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

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

#621

Post by pbrb » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #473

hnarn wrote: post #415

If you want my advice, it is simply this: look for dysfunctional companies. They're easy to recognize, because they look like pretty much the opposite of those companies everybody really want to work at. Take everything you see from a website like Elastic[1] for example and invert it: - It should NOT be clear what the value proposition is. - The website should NOT adhere to modern design standards, or at least do so…

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…

I was in a role that hit 1 & 2 for my first 'job' out of college in 2008. They told me that I couldn't go on vacation if I didn't finish my entire 2 weeks worth of work once... so, I automated all of it. A couple button clicks right before I left town and boom, all of my work was done.

Eventually the marketing department caught on that I had a really fast way to build reports and marketing targets that didn't require using a cumbersome db marketing tool and manually generating reports. I shared what I had built, and it royally pissed off everyone else in my role because they thought they were going to lose their cushy do basically nothing jobs. It actually turned into the team building out more tooling + automation, and most people learned valuable skills. The company even sent people to training and paid for tech books etc.

I left shortly after for greener pastures, but overall I think it was a net win.

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

#622

Post by kelp » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

swaggyBoatswain wrote: post #611

kelp wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of advice I got from the VP of Eng at my first real full time tech job. This was back around late 1999 / early 2000. Peak of the dot com era. He told me what most people think of as job security is totally wrong. If you're the only person who knows something, you become a liability. But if you're constantly teaching and sharing that knowledge you become incredibly valuable to the organization. That's…

I'm in this boat right now-ish. I don't want to be the person who only knows somemthing. I'd rather delegate it and then if I get sick I know someone else can cover the work needed to get the job done. I just recently had my first junior developer assigned to me. Learning how to mentor, teach, as opposed to just getting a task done is harder than I imagined

Yeah, and it's particularly hard when you're still ultimately responsible for the result, but others are doing the work. That certainly brings some amount of stress. But also the money gets bigger and bigger.

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

#623

Post by redisman » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

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…

As many of the stories here show, it’s usually easier to grow into a do nothing job. Build rapport for a few years and take on responsibilities that can be automated but don’t tell you automated them. And slip into the legacy projects no one knows or cares about to look at but that need a little maintenance here and there. They tend to build up where you can easily own multiple products that still have to run but don't really need more than a few hours of work per month at most. Just don't document anything about them or refactor them to be easier to look at lol

Agreed on scrum masters. I’d rather go hungry than be on calls all day though

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

#624

Post by gryn » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 4:33 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #203

ddelt wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to respond to your #1 and tell you I worked in that position, and you are 100% spot-on. I chose to do more and grow/learn, and obviously there were times when you had full weeks and overtime, but by and large, I’d say 50% of people on my team were phoning it in and only putting in 2-3 hours per day. The rest was team meetings, corporate meetings, lunch hour, miscellaneous slack chatter, etc

It sounds like OP doesn’t want their day wasted with the extra 5 hours of non-coding work though (what you call “the rest”, they want to be free from, at least as I read the original).

yes, finding a job where not much real work is done is easy. find one where there's also not much busy work too is much much harder.

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

#625

Post by xtracto » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 4:33 PM UTC

redisman wrote: post #614

hnarn wrote: post #415

If you want my advice, it is simply this: look for dysfunctional companies. They're easy to recognize, because they look like pretty much the opposite of those companies everybody really want to work at. Take everything you see from a website like Elastic[1] for example and invert it: - It should NOT be clear what the value proposition is. - The website should NOT adhere to modern design standards, or at least do so…

Dysfunctional companies in my experience have been horrible places to work where they work the devs to death and make them do all kinds of unrelated tasks.

This or, these are companies where managers need people to "look busy", which in a "remote allowed" environment will not be possible or will mean surveillance software.

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

#626

Post by throwaway35329 » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 4:33 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #455

lifeslogit wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many years my partner and I operated in the same way. I paid our rent, utilities and food while she spent on her hobbies and saved. I was not unhappy during this time because I didn't want much. A few years ago though, I became a bit more financially aware after having my first soul crushing job and realizing I couldn't rely on work to produce income in the same "easy" way I had when I was younger. The emotional…

"...having my first soul crushing job and realizing I couldn't rely on work to produce income in the same "easy" way I had when I was younger. The emotional cost had become too high." I feel exactly like this. My wife has basically changed what she wants (or stopped hiding it) now that we are married. She wants a big fancy house and she wants to live in an suburbanized and expensive area. She originally told me she w…

(throwaway because I don't like to mix discussions of my relationships with professional discussions)

I was in a situation freakishly similar to yours for over 10 years. In late 2019 I left her, and while it was one of the hardest decisions of my life, definitely the hardest day of my life, and the road to a mentally healthy(er) position has been ongoing, it has proved to be a wise decision. I spend far less of my day feeling resentful, unvalued, and unvalidated, both individually and in my new relationship. In my own time and in counseling with a professional, I have learned many lessons about myself, what I want out of life and in a partner, and how to be my own advocate.

