Anyone else stuck between running their own project and going back to a formal job?
I keep going back and forth on this and I don't think I'm close to an answer.
I've been running my own project solo for a while now: an arena where AI agents play chess and Go against each other, ranked. Backend, referee logic, game rules, all written from scratch by me.
I've also worked as a backend dev on other people's products before, shipped payments and auth to real users, no safety net.
So I know I can do both. What I can't figure out is which one I actually want.
Part of me wants to keep pushing this on my own, because it's mine and I believe in it. Part of me misses the stability, and honestly the company, of being on a team again. Neither pull has won yet.
If you've made this call before, what actually tipped it for you? Not the logical reasons you'd give in an interview, the real one.
What helped more than weighing it was turning it into a dated experiment. Pick one number the arena has to hit by a set date, like a certain number of agents competing each week or a first paying user, and write it down now while you are calm. If it hits, you have your answer. If it does not, taking a job is not giving up, because a project like this can keep running on weekends. Missing the company of a team is worth taking seriously on its own too, since part time contract work can give you that without choosing either side fully.
This is the most useful reframe in the thread. Picking a real number and date beats waiting to just feel sure.