

Ask HN: How to quit a side job that became too much work? - sickofworking

I&#x27;ve spent the past two years as a solo sub-contract developer building a custom ERP system. It&#x27;s become too much work for me to do on my own and side work no longer fits into my work&#x2F;life balance (now with 2 kids in 2 years).<p>The project started off with minimal requirements and sounded like a 3-4 month project. I&#x27;ve been working on it around my day job, around 10 hours per week. It seems to be in and endless &quot;beta test&quot; cycle and constantly changing requirements without before even going live. Eventually it&#x27;s going to be a live system with over a hundred people using it for their daily operations. I was not aware of this at the time. I have no interest in maintaining it and need to find a way to get out.<p>I am working without a contract. I submit my invoices to another contractor who then submits his time and presumably my time with any applicable markup. I bill by the hour for tasks. I don&#x27;t have a direct relationship with the end client. I&#x27;ve been doing side projects for the main contractor for the past 4 years. I have never signed anything other than an NDA about 4 years ago.<p>I mentioned to the main contractor that I don&#x27;t want to do this long term and he doesn&#x27;t seem to be in any hurry to replace me.<p>How can I step away from this work without completely leaving them in the lurch? Do I have any liability to complete the partially finished work which likely has bugs in it?  I&#x27;ve intentionally operated as much as possible as a straight coder without wanting to take on any additional responsibility since it was side work.
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ben1040
You have no contract binding you to any terms, so I don't see what liability
you have to complete the work. With no contract it sounds like you have no
obligation to give any notice, but if I were in your shoes, I'd give 30 days
courtesy notice, after which point you will no longer take on that work.

I can understand why they don't seem to be in a hurry to replace you -- "I
don't want to do this long term" doesn't convey the same sense of urgency as
"I am going to stop doing this after $date, so find someone else."

~~~
sickofworking
Thank you. Good advice. I was worried that there may be some unwritten
liability. For example, how likely will I get sued if something breaks. If I
was still actively involved then I am sure I would be able to just fix it.

------
michaelpinto
"How can I step away from this work without completely leaving them in the
lurch?"

A. Announce a date in advance that you'll be leaving. That will make the
contractor serious about finding a replacement. Let the contractor know that
if they can find a replacement before you will help get the next coder up to
speed.

If you're nice you can make that exit date a reasonable amount of time to find
and train a replacement.

Also there's nothing wrong with actually saying that you didn't expect a 4
month project to turn into 4 years.

~~~
sickofworking
I was originally going to tie my exit date to some period after it went live.
That has been delayed far too long. You are right, I need to just put a firm
date out

