--- title: One Step at a Time: My Journey from Full-time Software... description: A software engineer shares their journey from full-time employment to working on their first indie project. They discuss the importance of choosing the right... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/one-step-at-a-time-my-journey-from-full-time-software-engineer-to-first-indie-project-u5fciddpg twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: One Step at a Time: My Journey from Full-time Software Engineer to First Indie Project | daily.dev og:description: A software engineer shares their journey from full-time employment to working on their first indie project. They discuss the importance of choosing the right... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/one-step-at-a-time-my-journey-from-full-time-software-engineer-to-first-indie-project-u5fciddpg og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/U5fCidDPG.png og:image:alt: One Step at a Time: My Journey from Full-time Software Engineer to First Indie Project og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # One Step at a Time: My Journey from Full-time Software Engineer to First Indie Project **[freeCodeCamp](https://daily.dev/sources/freecodecamp)** · [@gaelgthomas](https://daily.dev/gaelgthomas) · 11 min read · 44 upvotes · 5 comments ## Summary A software engineer shares their journey from full-time employment to working on their first indie project. They discuss the importance of choosing the right tools, the impact of improved health on coding productivity, and the challenges encountered in developing their project, BooksByMood. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@minhnh** · 2 upvotes > Happy to see a fellow aspiring indie hacker here :) I was more fortunate that scratching my own itch actually generated income for me (more on https://www.tsukie.com/en/indie/how-i-turned-a-hobby-project-to-10000-revenue), but your insights about sleeping and exercising were spot on (pretty sure you reading Why we sleep was influenced by the same person mine was 😆). Nowadays I have to dial down indie hacking a bit because of increasing obligations leading to not having much energy left, but I still trying to make time to do a bit here and there to improve my products whenever I can. I'm... **@jolenek** · 0 upvotes > Loved reading your article! Especially the trials of finding a good book API as I'm working on a book app too and had the same struggles. **@terafora** · 0 upvotes > A good read and all the best with your project @gaelgthomas 😄 **@akshayupendran** · 0 upvotes > Great post! Balancing work with launching an indie project requires clear priorities, effective time management, and setting realistic goals. Loved how you focused on health and used it as an energy source. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Don’t just attend KubeCon \+ CloudNativeCon, Merge Forward your experience\!](https://daily.dev/posts/don-t-just-attend-kubecon-cloudnativecon-merge-forward-your-experience--l0rpp73x8) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Announcing H2 2026 KCDs](https://daily.dev/posts/announcing-h2-2026-kcds-m96goajm1) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Two months of Open Community Groups](https://daily.dev/posts/two-months-of-open-community-groups-asf52zhbs) · CNCF · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [CNCF Unveils Schedule for KubeCon \+ CloudNativeCon Europe 2026](https://daily.dev/posts/cncf-unveils-schedule-for-kubecon-cloudnativecon-europe-2026-ikhcoa5cb) · CNCF · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [CNCF Debuts KubeCon \+ CloudNativeCon Japan 2026 Schedule](https://daily.dev/posts/cncf-debuts-kubecon-cloudnativecon-japan-2026-schedule-xp5pyudub) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#webdev](https://daily.dev/tags/webdev), [#marketing](https://daily.dev/tags/marketing) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/one-step-at-a-time-my-journey-from-full-time-software-engineer-to-first-indie-project-u5fciddpg) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"One Step at a Time: My Journey from Full-time Software Engineer to First Indie Project","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/one-step-at-a-time-my-journey-from-full-time-software-engineer-to-first-indie-project-u5fciddpg","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/one-step-at-a-time-my-journey-from-full-time-software-engineer-to-first-indie-project-u5fciddpg"},"datePublished":"2024-04-02T01:03:43.775Z","dateModified":"2024-04-02T22:00:06.541Z","description":"A software engineer shares their journey from full-time employment to working on their first indie project. 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Nowadays I have to dial down indie hacking a bit because of increasing obligations leading to not having much energy left, but I still trying to make time to do a bit here and there to improve my products whenever I can. I’m trying to enjoy the journey as long as I can and not being stressed about the result anymore :)","datePublished":"2024-04-03T07:02:40.937Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/U5fCidDPG#c-VaXa6y7Cg","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Minh Nguyen","url":"https://daily.dev/minhnh","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/6817741?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Loved reading your article! Especially the trials of finding a good book API as I’m working on a book app too and had the same struggles.","datePublished":"2024-04-05T12:25:55.015Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/U5fCidDPG#c-wBpwJ0sFC","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Jolene Kearse","url":"https://daily.dev/jolenek","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--hzXedQCA--/f_auto/v1721913049/avatars/avatar_uquWdygd7S7azFvRNHB8n"}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"A good read and all the best with your project @gaelgthomas 😄","datePublished":"2024-04-02T08:36:29.022Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/U5fCidDPG#c-HfsEQIDXf","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Stone","url":"https://daily.dev/terafora","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--5LD3imWw--/f_auto/v1711973066/avatars/avatar_dB1ymhytdbfPXYQZOCSmx"}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Great post! Balancing work with launching an indie project requires clear priorities, effective time management, and setting realistic goals. Loved how you focused on health and used it as an energy source.","datePublished":"2024-04-05T15:39:23.763Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/U5fCidDPG#c-4tlglOpXL","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Akshay Krishna","url":"https://daily.dev/akshayupendran","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--JRHAz9z_--/f_auto/v1711371938/avatars/avatar_ssDZG8jdlSaxYQt4fCX4z"}}]} ```