I deeply empathize with your position and you deserve to be happier. I hope this experience of mine might give you some vicarious experience to draw from, and I encourage you to consider making a change.

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

#627

Post by zepolen » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 4:34 PM UTC

hnarn wrote: post #415

If you want my advice, it is simply this: look for dysfunctional companies. They're easy to recognize, because they look like pretty much the opposite of those companies everybody really want to work at. Take everything you see from a website like Elastic[1] for example and invert it: - It should NOT be clear what the value proposition is. - The website should NOT adhere to modern design standards, or at least do so…

The funny thing about this is that all the people I know who work or worked at Elastic say it's one of the most dysfunctional and toxic environments.

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

#628

Post by dmitriid » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 4:35 PM UTC

cj wrote: post #523

bazooka_penguin wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it immoral? As long as the asked work gets done there's nothing wrong with splitting your time. How it any different from spending that time slacking off and working on hobbies, which could be monetized (ie art)

It's immoral because to be hired for a 40/hr full time job by 2 companies at the same time, you'll need to lie to both companies, representing to both that you're working full time, while in fact you aren't. And presumably the lies aren't limited to the interview process. You'll probably have to lie on a daily/weekly basis to keep up the ruse (for example, what will you say when both companies want you in a meeting a…

Bill by the hour, and suddenly they call you a consultant, and it's neither immoral nor illegal. smh

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

#629

Post by softwaredoug » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 4:35 PM UTC

When I was in management, I can’t think of many cases where a quiet, moderate positive performer was commented upon much. They were mostly not discussed, with most of managements energy occupied by the highest or lowest performers.

I suspect you can get by in most orgs with the least energy being moderately productive. You get there by letting go and accepting dysfunction and poor quality you can’t change. You just ride with it, shrug a bit, and decide there’s more important things in life.

Actively working to be unproductive is hard. Many poor performers work hard to create a lot of theater around poor performance to make it not look as bad. It’s also a lot of stress to have managements eyes engaged on you all the time.

So I’d find a company where you can efficiently achieve moderate productivity in the least amount of effort with the maximal acceptance from the org. This means a company that:

- is very people friendly, seems to value employees work life balance

- is big enough to make a career out of one place, so you gain efficiency from all the tribal knowledge you’ve acquired

- lets you specialize in one thing, and you just do that thing. Again more work efficiency.

- has solid non salary benefits that enhance quality of life: healthcare, vacation, etc

Finally, in this job, I would:

- never volunteer for anything. Just do your work.

- almost never put in extra hours, make the conscious choice to do your time, that’s it

- avoid high engagement (empowered to fix everything!) and low engagement (complaining and hating everything). Just accept!

- remember your power in the relationship: tech is a field where there’s never enough people to do the work. If you’re performing OKish, not making huge waves positive or negative, you should be able to get another job easily enough. So don’t think you need to bend over backwards or stress at too hard about deadlines, etc if you really don’t want to.

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

#630

Post by xtracto » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 4:35 PM UTC

xela321 wrote: post #539

tluyben2 wrote: post #384

A start would be to ignore a lot of things said about tech on HN. It is a solid source of pain, suffering and time wasting (I like it, but that's another story). Forget about all this modern tech stuff no-one is asking for. You can work for companies / clients who need stuff automated; they don't care about k8s, jamstack, react, docker, service mesh, etc etc. You can hack shit together with php + mysql, put in on a v…

Medium sized law firms (25+ attorneys) are a good place to look. They have a lot of internal business processes that can be wrangled with some fairly simple apps. Not a single person in the whole firm knows anything about computers. Profit margins are fat. If you automate a couple things the managing partner thinks are a PITA, you'll be treated like a god. Also law firms seems especially fearful of tech talent leavin…

This is great advice. I have several friends who are lawyers, and they are just utter and completely non-technical. If you can find a place like this that allows you to work from home, it would be a great job for someone like OP's profile.