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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?

#491

Post by skizm »

I've been on the lookout for something like this since maybe a year or two after leaving school. It is really tough to find a job with everything you describe. You can generally find most of these things, but having the job also be remote is where this really falls apart. Do nothing jobs aren't too hard to find, but actually having to go into an office and pretend to work for 40 hours a week gets draining pretty fast (a few months tops for me).

You might not want to hear this, but I landed on the fact that I should get the highest paying job I can, and actually work until I'm around 35-40 and have a mortgage paid off and a bit of cash in the bank. At that point I can pretty much coast on easier jobs and do 6 month contracts / 6 months no work for the rest of my "career". I can stomach working for 6 months if I know there is a long break each year.

Either way good luck. I'll be monitoring this thread for more ideas :)

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

#492

Post by tootie »

iso1631 wrote: post #123
fsloth wrote: post #16

This is an awesome question. I hope someone has good strategies for you. Life should be spent doing the things you find worthwhile, and the fact is, not all of those things are monetizable. Given how esteem- and success driven HN as a platform is... you might not get too many ideas since I suppose people want to maintain their "hireable" status. Success and "loving your job" are more or less empty phrases unless you…

My job allows me to go back stage at Glastonbury and track-side visits at the Olympics, front seat views of royal weddings, orchestral pit on last night of the proms, and I have a fairly sedantry job of mostly pushing buttons. Colleagues have spent days in jungles building bridges to drive cars over them, have got to know people living in random villages from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and share in their culture, have m…

I've done some travel for work in my life. I did an extended stay in the UK (I'm American) when I was young and it was pretty amazing. Many years later I had a gig that needed me to spend time in spots around the US and also some stays in East Asia. All business class and expense accounts in first-rate cities and I hated it. I'm older now and I have kids at home that I didn't get to see. Taking a business trip to Tokyo always seemed like the ultimate Business Guy thing to do but I spent 80% of my waking hours in conference rooms with salary men.

You value different things at different times in your life, but looking back I'm glad I got to experience those things because most people don't get the chance.

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

#493

Post by splithalf »

tartoran wrote: post #247
giantg2 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This can be the biggest factor. It can't be understated. For example, my wife won't let me consider relocating and spends basically all her money on hobbies. This limits my job options to locally available ones (not a great area) and that I can't get a less stressful job because it pays less and I need my current salary to pay all the bills.

Aren't you and your wife sharing responsibility equally or proportionally at least? It is unfair for one partner to bear the brunt of stress and the other to thrive. Sounds like some compromises need to be made here.

Relationships aren’t 50/50. A common misconception that came along with other great ideas of the 70s like pet rocks.

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

#495

Post by lvs »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #426
koheripbal wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stories like this is what will get to management and have them force everyone back in to the office.

Management doesn't even need forum posts to force everyone, they will do it just for their own job security.

Yeah, this is definitely happening. They need to dominate your life to pretend their job has purpose.

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

#496

Post by deeteecee »

It doesn't look like you don't like working but similar to everybody, we have other things we would've loved to do that doesn't generate the income.

Anyways, I always thought big companies fit the bill for this even though I've only worked in startups myself. Actually, aren't sysadmin/IT roles also often great for near nothing? I'm also thinking about doing these jobs at places like schools/universities where expectations are low.

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

#497

Post by jordemort »

Sysadmin roles where you don't have to care about the product are definitely a thing, you just need to look outside the tech industry - think low-tech manufacturing and service industries. There are a lot of roles out there that can be low or no touch, as long as the email is flowing and the printer is online, although a lot of those kinds of places might not get the concept of remote work even a little bit.

If I really wanted to work as little as possible, I think what I would try to do is develop a customer base of local small businesses that aren't big enough to have their own dedicated IT person, help them get things set up, and then sell them monthly support contracts that include maintenance and some low fixed number of included hours for incidents.

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

#498

Post by faeyanpiraat »

glitchc wrote: post #483
koheripbal wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically, stay away from the tech industry. 1. Look for a smaller antiquated company or department that doesn't understand IT, and has few if any in-house IT professionals. Make sure the role doesn't include user support. Look for "Operations" jobs. 2. Look for positions that have a TON of manual work. Search for "prepare daily/weekly/etc... reports." and similar job functions. 3. Automate as much of it as possib…

Excellent points except (5) Usually immoral and often illegal

Except if you are hired as a contractor

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

#500

Post by mimixco »

This is a great question and I appreciate your candor. Having been through a similar stage w/ my tech career (I was trying a switch to the art business), I think there several things that meet your requirements. You said you're ok with teaching and helping people remotely. There is s*ton of money in that. I did it with Shopify and other platforms. You can hate the platform (I surely did) and still help people (who wind up happy) and you can charge a lot.

If you can find a niche where you know the platform (ie: your average skills are amazing to the biz owner who has none), you can charge $100/hr and work the 2-3 hour day you want and probably be fine, depending on your spending. The premise we used for Shopify was that, by teaching you, we got you "off the teat," so the teaching was high value and we charged accordingly. Did everything through Zoom-type meetings.

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