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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?

#411

Post by zedd0 »

protonimitate wrote: post #380
tylerlarson wrote: post #339

I have no interest in telling you what to do as an individual but this thread and all of the people that seem on board with this is what drives me crazy about most of the places I've worked. I have the hardest time getting anything done because of the sea of people trying to find ways not to do any work. Is this not abuse of privilege? Do you all not hear the stories of people working multiple jobs and still not bein…

I really disagree with this point of view. I don't think anyone should feel indebted to their circumstance/employer just because there are others out there without the same opportunities. Is it entitlement? Maybe. But isn't it also entitlement for companies to try to squeeze the maximum amount of productivity out of employees for the least amount of compensation? Why can't they see that there are less fortunate compa…

I think you're really reaching with that analogy. No, that's not entitlement - that's capitalism. Compensation is always a two-way agreement between the employee and employer - you're never doing a job that you didn't agree to do. If you agree to it, that means you consider the compensation worth the effort.

On the other hand, for someone to accept a job and then go to work with the intention of being as unproductive as possible - that's entitlement, and that word is putting it lightly. A century ago they would've called it "shameful" or "dishonorable", but nowadays such behaviour is excused with a kind of pseudo-marxist "stick-it-to-the-man" vibe. However, when you boil it down, it's just a bullshit excuse for laziness and dishonesty.

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

#412

Post by kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj »

GordonS wrote: post #166
tupac_speedrap wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the Scrum Master suggestion, my Scrum Master pretty much just creates meeting invites for 40 hours a week. We have a lot of contracts where we have Scrum Masters just because we do Agile, usually the non-technical types do it. The irony is that Scrum Masters are supposed to not make the team reliant on them but by having a dedicated role for it of course the dev team will make the Scrum Master do menial…

Another vote for Scrum Master here. It's only in the past 5 years or so that I've personally seen it as a job in itself - previously, I'd seen Scrum Master as part of the role of one of the developers or similar. But now in large corps, Scrum Master exists as a distinct job, which appears to require doing very, very little - chairing most of the regular scrum-related meetings (daily standup, planning, demo, and the m…

Scrum Masters are basically secretaries with more steps

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

#413

Post by lifeslogit »

giantg2 wrote: post #228
elyobo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Partner choice and choice whether to have children are other critical considerations in cost control.

This can be the biggest factor. It can't be understated. For example, my wife won't let me consider relocating and spends basically all her money on hobbies. This limits my job options to locally available ones (not a great area) and that I can't get a less stressful job because it pays less and I need my current salary to pay all the bills.

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 cost had become too high. Managing this part of our relationship continues to be a multi-year process requiring ongoing discussions of what we have, what we want and what we'd be willing to do to get it. It feels like a muscle that atrophies, but I have made my peace with that because it works for us. I remind her what she wants and how she can get it by helping me now or spending less now. I even ask her to provide the same feedback for me. Her perspective on my spending is as important as my perspective of hers. I imagine we will regress in the future. Those moments will probably suck and cause a lot of stress. For now my only advice is to make a habit of these discussions in your relationship and protect the habit as long as you can.

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

#414

Post by vsareto »

tylerlarson wrote: post #339

I have no interest in telling you what to do as an individual but this thread and all of the people that seem on board with this is what drives me crazy about most of the places I've worked. I have the hardest time getting anything done because of the sea of people trying to find ways not to do any work. Is this not abuse of privilege? Do you all not hear the stories of people working multiple jobs and still not bein…

There's room for lifestyle companies which work a low amount of hours. I'd totally take 20 hour weeks for a 50% pay cut, for example.

I think this is really what the OP wants, but it can be hard to find because the 40 hour work week is so ingrained into work as a baseline (some industries go higher, some lower).

Instead of the inevitable back and forth that this view will generate, we should probably look for ways to support lower hour work weeks through innovative companies or changing company culture.

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

#415

Post by hnarn »

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 very poorly.

- Bonus points for lots of unnecessary, buzz-heavy text that does not give any further indication of what the product/service offers.

