---
title: '8 Passive Income Ideas For Software Engineers'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=dfyZBYL7D4U'
video_id: 'dfyZBYL7D4U'
date: 2026-06-28
duration_sec: 812
---

# 8 Passive Income Ideas For Software Engineers

> Source: [8 Passive Income Ideas For Software Engineers](https://youtube.com/watch?v=dfyZBYL7D4U)

## Summary



## Transcript

what's up everybody how's it going in
this video we are going to talk about
the very exciting topic of how to make
money as a software engineer and more
specifically how to make passive income
because passive income is all the rage
these days now before I jump into the
eight ideas on how to make passive
income as a soft Ware engineer I do have
a confession to make you see I lied to
you I click baited you with this video
title but you're gonna thank me I click
baited you in the sense that these eight
ideas that I'm about to share with you
aren't actually passive income ideas
they're more like active income ideas
why are you going to thank me for this
click bait well number one because it
got you in this video but number two
because I'm about to dispel a very
important myth for you if anyone out
there tries to tell you that you can
genuinely make passive income as a
software engineer they are most likely
lying to you or have no idea what
they're talking about Let Me Explain as
I go through these eight ideas we'll
start with the first way to make money
as a software engineer and please hear
me out on this one because I know some
of you are gonna be like wait Clement
this is not passive at all what are you
talking about this is so obvious hear me
out the first idea is to just get a
normal job as a software engineer this
is actually the easiest way to make
money as a software engineer it's also
likely the highest EV like expected
value way of making money as a software
engineer because there's very little
risk and you're just very likely to make
good money you're gonna be paid a lot
and there is actually a little bit of
passive income from just getting a job
in the sense that by getting a job over
time you will naturally get better at
software engineering you will naturally
get promoted which means that you will
command much greater income as you get
promoted and that means that in the
future you might be making triple
quadruple quintuple the amount of money
that you would make right now for the
same amount of work of actual time spent
on the job and therefore there is a
component of passive income in getting a
normal job if you think about it that
way so that's the first way to make
money take it or leave it now let's jump
into the second way to make money as a
software engineer and that is to launch
your own business probably with some
tech components if you're a software
engineer so this is something that I did
as many of you know I launched my own
company algo expert by the way if you're
a software engineer preparing for your
technical interviews do check out my
company algo expert go to algoexport.io
and use a promo code clemclm for a
discount on the platform and so the cool
thing about launching your own company
is that it probably the best way to make
the most amount of money
however that comes with two big caveats
number one it's not at all guaranteed it
gets like it's probably very likely that
you will fail at launching your own
company and succeeding at it and I'm not
saying this to to downplay your efforts
or your abilities it's just
statistically the truth but then second
of all it is the opposite of passive
income there's nothing passive about
launching your own company I've been
working on algo expert for almost six
years now and I can tell you that the
first five years had nothing passive
about them it was only active work
active income working 24 7 and now
admittedly now that the company has
reached a certain level of success a
certain level of maturity I have been
able to reap the the fruits of my labor
a little bit over the last 10 months or
so I've been able to kind of really like
decompress and relax but even so I still
have this constant burden of I am
responsible for this company if
something goes bad it's on me I shoulder
that responsibility and that makes it
really not passive at the end of the day
it's still very much active a little bit
different than just having a full-time
job where you truly must work every
single day like now I'm able to not work
every single day and I'm still able to
make passive money from that point of
view but overall at a macro level still
active and during the beginning
extremely active okay okay you really
want to hear a passive income idea okay
third idea this one is a little bit more
passive it's launch a YouTube channel
now again unfortunately I must give you
the brutal truth which is that launching
and growing a YouTube channel is
actually not that passive it's actually
very active it takes a lot of work to
grow a YouTube channel into something
that actually makes you a lot of money
for example my channel took me quite a
lot of work and time and effort to grow
to 50 000 100 200 000 subscribers and
now 500 or almost 500 000. during the
first couple of years on YouTube I was
posting three videos a week that takes a
huge amount of work if you've never done
it trust me it takes a huge amount of
work and at the beginning you're not
making any money and because you need to
put in all this work and you need to
consistently put in that work it's just
not that Passive A admittedly once you
reach a certain threshold you start to
have older videos that you truly never
have to work on again because they're
just there on YouTube and they
consistently bring in views which
therefore consistently brings in income
and that is admittedly passive but you
have to realize that the work to get
those videos up and successful in the
first place is Super Active and if you
really want to sustain this over a long
period of time you have to keep pumping
out videos even what I'm doing right now
here filming this video this is very
much active work
that being said of all the ideas that
I'm sharing here in this video I do
think that starting a YouTube channel is
the one that maybe has the most
potential for passive income you know
once you reach a certain threshold idea
number four is actually very similar to
starting a YouTube channel but with one
kind of big difference it's launching a
newsletter a tech newsletter and uh this
is something that you know is very
similar to YouTube you have to grow an
audience you have to put in a ton of
work especially at the beginning to grow
that audience but the main difference
with YouTube is that as far as I know it
