Restarted my commercial work career from payment received point of view, after a gap of 22 years

Last updated on 9 Mar. 2025

I recently received a commercial work payment from a friend for whom I have been doing a short-term software development assignment related to LinkedIn OAuth 2.0 with OpenID Connect login for a React frontend and AWS Java lambda backend app. I started that work as a two-week part-time free trial followed by a paid period. My last work related payment received was in early Sep. 2002. So my friend's payment has restarted my commercial work career from payment received point of view, after a gap of 22 years and around 6 months! I thanked my friend profusely for giving me the opportunity to do paid work for him and for being considerate about my limitations and providing a comfortable work relationship for this paid work.

My thanks to friends and family for the encouragement and support they have provided me on this journey back to current technology software development paid work in a part-time, work-from-home mode with health limitations.

A short overview of that journey is given below, just in case some readers want to have a quick look:

1. Learning (upskilling) period (done as part-time effort) of around a year (Oct. 2023 to Sep. 2024) of (current technology) MERN stack web development which included development of my 'portfolio' open-source Gita web app frontend using Next.js, TypeScript and Tailwind (which shows potential customers what I can do).
2. That was followed by an around 3 month period of volunteer contribution (Oct. 2024 to Dec. 2024) to an NGO (spiritual ashram) software project on the React frontend side of a web app.
3. Then I started publicly seeking paid work (as part-time 10 to 20 hours per week, work-from-home) from Jan. 2025 which in Feb. 2025 led to this project with my friend. My friend was satisfied with the work I did and so provided me this payment now in early March 2025.

Some additional info. about this journey: In end March 2024, after I put up my post: Updated Roadmap and Extensive and Well Organized Notes for Learning Full Stack (MERN) Web Development Beginner Level through Free Online Tutorials, https://raviswdev.blogspot.com/2024/03/updated-roadmap-and-extensive-and-well.html , I wrote privately to few friends and contacts about seeking paid work as an initial exploration. I thought that eventually I could put up a public post seeking paid work.

At that time, I also started exploring possibility of doing a volunteer 2 to 3 month assignment in an NGO (spiritual ashram) on MERN stack. As part of that exploration, I came to know that Next.js, TypeScript and Bootstrap or Tailwind are additional software libraries/frameworks on MERN stack that are being used by some current MERN stack software. So I felt I was not ready yet and that I needed to get some exposure to aforementioned software libraries/frameworks too before I start publicly applying for paid part-time work-from-home web app. development on MERN stack. 

That learning took me to August and September 2024 including writing the 'portfolio' open-source Gita app using Next.js, TypeScript and Tailwind. After that came the NGO (spiritual ashram) volunteer work from October to December 2024. Subsequently, in Jan. 2025, I was ready to publicly apply for MERN stack paid work and did the same.

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A follow up post has been put up on another blog of mine: Why did I not do any paid work for the last 22 years? Am I happy doing software development work (paid or voluntary) now?,  https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2025/03/why-did-i-not-do-any-paid-work-for-last.html .