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

You're getting a lot of unsolicited advice here, from folks who mean well but all of us here can't know the particulars of your situation.

That you're posting this on HN suggests that you would really like to have someone to talk to about this, at the very least to feel heard about it.

From personal experience, consider a therapist for a while - starting just on your own. There's nothing wrong with you, but you're in a sticky situation and are unhappy, and you're worried about the implications for your daughter and your own longevity. It can be really nice to have someone to talk through this stuff with, especially when it might be tough to talk with your wife about it, at least at this point, if she's causing the problem. I don't know about you, but it helps me mentally figure out what to do when I can talk about it, and (good) therapists are good at pulling our thoughts out and letting us think about all the angles.

It's pretty low stakes, and while they do cost some money, it's not a ton (compared to the horses!). And it can really help you think through the particulars of your situation over time, which it's tough for any of us here on HN to do, and when it's time to do the tough stuff - like broaching the subject with your wife - you have got someone in the therapist who knows the background and can help you deal with any fallout.

Good luck. You deserve a happy life. Your daughter deserves a good future. We only get one shot at this.

It depends on the country.

In France for instance, it is legal to have two (or more) jobs but they cannot be with competitors, you have a limit of hours you can work (which means that if your contract states 40 hours work then you cannot have another one), and you cannot have a clause in your contract which you usually do have (in the companies I know at least - tech oriented).

Anybody that is sending you hates etc, well yeah it shouldn’t be a surprise on this website. I hope you don’t get any death threats. But let me tell you amongst all the haters, you are not alone. In the words of the Misfits… “Walk among us” (Little punk humor)

I kind of feel like being a web dev/programmer is like being a waiter in Hollywood. I can program, it pays really well right now and in high demand, but it not my career choice. But I’m always looking for my passion.

In 2013, I used to work at a small business that did videos for jobs. Instead of a job description, they made a job video. (I know crazy) I was the only developer, IT, sysadmin. I reported to the owners, who were nontech. After about 6 months I cleaned up all the crappy code (from professional developers of course). Reduced the insanity from the account managers and streamlined some processes. After that, there were days I didn’t get an email from anybody for weeks at a time. Because I took the time to do it right and reduce human friction. I respond to “emergencies” and kept the system up and running. After I had proven my knowledge and ability to keep the system running etc. I essentially became untouchable, it also helped that no one else knew what I did.

After that, I didn’t do much, work on side projects, exercised in the middle of the day, etc. I left in 2015 and my code was still in place in 2018.

In 2020, I finally threw in the web dev towel! (Working with Drupal and Drupal developers finally killed it)

Now I write Stock/Options/Futures for a family office / hedgefund, which is my true passion.

That’s similar to doing nothing as well.

Here are few signs that you should look for while search for such a job:

1. Glassdoor reviews mentions 'good work like balance'.

2. The hiring manager (the position you applied for) is 12+ years in the same organization.

3. The organization has at least 10K+ employees.

4. The organization recently had a merger/takeover by another big corp.

5. The team (for which you are being interviewed) does not have a CI/CD pipeline.

6. The product is inherently on-premise deployable software i.e. has to be deployed on the customer's machine and cannot be a SaaS. Ex: Datacenter monitoring/automation software.

7. The product has multi month/quarter release cycle.

8. The organization does not follow 360 degree review i.e. does not collect feedback from all the team members during yearly performance review but its mostly about the manager's comments.

> I'm an average developer looking for ways to work as little as humanely possible.

- under no circumstances for for an Asian company. Ever.

- under no circumstances work for American companies unless the work requires a defence clearance. In which case, make sure you never work for anyone else.

- failing that, Northern European government work (e.g. Dutch 'amptenaare') is gold