[TriNetra]

Here's my personal anecdote: I'm a blind dev and building a company in India.

I had been having jobs in US-based companies for about 8 years and on the side I'd been creating products/taking freelancing projects to be independent of job (not that I lacked in any job rather I almost always quickly emerged to be the most technically competent go-to person to get solutions to programming problems.)

At the moment one of my sighted friends has joined me from my last company and together we're working on consultancy-backed product initiatives.

I’ve been frequenting HN for years and this is of course not my original account. Chiefly because from the outset in my freelancing career I’ve mostly made it a practice not to reveal my disability. I always thought that if I deliver well, there’s no reason that I should reveal about my blindness. In fact IMO that would rather put me at disadvantage as work relationships over the internet are largely driven by impression – showcasing your skills and abilities.

With grace, this has worked fine and I’ve worked with clients across the world currently being as security/solution architect consultant on a project for a multi-billion dollar financial company in US.

At present I’m personally earning $10k monthly which is quite good in India and setting me up for likely never needing to go back to job again.

[huuu]

I think this is another reason why privacy is important. Sometimes you need to hide something. Not because you are doing something illigal but just for personal reasons.

$10k is quite good in the rest of the world by the way ;) Good luck!

[velox_io]

As someone who has tried to use screen readers in the past (I had quite bad dyslexia as a kid), I do find it impressive that people can program with them (screen readers more than stumble when trying to read code). In the end I only really used them to proofread my writing, and still do occasionally.

With regards to disability (I injured my knee a few years ago and use crutches to get around): It is amazing how people assume your brain is somehow also effected by and treat you differently. You see the best in people (the kindness) and the worst in people (those who either pretend you're invisible or will literally push past you to try and get the last seat). I actually find it's a pretty filter to save me time dealing with superficial people.

The worse part for me is dating, those few seconds when they first see the crutches. Especially when the date's going well and then you have to get up. Sometimes you recover, sometimes you don't..

There's also term for disabled people (don't downvote me, I didn't invent it!) a 'supercrip' - A disabled person who works hard to overcome his/her disability. While it may not be the most flattering term, it is prefixed with the word super!