- A millennial tech worker earned over $500,000 across four jobs in 2022.
- Secretly working multiple remote jobs at once made an "incredible difference" to his finances.
William, a Texas-based tech worker in his 30s, first learned about the "overemployed" community on Reddit. He thought the idea of secretly working multiple remote jobs to boost his income sounded appealing, so he decided to see if it was possible.
Before the summer of 2022, William technically had two jobs — a corporate customer-facing tech role and running his remote consulting business. But that June, he decided to leave his corporate role and take on two new jobs for large tech companies — starting both within a week of each other — while continuing to run his business.
By the end of the year, he'd earned over $500,000 across the four roles — which reflects his combined gross earnings before any withholdings, like taxes — according to documents viewed by Business Insider. He said swapping one corporate job for two more than doubled his annual compensation.
William is among a niche group of workers across the world — many of them in the tech industry — who have secretly held multiple remote jobs. Working more than one job at once may not violate federal or state laws in the US, but it could breach some employment contracts and be a fireable offense if a worker is ever found out.
"It made an incredible difference for my finances," said William, whose identity is known to BI but has been withheld due to his fear of professional repercussions. "I was able to pay off any outstanding student loan debt, eliminate debts on my wife's side, and throw some significant investment into my own ventures."
The extra income was valuable for William as he grew his business, which he said lost roughly $100,000 in 2022 due to investments he made into it. He said overemployment also provided him with a "large safety net," which became especially important when layoffs started to spread across the tech industry.
But in February 2023, only eight months after he started, William decided he was burned out and didn't want to be overemployed any longer. That month, he resigned from both of his corporate jobs.
Overemployment proved to be unsustainable
Before he started the two corporate roles, William said he was "constantly" receiving messages from recruiters about new opportunities. To keep his interviewing skills sharp — and see what companies had to offer — he explored several of these positions.
At his peak, William said he had as many as six job offers lined up, many of which offered over $300,000 in total annual compensation. After thinking it over, he accepted the two corporate roles — keeping his overemployment a secret from everyone outside his family.
On William's typical weekday, he worked on his business from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., juggled both corporate jobs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and then focused on his business again from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. That's the equivalent of a roughly 14-hour workday.
He said he was able to balance the corporate jobs because he was very productive and both roles rewarded performance — more so than the number of hours worked.
While juggling multiple roles proved to be possible — and financially lucrative — William said overemployment began to take a toll. He found himself thinking about his jobs even when he wasn't working — leaving him little time to relax — and said his household responsibilities began to pile up.
"I did end up getting burned out," he said, adding that quitting both jobs last year allowed him to spend more time with his family, travel, and focus on his consulting business.
Checking company policies and avoiding meeting conflicts can help job jugglers
While his overemployed stint was fairly brief, William said he learned a lot — including what it takes to get away with job juggling.
First, workers should check if a company has an explicit policy against employees having multiple jobs. William said both of his companies allowed employees to have multiple jobs as long as they could meet expectations and there were no direct conflicts of interest, such as working for a competitor.
"They actually specified that there wasn't any disclosure needed unless it was a potential conflict of interest," he said. "So it was more of a 'don't ask, don't tell' situation as the assumption would be that it wouldn't impact your main role."
Additionally, William said it's easier to balance multiple jobs when you have more control over your day-to-day responsibilities and schedules.
"Low-level roles will often give you a full schedule between training, team meetings, customer meetings, etc.," he said.
While avoiding meeting conflicts can be stressful, William said blocking off parts of his calendars for both jobs helped him avoid being double-booked.
Balancing his work while avoiding suspicion wasn't easy, among the reasons William ultimately decided to leave both jobs. But despite these challenges, he said his overemployment experience was well worth it for the financial benefits.
It was so worth it, he said, that he might consider returning to one of the jobs he left.
Are you working multiple remote jobs at the same time and willing to provide details about your pay and schedule? If so, reach out to this reporter at jzinkula@insider.com.