Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many ways to do it * Become really good at something * Live a modest lifestyle * Have low debt * Have decent savings
How do you find problems to solve?
Be curious...
Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
131–140 of 200 posts
Re: Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
#132Re: Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
>My response on LinkedIn or AngelList when approached by business people and recruiters with their dreadful job opening is usually along the lines of "Thanks for making me aware of this opportunity. Sounds boring. Good luck in your continuing candidate search." Thank you, this is what I always think with these job adverts. It's almost impossible to think about anything less appealing than a list of technologies they…
The worst is when the company brags about their funding as if it makes any difference to me. If anything, it makes their shitty offer look even more shitty. If you're gonna brag about millions, you better offer me a decent cut.
"This exciting start-up just raised two hundred million dollars. Are you interested in taking a 70% paycut to work for someone who would step over your corpse if they saw you drop a nickle?"
Re: Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
#134No post body was provided.
Re: Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
>"Thanks for making me aware of this opportunity. Sounds boring. Good luck in your continuing candidate search." Well this made my day. I usually ignore recruiters since everytime i tried telling them that i'm looking for something else, they either keep insisting to have a call or they forget about me for a few days and then start sending the same things. I think this will be my new response for recruiters :)
Recruiters cannot hear the word "No." The best way to get recruiters to stop responding is: Thank you for making me aware of this opportunity. Before I waste your time, I have a few quick questions that I'd like answered: Is this fully remote? Or on-site? And most importantly, what is the compensation range for this position? Pretty much shuts down the conversation completely. Ghosting. So much ghosting. I'd say an a…
I demanded a minimum compensation amount to a recruiter once at a FAANG company, something really outrageous even for FAANG. They ended up giving me non-answers saying that I still needed to interview and determine what my SWE level was going to be before they talk about compensation.
I stopped the conversation right there. That was a massive waste of time.
Re: Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
#136I'm not obsessed about "working for my passion" or anything like that. I have a good life outside of work, supported by my high paying programmer job. I did a lot of job-hopping the past few years looking for the right place to work, and I finally found it. I look for companies that respect work-life balance, don't want me to work too hard, and have excellent engineering culture that values high quality work and has…
As someone a little older, what is interesting is that it comes back around again. By which I mean, at first you start out desiring this joy you don't know how to access, and then later you feel mournful about what could have been... but honestly for me I found a third phase later, of realizing those abilities/passions/joys were always with me all along anyway. In school I was torn between music and creative writing - I chose to major in music. I've always been good at logic, though. I started out completely certain I'd only go into programming long enough to get out of college debt, and then quit and commit to music. I was distraught for a while, unable to come with a plan to support myself with music, so I never stopped programming. Over time (a long time), I put together my first cd, a seven-song EP of jazz/pop piano/singing that I am still very proud of, and I think it is really good representation of the best I could do at that time. But I was still attached to my younger ideas of success, so when it received pretty much zero sales beyond family and friends, that really upset me for a while, and I got discouraged abut music. Kept programming; this is when I was freelancing. Years pass, slowly started getting back into music, improving at jazz, having music friends over at the living room and medium size grand piano my career paid for. That's fun. Found some time during COVID to restart the creative writing website I had first started twenty-five years ago. It still works, and I enjoy upgrading it to modern tech, and through the site have started writing more with friends. And then I wrote a novel in November, figured out how to typeset it and ordered myself a 6x9 trade paperback of it for Christmas. I'm proud of it. Don't even care to try publishing it. Still programming. I guess over the years, I've just realized that I freaking love programming. Breaking things down, turning complicated problems into simple solutions. And not am I only able to continue doing that, and get paid, but I still know how to play piano, can still sing, and this year discovered I can even write a novel. It's all... just pretty damn cool over all, and many of my earlier regrets and "what could've beens" have just mostly fallen away. I guess it just took thirty years or so to figure out how to get out of my own damn way.
(For OP, you can still go do 20 pushups, learn a simple guitar song to the point of self-enjoyment, write a small video game that makes you and your family laugh.)
Re: Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
>"Thanks for making me aware of this opportunity. Sounds boring. Good luck in your continuing candidate search." Well this made my day. I usually ignore recruiters since everytime i tried telling them that i'm looking for something else, they either keep insisting to have a call or they forget about me for a few days and then start sending the same things. I think this will be my new response for recruiters :)
Recruiters cannot hear the word "No." The best way to get recruiters to stop responding is: Thank you for making me aware of this opportunity. Before I waste your time, I have a few quick questions that I'd like answered: Is this fully remote? Or on-site? And most importantly, what is the compensation range for this position? Pretty much shuts down the conversation completely. Ghosting. So much ghosting. I'd say an a…
I've found that just telling them, up front, that I'm over 40, terminates the relationship almost immediately. They can't hang up, fast enough, and I never hear from them again.
Re: Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
#138This idea of loving your job in the way you're describing is silly. Do what makes you the most money without making you miserable. Or keep changing, who cares? I love my job because I can afford a nice life for my family and being 100% remote affords me a lot of flexibility to spend more time with them. My work tasks themselves are secondary at best.
Spend all that energy and time thinking about improving your personal life. Work on your marriage/kids/family/relationships. Love those things.
Re: Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
#139I love to write code, I love to ship products and I love to build businesses. But what I really love, what drives me, is solving interesting problems. That's my entire career. Solve interesting problems. "We're building a web2.0 exercise tracking..." No! "We're putting health records on the block..." Nein! "We're improving how people buy insuran..." Non! "We're creating a mobile app to submit expens..." Nee! "We're b…
This is a great post but allow me to be a little pedantic.
Your example of an interesting problem sounds more to me like an interesting solution. It's the computer vision that's fun, right? Or is it the cat shit?
Re: Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
#140I'm not obsessed about "working for my passion" or anything like that. I have a good life outside of work, supported by my high paying programmer job. I did a lot of job-hopping the past few years looking for the right place to work, and I finally found it. I look for companies that respect work-life balance, don't want me to work too hard, and have excellent engineering culture that values high quality work and has…
I'm happy to be where I am. I've had to go through everything that I did, to become the person that I am, now. That includes lots of mistakes and bad judgment, embarrassment, wasted money and time, etc.
I have said, that, if I could go back to being 20, I would want the body, but not the mind that went with it.
I've usually been forced to take the paths I've taken. Pretty much every big advance in my life has been heralded by fecal matter impacting an air circulation device. Being forced into early retirement, by SV’s notorious ageism, is an example. It really pissed me off, but now that I’ve been out of the rat race for a few years, I am kicking myself for not doing it sooner.
If my life would have gone the way I wanted, it would have sucked like a supermassive, galaxy-core, black hole.