is actually less passive income than
YouTube in the sense that with YouTube
Once you have a video up
it is on YouTube permanently unless you
choose to take it down and so it will
truly generate Revenue forever so long
as it gets views whereas a newsletter
you will only make money so long as you
have subscribers and the second that you
stop pumping out you know consistent
content well you're gonna lose
subscribers at least that's how I
presume that it works and so therefore I
think that it's a lot more active work
and active income still a great way to
make money you know side money or main
you know full-time money but not passive
income idea number five this one
actually also has a lot of potential for
for truly leading to passive income like
the YouTube channel but still takes a
lot of work and effort at the beginning
and it's the idea of launching some sort
of
small one-time product whether it be an
app on your phone or a Chrome extension
or maybe a simple SAS product that
doesn't require a lot of Maintenance and
having that basically be you know a huge
upfront investment of time and effort
and then kind of Perpetual money from
that
now the problem with this idea is that
it's very hard to actually do that like
it's very hard to create you know the
next Flappy Bird that's going to make
millions of dollars on the app store and
then you don't have to do anything once
you've launched it or you know the next
I don't know whatever Chrome extension
is super easy to make and generates a
ton of Revenue most of these things
ultimately require like a lot of effort
even to maintain or they just will never
take off and never make you a lot of
money but it is still an option perhaps
an option that you would want to
consider to make money on the side or as
your primary gig now the sixth idea to
make money as a software engineer this
one is another one that actually does
have potential to be truly passive
income it's to create a course so some
sort of educational content in Tech in
software engineering now here I do want
to specify when I say a course I mean
truly just a course something fairly
simple like we host did on a website
like teachable so it's just video
content that you create once so big
upfront investment of time and effort
and then you never have to maintain it
again I'm not talking about something
like my company algo expert algo experts
some people think that it's just a
course no audio expert is a platform
there's tons of work that goes into algo
expert to maintain it to have all the
functionality that we have on the
platform you know there's tons of
engineering marketing blah blah it's not
you know just a course that you create
once and that then you're done you never
have to work on it again so if you do do
just a course that has the potential for
that passive income the only caveat is
that it's going to be very difficult to
actually get people to buy your course
unless you have a lot of reach or a lot
of you know big audience so kind of go
back to point number three or four
create a YouTube channel or a newsletter
and grow an audience and then sell them
of course then the other problem with
creating a course is that the industry
is very saturated like for example let's
say you want to create a react course
learn react or learn you know go Lang
there's a lot of content on how to learn
golang or how to learn to react there
are a lot of courses there are a lot of
platforms like much more developed
platforms like programming expert our
company that teaches you you know how to
code in Python and gives you a platform
where you can run code and all that so
it's very difficult to actually
successfully launch such a course but
it's an idea especially if you have a
lot of Niche experience or expertise
that isn't covered in other courses out
there that's for you to know and for the
rest of us to find out I guess once you
create your next big course idea number
seven seven is to do Consulting now I
will say this is not something that I
have any experience in and it's also not
something that strikes me as passive at
all probably the least passive because
first of all you have to consistently do
the Consulting work you have to
consistently be hired as a consultant as
a tech consultant but also with
Consulting you are literally selling
your time like your time is your service
your time and your experience so you
cannot just like at least create some
sort of product that requires
maintenance but that at least you know
creates money while you're sleeping here
you actually have to be you know in the
room or on the zoom call with people
giving them Consulting advice still
worth you know sharing is an idea and
perhaps you want to go down the route of
actually having a team creating a
Consulting agency but then you're really
creating a business anyway still thought
I'd mention that and now we arrive at
the eighth and final idea last but not
least this one is not going to be
passive unfortunately it is just to do
contract work or freelance work again
something that I've never done so I
don't really have experience there but I
know that a lot of people do it and it's
just worth mentioning it's certainly
something that you can do on the side
something that can give you supplemental
income just not really passive and of
course the better you get at it the more
experience you have and you know this
goes back to getting a real job and
getting promoted and all that the more
you can charge on this or the quicker
you can complete projects and therefore
depending on how you view it the more
you increase your passive income in the
sense of you know I command more dollars
per hour than I used to for the same
amount of work so that's idea number
eight that wraps up my eight ideas I
know I know perhaps I made some of you
sad telling you that there is no true
passive income because genuinely there
just isn't if there were I think
everybody would be doing it but some of
these ideas do have the potential to
lead to some sort of passive income you
know with a lot of active work at the
beginning and then maybe progressively
less active work let me know what you
thought about them in the comments below
let me know if I missed something I
tried to think long and hard whether or
not I missed like a 9th or tenth option
I genuinely don't think I did let me
know in the comments if I did let us all
know it can help everybody reading the
comments don't forget to smash the like
button if you enjoyed the video
subscribe to the channel if you haven't
already follow me on LinkedIn and
Twitter if you enjoy short former in
content Instagram if you like pictures
and I will see you in the next video