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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?

#81

You haven’t stated your nationality (or country of residence) so this advice may or may not work out for you. Lot of European software companies fall in this category. Not necessarily low expectations but you are expected to work only during business hours and the work is typical CRUD app development/maintenance. The projects are managed well so no crazy fire fighting to meet super tight deadlines. On top of that if…

> but you are expected to work only during business hours

Surely that's normal?

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

#82
I build a website that helps people navigate life in Germany. It requires little work and pays the bills. I still have to work, but if it's sunny outside, I am rarely stuck behind the keyboard.

Unfortunately, I don't think I could easily reproduce. I wouldn't have the energy to do the same in a new location. Even in my little circle, I have many competitors, though they are fortunately not that good. If there was an easy recipe, everyone would do it.

I guess the general idea is to build something that decouples payout from income, and avoid obligations that force you to work on a fixed schedule. It's important to me to be able to let the website run itself for a week or two.

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

#83
I am a highly paid consultant in cryptocurrency infrastructure systems, and I use my rates (both hourly and flat) to work less, not more. So sometimes I can earn a lot of money for a few hours of work, but it is not boring. It is stimulating and requires a lot of thinking, as I specialize in a particularly rare niche. Though it generates a lot of stress when there are no clients for long periods of time.

For the rest of it, I work in the academia, where the money is nearly nonexistent, but it helps me for my freedom of self-actualization (and since it is computational epidemiology, there is suddenly a lot of real world relevance). Still, event when there are no clients for months, the money from the academia is enough to survive (barely).

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

#84
Honestly, I think this is somewhat of a crapshoot/hard to tell from the job description and the reason I say this is the job I'm currently in functions exactly how you describe but the job description/everything else from the outside gave me no clue before I actually started the job.

"Ideally being done in 2 hours in the morning then chilling would be perfect" -- in fact, for me, often it's 2 hours on a Monday morning the first day of the sprint, then just being present on Slack for the rest of the two week sprint. I wait and submit PRs etc at the end of the sprint.

My previous jobs in tech absolutely did not function like this, so I was somewhat surprised when I fell into my current position/groove. My coworkers/managers seem to think the amount of work I get done every sprint is actually above average, even though it rarely takes me more time than six hours max every two weeks. I mostly work on backend stuff (85%/15%) and am in a senior position at a relatively large (non Silicon-Valley though still very tech savvy) company with tens of thousands of employees and billions in revenue, though based on the East Coast. My salary isn't bonkers but I'm comfortably in the 150-200k range before bonus.

There was no way for me to know, going into the job, based on the job description, interviews with team members, etc, that the expectations of my managers and co-workers would be so low. And honestly, I'm still confused. I'm not a genius software engineer, I'm maybe above average but still not anything special. My coworkers aren't lazy or bad either - they're all sharp, proactive people. All of this is to say, what you're looking for does exist, it's my job, but I haven't the slightest idea how I would've been able to tell this is that type of job before actually doing it, so alas I can't help you very much, though I am willing to answer questions if you may have any.

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

#86

I do kinda understand where you're coming from but I want to warn you against this approach. These jobs you mention, they DO exist. But they break people and make them intensely miserable. Look into "boreout" (as opposed to burnout) to learn more about this. You will be very happy for the first few months, being able to browse HN, news sites and Reddit all day while nobody cares about what you do, nobody wants your i…

> You will be very happy for the first few months, being able to browse HN, news sites and Reddit all day while nobody cares about what you do, nobody wants your input, you've got no responsibilities other than pressing a button, writing a half-page report once a month and saying "yes" on the rare occasion someone asks you something in passing. But it will get old quick.

I strongly disagree, it totally depends on the type of person you are. I have a brother-in-law which is into that kind of job (not tech-related at all, he is a concierge. And he is totally fine with this, he lives for his hobbies (surfing, hiking, snowboarding etc), lives with the minimum amount of money he needs (basically to buy gear if it breaks and gas for the van) and... he is happy!

It makes you rethink about life sometimes, but I do know for example that I would die of "boreout" for sure. But not everybody.

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

#87
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…

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 choice) affords you flexibility. High costs = must work high paying job. Low costs = choice between working less, taking a job you enjoy more that pays less, or working more & saving.

I'll probably switch back to a lower paying job in the next 6 months or year, because I'd rather work on something I love, and because I'll have the financial flexibility to do so.

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

#89
post #82

I build a website that helps people navigate life in Germany. It requires little work and pays the bills. I still have to work, but if it's sunny outside, I am rarely stuck behind the keyboard. Unfortunately, I don't think I could easily reproduce. I wouldn't have the energy to do the same in a new location. Even in my little circle, I have many competitors, though they are fortunately not that good. If there was an…

As someone dealing with life in Germany, I’d appreciate the link?

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

#90

I don't know about putting in the least amount of effort for 5 days a week. But what I do know is that in my country, the Netherlands, part-time work is more and more becoming the standard. Already, 75% of women and 30% of men work 32 hours a week or less. In many sectors the fulltime standard has been lowered to 36 hours, which means every other Friday off. I myself started on 40 and will move to 32 hours somewhere…

> It's very common here and won't be a roadblock.

Some companies won't let you do 24hr/week though. They'll require at least 32hrs :P

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