Dark sides of overemployment and what to do instead

A developer from India was recently caught working five full-time jobs at the SAME time.

He’s not alone. The “overemployed” trend is growing-tech workers stacking salaries, hiding behind Zoom windows.

But here’s the deal:

What looks like freedom is often just a faster path to burnout, mediocre output, and shallow skill.

In this post, I’ll break down why overemployment is a trap - and what to do instead if you actually want leverage.

Why does overemployment sound attractive?

On paper it looks nice:

More jobs = more money

More teams = more exposure

More hours = faster skill gain (but high quality? I don’t think so)

These come with a cost. And that cost compounds.

Overemployment is not a career hack. It’s a path to energy drain, burn-out, reputational risk.

Who should be overemployed?

If you’re drowning in debt, chased by collectors. Or paying for life-or-death healthcare - stop reading.

You don’t need advice. You need cash. Do what you need to do to get out.

Survival comes before strategy.

The dark sides you’re pretending don’t exist

You think you’re being efficient but here is what actually happens:

• You’re splitting your attention across shallow work

• Your main effort is to appear on meetings and do the minimum acceptable work, instead of solving real hard problems

• You’re lying to teams which makes leadership impossible

• You’re building no real leverage, just renting hours

• You’re at high risk to be exposed and lose the strong network you’ve spent years building

• If you’re junior you will never become high-impact developer this way - as you’re just completing tasks, to get them done.

• It’s not ethical (not so strong argument for many I know)

What to do instead?

Build something that compounds:

• Go deep in one role. Master the system, not just the tasks. That’s how you earn trust, autonomy, equity.

• Go solo with intent. Turn what you know into a service, SaaS, or tool - one client, one problem, one tight scope.

• Go public. Share what you’re learning. Write, build in the open, test products. Make your work visible.

• Fixed-scoped projects - These don’t require your full time presence and you can organize your time how you want. You can even choose the tech-stack.

These are all ways that can compound and pay out later.

You want more money?

Negotiate it - after you’ve created disproportionate value.

You want faster growth?

Accelerate feedback, not workload.

You want freedom?

Earn it by becoming irreplaceable in one arena, not invisible in five.

The real move isn’t juggling jobs.
It’s making your work harder to replace, easier to find, and built to last.

Wrap up

Stacking jobs multiplies income short-term.
Stacking leverage multiplies it long-term.

Overemployment is motion.
Mastery is momentum.

Overemployment is reactive.
Mastery is proactive.