Start freelancing

you can start with upwork, DONT tell your employer, make sure that the resume you are floating on upwork doesn't have current company, same goes with LinkedIn avoid it as much as possible, upwork will charge your 1% tds which will reflect in your income tax, just pay as per bracket and be happy. P.S: I freelanced for 6 months then left it as my workload increased, general upwork advice: avoid jobs in which you have to support some dumb h1b indian, not worth it, do some certs and add it, it usually helps, again be wary of clients esp indian, who will try to pay outside upwork, try working and establishing a repo and then take payments via wise to avoid income tax.

Same here @Dcube but will you disclose this to your main job HR ? This I have confusion in so if pls someone can guide here