5 Ways to Get Disgustingly Rich As A Programmer

A tier-ranked breakdown of five ways programmers can make money: bug bounties (C tier), freelancing (A tier), hackathons (F tier), traditional tech jobs (S tier), and SaaS products (B tier). Each method is scored across realism, effort, money potential, time to first dollar, and luck. Key takeaways: traditional tech jobs offer the most reliable path, freelancing is highly viable if you can sell yourself, SaaS has the highest ceiling but also the highest failure rate, and hackathons are great for networking but poor for income.