I am a 30 year old who finished his experimental High Energy Physics (Particle Physics) PhD last year, and have been working in a tech startup in my hometown since graduating. It's currently three other senior engineers or PhDs, successful in their field, all 55+ with lots of experience, and then myself. The work is very interesting. I love going in every day. I believe very strongly in the technology and business plan, and once we get funding, things will continue much more smoothly. We're currently presenting to potential investors at the moment, and I'm confident we'll get the initial capital. But it's going slower than I thought it would.
I am really struggling at the moment to hold out until we get funded, when I get a normal salary. I am paid $2500 a month, 1099 contractor, a low amount for my background. I wanted to contribute as well, and I thought I'd have no problem living on that amount. But payments have been getting behind, at about $6500 past what I'm owed at the moment. It just seems to be that other members don't have liquid cash to catch up, and based off several conversations, I truly believe they are not trying to pull anything over on me. Our physical location is in 15 employee engineering firm of other members, and I think contracts have just been low lately. I have significant options in the startup, but they aren't worth much because 1) they are options and 2) it's a prefunded company.
I have no one else to support, and no relationships or major financial obligations. Cheap car, very low loans, 1-bedroom apartment. Used to happily living off grad student stipend. But I really can't lower my standard of living any farther, and most months my checking account hovers dangerously close to $0.
I need to find some extra part-time work to make ends meet. However, I haven't been able to get anything finalized. I have the physics background, and work well in a systems engineering role. Very good at picking up a new language or set of technical standards and coordinating between vertical knowledge groups. Experience in C, Java, Perl, Python, VHDL, TCL, AWK, R, JS, tons of data analysis frameworks, ATSC 1/3, H.263/4/5, FPGA work. But, my last year of grad school, I had a TON of problems trying to find any engineering group willing to take the chance with a Physics PhD, just for full time positions. Part time or Remote work, I am finding to be even more difficult. I only really work 40-50 hrs a week on the startup stuff, and lots of other free time. There's no excuse for me to be running out of money when I could fill extra hours in my week working.
At this point, I'm almost considering just walking into a grocery or drug store and asking for 10-15 hrs a week in evening hours. But there has to be a better option. I like putting myself into new situations and am very adaptive. Need an "outside the box" solution. New jobs, lowering my costs, loan options. Does anyone have any advice?
Submitted September 10, 2017 at 04:37PM by Snowtred http://ift.tt/2xYx4yD
