| Thanks for the question. Actually what I did was quit my job at Ford as a developer to do freelance work. I realized that when I was speaking to my own clients I really enjoyed talking about their projects and documenting what was said in a meeting. Often I would turn-around full functional specifications the same day as the meeting. I was programming off of those specs and quickly realized that all of the "fun stuff" was already figured out and I was just typing in code, so I started hiring out the programming work. Developers have often told me that my functional specs are some of the most organized and clear they have ever worked from and it keeps the back and forth communication to an absolute minimum. This is the waterfall model of software development (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model) and it has helped me earn a living for years. I have built a business around it and don't even have a website for myself. So yes over time I transitioned myself from being a developer to whatever I am now, but I really, really enjoy it. I always tell customers "Software is difficult to change, word documents are easy (and cheaper) to change". |
Yeah, that's pretty much what I figured.
As far as your status goes, in my book you can't easily transfer that to opensource projects: You do need to go through a bit of the programming work yourself, again, to see how things work in order to get to that same position you fill with respect to business prospects.
At this point I'd say: team up with a few opensource-interested developers and form your own project, from scratch.