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Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

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Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#151

Post by SamuelAdams »

You just described my job to a T. I'm a systems analyst at a university.

This was a big, demanding job when I first started. But after being here for 2 years, I've automated a lot of the complicated stuff. So now most routine tasks that took the other guy a week takes me about 15 minutes. To be fair though, the other guy was *really bad*. Like, couldn't even open IIS manager and restart a single website, bad.

The pay is not fantastic / FAANG, but it does offer a decent salary in a mid/low cost of living area. Combined with my wife's salary we make more than enough.

Also I get a free master's degree out of it. So that's awesome.

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#152

Post by [deleted] »

ozim wrote: post #18
muzani wrote: post #5

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. I've actually tried to hire dispassionate people before. One was an assembly line style UI job with no future - the API was solid, the UI was designed by someone else. It just needed someone who could glue the parts, and repeat the same job forever, with minor API updates every now and then. Another was a teaching job. Beginner HTML/CSS/Node.js. Come in 35 hours a week, act…

I would be too afraid that such cash cow dies at the time I still need it and I won't have skills to find something quickly again.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#153

Post by faoileag »

This is possible, at least from hearsay.

1. A decade or two ago a story made the news that some guy was working from some remote place in Scotland, basically in the middle of nowhere, with just a modem and some novel idea: do freelance research in subscription-only databases. Basically just getting accounts for various costly services, then advertise that for a fee you will do research in these services for people who shun / can't afford the costly access. Unfortunately, I can't find the story any more.

2. Work as a freelancing developer, but don't accept large projects, only small ones where you know you can beat the time estimate in your favour. There are portals for this sort of work.

3. Doesn't need to be software development. You can do this as well writing short pieces about almost anything for the benefits of web seo. Again, there are portals for this kind of work ("gig economy"). Think $20 to $30 per piece.

4. If the gig economy is not for you: every job where a lot of stand-by time is part of the job description. Janitor for a couple of condominiums, maybe. Or you act as stand-by technician for small companies with self-hosted computer hardware (acting when you get paged).

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#154

Post by busymom0 »

killtimeatwork wrote: post #28

I think it's probably fairly random. I.e. you're just as likely to have a "do nothing" job in a FAANG as in some other random corps. But I don't think you can start doing nothing right after being hired - usually people are hired because there's more work in a team that the existing headcount can handle. So, you have to work for some time and then count on "falling into the cracks" - landing in a place where there's…

OP does state "I do not want to manage people" which might go against the "you just have to be comfortable with babbling on meetings/calls for the majority of the day".

And being in meetings/calls can be a very taxing job. Talking is exhausting from my experience at a call centre.

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#155

Post by shireboy »

I might suggest a slightly different approach. “Early Retirement Extreme” proposes that if you save 80% of your income in a few broad index funds (search bogglehead), learn to live on the 20%, then you can get to where you are financially independent and retire in 5 years. I can’t say I’m personally there yet, but it sounds like you are more motivated and maybe less obligations. Get cheap ass housing, eat cheap, bike everywhere, and work your ass off for 5 years while saving 80%.

http://earlyretirementextreme.com/

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#156

Post by 55555 »

Just get some remote/freelance programming work with long-term potential and then hire someone else to do all of it for you and keep the difference.

Make sure to pick a client who is in a very lucrative high-margin industry, so that even once the work dries up they will want to keep you on payroll incase something goes wrong. They might literally pay you a salary to do nothing just for the one day a year things break.

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#158

Post by busymom0 »

Are you able to ask your current employer if they can switch you to 3 day weeks? or 4 day weeks?

Also government jobs might be worth it - almost every friend I know who works in government says they are full of slackers. It might get busy during the end of the quarter but other than that, it's quite lazy from what I hear.

Re: Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

#160

Post by [deleted] »

Aeolun wrote: post #93
throwaway12504 wrote: post #84

Honestly, I think this is somewhat of a crapshoot/hard to tell from the job description and the reason I say this is the job I'm currently in functions exactly how you describe but the job description/everything else from the outside gave me no clue before I actually started the job. "Ideally being done in 2 hours in the morning then chilling would be perfect" -- in fact, for me, often it's 2 hours on a Monday mornin…

> My salary isn't bonkers > For me, often it's 2 hours on a Monday morning the first day of the sprint, then just being present on Slack for the rest of the two week sprint You may not think so, but... Your salary is bonkers.

[deleted]
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