June 11, 2020 Living the Topcoder Lifestyle YOUR Way

My favorite thing to say when people ask me about Topcoder is that first and foremost, we are a community. The term community can mean lots of things to different people but at Topcoder, community means a place, albeit virtual, where everyone is welcome to join like minded folks in the pursuit of growing, learning, and living their best life.

We’ve been talking a lot lately about this notion of living the Topcoder Lifestyle. Topcoder affords you many freedoms you don’t get at a typical 9-5 job. With Topcoder, comes the ultimate flexibility:

• No office needed. Work from anywhere. Your home, wherever you’re traveling, or the local coffee shop; or all of the above. No tie or high heels needed for your daily grind.
• Passion matters. Are you passionate about Coding, UX Design or Data Analytics? You work only on what you’re passionate about at Topcoder. No one tells you what you need to do. You are your own boss. Plus every day there are new technology trends we are leveraging to help you keep growing those passions.
• Your time is your time. As your own boss, you can choose your time to spend on whatever you want. However many challenges or whatever gig work opportunities; it’s your choice on how you spend your time.
• Freedom of working style is also your choice. There are many ways to lead a gig lifestyle through Topcoder. Pick your poison and your freedom.

Living the Challenge Based Lifestyle

Competing on Topcoder challenges is our old faithful. We’ve been running challenges for people to earn money on since the early 2000s. We have development challenges, code challenges, design challenges, and QA challenges plus many in between. Be a hyper specialist in one type or compete in a variety of challenges. Whatever you decide, it’s your choice and you can put whatever time you want into them. You may not win prize money every time but you do earn something more valuable – knowledge and growth. The more challenges you participate in, the more well equipped you will be to become successful at Topcoder and make a solid living off of them.

You can always check out our challenge listing page for what’s going on and our new Challenge Pipeline Report for what’s upcoming.

Living a Member Role Lifestyle

There is an alternative to earning money at Topcoder and it’s by being part of the Topcoder community team as a copilot, reviewer, or even problem writer. Those are just a few roles we have at Topcoder. We are dedicated to practicing what we preach; leveraging community as much as we can for whatever we need. By joining our community team in a member role, you still have the flexibility you love, you can still work on what you are passionate about, and there are opportunities to grow.

I’d say the main difference between a lifestyle of participation in challenges vs as a member role with the community team is that notion of a team. You are immersed with a group of people for camaraderie, friendship, and networking. That said, there is still an opportunity to do that with Topcoder challenge participation, but it’s not required.

Check out all the kinds of member roles we have.

Living the Gig Work Lifestyle

Another type of freelance lifestyle at Topcoder is through our Gig Work opportunities. Throw away your traditional image of working as a contractor and check out what we can offer you at Topcoder as an official gig worker.

Gig Work at Topcoder is our version of staff augmentation when it makes more sense for customers to work with defined resources rather than using our traditional challenge and task models.

Working a gig through us, again, allows you the flexibility you need. Pick a gig you’re interested in, work as many gigs as you want. At the end of the day, you’re getting paid through Topcoder and are working as a part of our customer’s team.

We have so many Gig Work opportunities at Topcoder so check them out here.

The Topcoder Lifestyle Has No Limits

There is no rhyme or reason to how Topcoder can work for you; it’s honestly a preference based on your personal situation. You may choose to participate in challenges to pay your bills or you may choose to work gigs and do challenges in between. There are a number of members who do all three of the above.

Regardless of which path you choose to take, we hope our community adds value to your life. Time really flies by and life is short. Spend more time doing the things you love to do and don’t let a typical job weigh you down. There is hope and many success stories of our members living their best lives with the Topcoder lifestyle. Be sure to join our Topcoder Nation group to hear some of those stories and learn from some role models.

The community team is always here if you have questions.

New to Topcoder? Join our community here.