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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?

#771

Post by 3minus1 »

tootie wrote: post #465
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…

After 20 years of working and a sense of genuine burnout, I landed a "Dream Job" a few months ago where I'm doing tech leadership at a mid-size non-profit. We have a small familial team, a set of worthwhile and genuinely beloved public services and mission of doing good. There's still politics and revenue issues and all the sorts of stuff that a go along with any company, but it's a lot less aggressive. Work-life bal…

Man I'm so cynical. As soon as I see "I landed a great job a few months ago," my thought is just wait a few more months. I hope the job stays great for you.

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

#773

Post by tj0 »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #439

Consider: you may become depressed, unfulfilled, and unhappy in this life. I had a position that was around halfway to what you want, government database coding, and I was miserable. I think becoming fully "chilled out" is ideal, because being "half chilled" and half "in-the-hotseat" gave me whiplash a few times. I developed lazy habits over time, my work output suffered, and all that free-time on my hobby wasn't as…

Can attest to this experience as well.

When I was in high visibility roles in start-ups, I dreamt of a place where I could fall through the cracks and kind of breathe -- or at least what I thought would be breathing. I found that spot, and after a couple years feel like taking the offer was a monumental mistake in my career. Nothing is a challenge, my output is minimal yet when I actually do produce something, I get massive praise, and yearn for somewhere that I can throw myself into interesting work.

I think that next phase is coming, but I've definitely stagnated a bit and wish I'd spent more time using the required seat time (have to be visibly online 9+ hours a day) doing something fruitful instead of wasting time on HN and occasionally toying with various project ideas.

The soul crush is real in this kind of position, and as OP said, always being "half on" emphasizes the mental toll that all of my output has suffered both personally and professionally. Or I might just be burnt out.

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

#775

Post by teloli »

In the swampy, stinking waters of the river Styx – the Fifth Circle – the actively wrathful fight each other viciously on the surface of the slime, while the sullen (the passively wrathful) lie beneath the water, withdrawn, "into a black sulkiness which can find no joy in God or man or the universe".

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

#776

Post by egypturnash »

If your passions generate anything you're comfortable sharing, set up a Patreon for them. Post some form of it online with a link. Do not promise to do anything for your patrons you're not already doing. Do not make any plans that depend on this money, treat it as extra cash to spend on fun things. Including whatever your passion is.

If it starts getting to where it can pay your rent, then congratulations, your job is now your passion, if you want it to be. Or maybe it's just a bigger toy budget on top of your day job.

This is how I managed to make my day job "wandering about a gorgeous city with my laptop, spending a few hours every day drawing stuff I want to draw".

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

#777

Post by vendiddy »

kelp wrote: post #538
gopalv wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm basically in a job that is quite important for my org, I get compliments for good job, but I hate most aspects of my daily work There's a class of "crystallized intelligence" jobs which are about what happened before rather than what you do today. There's an intersection between that sort of knowledge and a certain fluid intelligence to slot it in where things fit. I'm in one of those jobs right now, where the…

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…

If you're a leader at an organization, it's important to make people feel like it's a positive thing to make the company need you less for a particular task.

At our company, we've had situations where employees automated themselves away or found somebody else to replace themselves. In response, gave them raises and helped fill their extra time with more interesting higher impact work.

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

#779

Post by scarecrowbob »

Get insanely good and fast at WordPress custom dev,

find a shop that lets you work remote and bills you like you're a normal iffy rando developing for WP,

spend the difference between the time that you're getting billed out at and the actual time it takes you to do your work on practicing the piano.

The billing for the company will go up, the projects will get better, cause since you're so damn good sometimes you'll fix things deemed insolvable by other devs and teams. Just don't ever turn stuff in any faster than you commit to doing.

You're not gonna get a raise, but you do get more free time.

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

#780

Post by phlipski »

throw14082020 wrote: post #768
raincom wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At one of my old gigs, I asked my then-colleague a bunch of questions about the codebase for a task I was assigned. He was always like "you are a senior resource, you should not ask such questions; if you want to find answers, look into the code itself." This is how he keeps his status and job at that company, and he is still there now. When I enquired around about how he got that tribal knowledge of that codebase, I…

> there are gatekeepers in most of the companies, who don't want to train you at all. This is fear mongering for the juniors. Most people don't help because they don't get asked. Juniors, reach out and I will help. I'm the kind of person that is sociable and helpful anyway though.

There are plenty of people who have "closed the drawbridge behind them once inside." They don't want to help, or think that you should figure it out yourself or should already know the answer etc.... They forget that they were newbs once too.
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