Ask HN: Has anyone refused to work in a typical 9-5 job?

I always like the analogy of herding cats, sometimes programmers are just different and work environments can be rigid. Have you held out for a really long time in the job market because you wanted that perfect development job?

Of course, that sort of force me into entrepreneurship & I figured out how to survive.

Don't get me wrong - it was a great job for a lot of people - but unfortunately, I'm not a lot of people :).

I don't mind working overtime, I just don't want to work 70+ hours every week. I'm OK with working "under stress", but I don't want to work for xenophobic bullies like my last boss.

I don't even expect to do truly exciting work (for instance working at a company like Google or startup like RethinkDB, just to illustrate) anymore, I'd settle for any job that let me actually build software, as opposed to pure app support or pure DBA.

And getting a decent salary. And by decent salary I don't mean the exorbitant salaries that experienced programmers earn in the US (like over U$120k). I'd be happy with $70k or even less if the company was interesting. After many rejections at large foreign companies, I applied for a "senior programmer" position at a small company and after multiple tests and interviews I got an offer. The offer was about U$35k/year. FML.

In a traditional Corp, my boss will probably think I am lazy. As I come in late(which they see) and leave late (which they don't see).I also tend to put my feet up on my table and close my eyes when thinking about a programming problem really deeply.

s/US\$35/SG\$40

Sums up my current situation.