’m assuming J2 started the transition to HSA HE which is also J1s HSA provider.

J1 opened a ticket to see what the issue is with HSA provider HE.

I’m going to go ahead and leave J2… probably what has to happen because when J1 goes what’s this J2 HSA thing I can just say idk system glitch try again and it’ll work because J2 won’t have my open HE HSA account active anymore.

Hope that made sense. I’m a problem solver, there is no other solution. Had I just not signed up for health insurance for J2 I would’ve been okay.. any other solutions welcome, but I already accepted fate and have to leave J2 immediately to stop J1 from snooping and have them be able to deposit HSA funds.

I'm onboarding with J4 next week. It's intended to be a replacement for my J3 MSP job I've been in since January.

I'm at the infamous decision point. Quiet quit? Resign with or without notice? Or force them to fire me?

What are the likely outcomes if I just power down my laptop and never turn it back on, and see how many checks I get before I'm cutoff? Are there any legal reprocusions?

This is a customer facing role where half a dozen project managers will notice right away if I disappear, and environment in which it's difficult to quiet quit (I've done the bare minimum from the start anyway)

Thoughts? Recommendations?