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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?

#321

Post by vharuck »

RationPhantoms wrote: post #205
SamuelAdams wrote: post #151

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…

Some University positions can be notoriously cushy. I know a few networking folks who have been in their position at the University for a solid 25 years. Kind of unheard of in the enterprise-sector for the same position.

Government positions are even cushier. Things move slowly, they value consistency, and the hiring process is such a pain that you won't be fired for anything short of malicious or criminal behavior.

And if you automate a government task, there's a good chance you won't need to update it for at least a decade.

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

#322

Post by sjg007 »

subpixel wrote: post #303
lbrindze wrote: post #225

When I first started working on software I was fortunate enough to get exposed to working municipal contracts. One example was building out a payment gateway and website for the LA county coroner and medical examiner. This included making a small e-commerce site for their gift shop (I don’t know why they had a gift shop). A friends father, who was very involved in local government, told me with regards to government…

I once looked at a loft for sale in a Midwestern city. The owners were moving to some Latin American paradise, according to the realtor. I spent some time researching and discovered they were a husband and wife team winning contracts for utter shit municipal websites. I recall thinking ‘that can’t last when anyone can build a Wordpress site’ but I may have been quite wrong.

Yeah, good gig if you can get it. If you like hardware you can buy surplus computer equipment from state and municipal governments. These are like i5 dells for $10 or so a machine. You can load them up with 32G of RAM and a 500G SSD and resell them.

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

#324

Post by codegeek »

gorpomon wrote: post #115

I love this question for its honesty. Frankly if I had a job I just needed technical competence on without much thought, I'd probably hire you. Our 1-on-1's would be brief and probably just be you demoing whatever hobby it is you alluded to. As long as you can crank out some decent code, I don't see a reason why a person who needs some quality work done shouldn't at least give your desired arrangement a chance. Unfor…

I may be naive but why would you hire someone who repeatedly says "I don't care". I have no problem hiring someone who just wants to get their shit done and get the f out and if that means, they only work 2 hours, so be it as long as expectations are clear BUT they still have to care when they are working those 2 hours. May be I am too simplistic but when someone tells me "I don't care", I generally won't hire them regardless of whether they are product focussed or not.

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

#325

Post by foxhop »

elyobo wrote: post #95
ethbr0 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who sympathizes with your comment ("tech stack complex and fugly") and has made moves both ways in terms of salary (high to low for QoL -25%, then low to high again +50%), start with your requirements . OP did a great job of saying "Here's what I need ." Until that's staked out, you don't know what's too little, enough, and too much. But generally, minimizing and controlling costs (critically, through city…

Partner choice and choice whether to have children are other critical considerations in cost control.

Kids are not that expensive. You do not have to send them to college, you just have to love them, teach them, care for them. Sure you will have to buy more food, and you might need a bigger house/apartment.

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

#326

Post by randomopining »

burnoutguru wrote: post #33

Senior DevOps Engineer at a mid-sized, stagnant californian “startup”, roughly $150k salary. Seriously. My last three jobs were at companies which were 10-15 years old, had burned through $75m-$150m in VC and had flat revenues of $12-$15m for years. These are my bread and butter. I “work” remotely from utc+2. Theoretically I am working from home, but pre-covid 60% of my time I was “working” from cafes around Europe/t…

Hellz yeah.

What's the best way to inflate your resume? For instance I'm a mid-approaching-senior fullstack Java engineer. Just say what you did, but embellish so that you seem like you can really build out and maintain big functionality?

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

#327

Post by DenisM »

mtberatwork wrote: post #269
chillfox wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Not everyone are willing to pay for on-call.

You would be payed a salary but still be expected to be on call at all times. As a one person IT department, you are now the go-to to fix any and everything.

Don’t take that job, take another job. There are enough schools and manufacturers to go around.

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

#329

Post by 123jay7 »

I'm going to chime in here even if its not too late but the job you want doesn't exist. You just want someone to pay you money to keep your not monetizable dreams alive. First of all, everything is monetizable, I mean common, have you looked at the internet? Secondly, there are 2 ways to do get an easy job: 1) get an easy job (not possible because it doesn't exist) 2) get a hard job, get very good at it, and it seems easy. then, just coast. no one can force promote you man.

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

#330

Post by killtimeatwork »

jhgb wrote: post #132
lmueongoqx wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>pick a role where you're constantly blocked by other people Excellent advice. I love how HN still ends up thriving for perfection. If I compile all the comments in this thread I'll have the best optimized way to become the ultimate do-nothing slacker piece of crap.

> the ultimate do-nothing slacker piece of crap Just call yourself a company and then you'll be called "an efficient business". ;)

This possibly the best comment I've ever read on Hacker News - it so succinctly points out what is wrong with the modern world.
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