How I Made $500+ from GitHub Bounties in 30 Days (Real Data)
GitHub has become much more than a code hosting platform. It's now a career tool, a learning resource, and yes -- a source of income. Last month, I decided to run a 30-day experiment: how much could I earn from GitHub bounties by treating it as a side project?
Spoiler: I made $523. But the real value was in what I learned about the ecosystem, my own skills, and how to build systems that scale. Here's the full breakdown with real data, the tools I built, and actionable strategies you can use starting today.
Background
About three months ago, I stumbled upon a GitHub issue labeled bounty on a popular open-source project. Someone was offering $150 for a well-defined bug fix. I submitted a PR, it got merged, and the bounty was paid within 48 hours.