Just look for any remote developer job via linkedin or any other place recruiters frequent and just invert what seems to be a "good" job and look for that instead. Approach it with your current attitude (maybe not in the actual interview) and assume that you probably won't even want to add it to your resume.

I think you won't have any problem finding a role where you can get away with this: how it will affect your mental health is another question, but that's for you to find out. If you ever want to bail out, you can just drop it and fill this gap period with something else in your resume, like whatever hobbies you were busy with.

For the record, I think the incredulity in some of these responses is pretty hilarious. 99,9 % of companies do not care about your well being as a person, by choosing this attitude you're really just treating them the way they are already treating you: a disposable business partner that will be removed from the equation as soon as they are no longer beneficial for you.

[1]: https://www.elastic.co/

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

#416

Post by fwipsy »

tylerlarson wrote: post #339

I have no interest in telling you what to do as an individual but this thread and all of the people that seem on board with this is what drives me crazy about most of the places I've worked. I have the hardest time getting anything done because of the sea of people trying to find ways not to do any work. Is this not abuse of privilege? Do you all not hear the stories of people working multiple jobs and still not bein…

It sounds like your frustration is with people who should be doing more work than they are. I'm not sure that OP is looking for a job where they can wriggle out of responsibilities. It may be they are just looking for a job where the responsibilities are minimal to begin with, which doesn't seem unreasonable to me. If OP can fulfill the requirements of a job and someone wants to hire them, who cares?

Also, I don't like the implication in your third paragraph that people who aren't working at full capacity are "wasting their time." There's more to life than work. The suggestion that undermotivated people start their own company seems particularly egregious. Seems like starting a company requires more motivation than working other jobs, not less.

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

#417

Post by thiago_fm »

lmueongoqx wrote: post #32
poisonborz wrote: post #15

There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to focus on hobbies/life and not caring much about working time job - I would guess most people fall on this side, actually (and they don't even have too much of hobbies either). However, the way you wrote this post, it strucks me that maybe you have burnout, or you're depressed - as if you reach out to your passions not mainly because you like them, but because those ne…

Thanks for the kind words, I'm absolutely not depressed ! I'm very happy with my life outside of work. Some days I even feel euphoric being lucky as I am, being able to play my favorite sport and having a loving family. I'm only trying to optimize by reducing the time spent working and thinking about work, which I never see bringing me anything else than money.

It's funny to see the guy thinking you were depressed. You seem actually very excited to myself, not just excited about some boring coding job like most of the people in HN are.

Wish you success in that endeavour!

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

#418

Post by outsidetheparty »

gamesbrainiac wrote: post #399

Product Owner Positions would be ideal. They have the least amount of deep work, and the most amount of decision making/meeting work, which you can zone out of.

This is a really bad suggestion; if the decision-maker is zoned out, the project is going to stop being low-effort very quickly. (Also you're unlikely to get that position without a lot of effort in the first place.)

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

#419

Post by WhompingWindows »

tylerlarson wrote: post #339

I have no interest in telling you what to do as an individual but this thread and all of the people that seem on board with this is what drives me crazy about most of the places I've worked. I have the hardest time getting anything done because of the sea of people trying to find ways not to do any work. Is this not abuse of privilege? Do you all not hear the stories of people working multiple jobs and still not bein…

Devil's Advocate: We don't have all the information about OP. He claims he wants to work hard for 2 hours in the morning and then do what he's really passionate about. He mentions hobby materials. For all we know, he could be a genius painter or woodworker in the making. Who is it for us to say that a master craftsmen should spend 40 hours a week on tech if they truly care most about their art? If they can contribute good value for 10 hours a week, enough that their employer is still happy paying them, who are we to criticize that?

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

#420

Post by mywittyname »

codegeek wrote: post #283
throwaway12504 wrote: post #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 mornin…

"based on the East Coast. My salary isn't bonkers but I'm comfortably in the 150-200k range before bonus." Hope you are not trolling. 150-200K is not only comfortable but one of the top salaries even in East Coast area.

No crap, that's significantly more than I'm making and I work 50 hours most week plus have a requirement to maintain certifications and write cookbooks and/or blog posts after hours. It's a bonkers salary if one actually works.

I wonder if the OP's company needs any data engineers.

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