Ask HN: Tech career advice for unsexy but decently paying jobs($100k, US remote)

In terms of evaluating whether it would be a less stressful place to work, I think looking at how they get funding is important, as that seems to dictate the pace of work. When I did contracting, it was always feast or famine, which makes sense given that you only get money when clients having an emergency need. When I did startups, it was always how much work we could get in before we needed more funding, so it was a race to do more work, to get more money, to do more work—a pie eating contest where the prize is more pie, as the saying goes. With science, or at least at this place, the funding comes from long term research grants that last years. The pace is a little like contracting, structurally, except the timeline for everything is so much longer, so you get more time for research, testing, and iterating.

I've had plenty of software engineering jobs that were interesting and 9-5, both at small companies and large. That was important to me, so I would always ask expectation of hours during the interview. So I'd say most of the options still exist. (This was in Austin, though, not SF)

You could try contract work, for example with Toptal. If you go the small projects route you get to work on all kinds of different things, and you can take a break in-between if you want. There's also long-term full-time contracts, and even some long-term half-time ones. This might be a good option if you want to explore, or if you are a generalist, or you want flexibility. It's also an opportunity to get a new perspective on work: what is it you are really selling? For contracting, two things you are selling is "I will solve your problem" and secondarily you are also selling flexibility to the buyer (ready to be done with the contract tomorrow, boss? Great, it was a pleasure working with you, let me know if you need anything in the future).

Depends on what government. State of California has a lot of remote/hybrid tech since the pandemic [0], both civil service and contract.

[0] and that’s been accommodated in civil service contracts and shifted some HQ space arrangements in ways which won’t be easy to quickly reverse, so its as likely to be durable as anything in working arrangements.