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

Luckily there's a mechanism to entice people to give up some of their time and effort to work on things that other people find valuable.

They don't have to be passively threatened with starvation or homelessness or other unpleasantness to make that trade.

I totally share your values and agree when you say there are folks causing problems during their attempts on dodging their duties. On the other hand, I didn't see this sort of bad attitude on the OP's side. He's looking for a low-demanding job, which I think is a valid choice, and he's OK about earning less as well. What would be bad -- and, as you said, it's unfortunately pretty common -- is if he were looking for ways of keeping a job while delivering less than what's been asked for -- which he could attempt on any job at all.

I'm a musician and developer/architecture consultant. My goal since day one of tech work 15 years ago was "fund music life better", so I hear what you are saying. I currently average half-time and make a comfortable middle class salary.

The big thing to realize is that there is a huge difference between "I want a job where I can do minimal work and mostly do my own thing while still getting paid" and "I want a job where I can earn my living in 2-3 hours a day". I have done both, the first when young in non-tech fields, the second for the last 15 years in tech. I work very hard on those 3 hours a day, in a role where deadlines can never be missed and we are part of $100M+ transactions. I take that work very, very seriously. But I get paid enough to do my 18-20h a week and spend the rest of my time pursuing the arts, with no pressure to have to figure out how to monetize my music (a very nice thing).

If you're after the second, (hard, short work, for high money), you want to find specialized expert work where you are (as you astutely pointed out) out of the production loop. Consulting is the best thing I've found. When I'm on a gig with a client, they get me 100%, totally focused. When I'm off the gig, no one expects me to get back to them sooner than a day, allowing me to do grad school in music. The key to finding this work is to become an expert in some subfield of tech, and get really good at the human side. Writing, pubic speaking, negotiation, client relationship management, project and timeline management, etc. Not many techies want to get really good at those "soft skills", but if you do, and you are an expert in something, consulting firms will value you highly.

Another good option is contract tools development or freelance contracting for folks who need code only occasionally. Lots of companies will hire part time contractors to improve internal systems, and you're still out of the product deadline loop. I've done that too and still do it sometimes for scientists. Python and SQL are good for that area.

HTH

>Except paying the bills and achieving something are only weakly correlated concepts in many cases, especially when salaried.

This seems like an extremely short-sighted view. If you have a string of successful projects, your salary will go up over time (you may have to switch jobs a few times though).

>If you don't care about the particular ethics/concerns for humanity, what OP wants is definitely possible.

If someone has no concern for ethics or humanity, I want to avoid working with that person. I also want to make sure that they do not get into a position of power.

>A lot of it also comes down to incentives. What percentage of employees have any stake whatsoever in whether their own project succeeds or fails? Or even the company they are with?

So many projects/companies are essentially relying on individual altruism to choose to take action rather than not.

I agree here and I think over time there should be a shift towards making it harder to keep such a disproportionate amount of equity for being a founder. Of course they should get the most, but the balance doesn't seem optimal for the long term progress of our industry and would benefit from some regulatory limits.

As someone that spent years working 2 - 8 hours a week on their real job while getting top performance reviews, here's my slightly unethical tips.

- Choose a megacorp where you're far away from the value being created. Analytics at a e-commerce site? No. IT at an oil giant? Yes.

- Cherry pick what you work on, image is everything. Focus only on project that make you look good and (ideally) others don't understand. Work on them a couple hours a week and make it seem like you spent all week on them.

- When interviewing make sure your manager doesn't have a technical background in what you're going to be doing.

- Build relationships. This one is critical. Just genuinely try to be helpful when others are in a rut. Get to know your boss on a personal level.

You'd be shocked how achievable this is at a megacorp. Personally I used the time to launch a variety of businesses, but be warned choosing this path can be a double edged sword. Sometime's it's the amazing but other times you can slide into a funk when you feel like your life isn't going anywhere.