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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?

#791

Post by splistud »

chad_strategic wrote: post #741
kelp wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of advice I got from the VP of Eng at my first real full time tech job. This was back around late 1999 / early 2000. Peak of the dot com era. He told me what most people think of as job security is totally wrong. If you're the only person who knows something, you become a liability. But if you're constantly teaching and sharing that knowledge you become incredibly valuable to the organization. That's…

"If you're the only person who knows something, you become a liability." So I had that philosophy when I was in the Marine Corps, well because I wanted my Marines and myself to survive and carry out the mission. Sharing knowledge in the business world, never. That's a great way to lose a job.

Chad_strategic, I'll have a much easier time promoting you if we are replacing you from within

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

#792

Post by splithalf »

raincom wrote: post #759
kelp wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of advice I got from the VP of Eng at my first real full time tech job. This was back around late 1999 / early 2000. Peak of the dot com era. He told me what most people think of as job security is totally wrong. If you're the only person who knows something, you become a liability. But if you're constantly teaching and sharing that knowledge you become incredibly valuable to the organization. That's…

At one of my old gigs, I asked my then-colleague a bunch of questions about the codebase for a task I was assigned. He was always like "you are a senior resource, you should not ask such questions; if you want to find answers, look into the code itself." This is how he keeps his status and job at that company, and he is still there now. When I enquired around about how he got that tribal knowledge of that codebase, I…

Learning “on the job” is an anachronism from the days when companies invested in their employees and employees stayed in the same organization for their entire career. We’re moving towards the gig model, even calling programmers “rock stars” to sell it.

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

#793

Post by yboris »

shireboy wrote: post #155

I might suggest a slightly different approach. “Early Retirement Extreme” proposes that if you save 80% of your income in a few broad index funds (search bogglehead), learn to live on the 20%, then you can get to where you are financially independent and retire in 5 years. I can’t say I’m personally there yet, but it sounds like you are more motivated and maybe less obligations. Get cheap ass housing, eat cheap, bike…

I salute this life hack. Focus on decreasing per-month expenses. Reflect on large purchases like a house because that's where you can save the most absolute-saved-per-percent-saved.

My first house was $50k with ~$550/month house expenses (HOA / taxes) in New Jersey. My current house is a $150k duplex with ~$200/month expenses (excluding utilities) in Michigan (and about $600 in income rent from renting the other half of the house).

Choose frugality level up to your comfort, but also read up on Positive Psychology and Hedonic Treadmill to learn how to squeeze more happiness out of your money.

Best article: If Money Doesn't Make You Happy Then You Probably Aren't Spending It Right

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/danielgilbert/files/if-mon...

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

#794

Post by edem »

I completely understand this. I spent 10+ years trying to "save the world" just to learn that the world doesn't want to be saved. The problem is that most companies (the big ones especially) are [inherently pathological][gervais principle]. The more you try to solve actual problems the more resistance you encounter. I solved this problem by becoming a contractor. Now I work for the same big companies but I don't get frustrated because I don't have a stake in it and there is no career progression either. I get paid much more and the scope is small. If I finish my tasks in 2 hours nobody cares and everybody is happy. That's the sad reality.

[gervais principle]:https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/

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

#795

Post by endymi0n »

xela321 wrote: post #539
tluyben2 wrote: post #384

A start would be to ignore a lot of things said about tech on HN. It is a solid source of pain, suffering and time wasting (I like it, but that's another story). Forget about all this modern tech stuff no-one is asking for. You can work for companies / clients who need stuff automated; they don't care about k8s, jamstack, react, docker, service mesh, etc etc. You can hack shit together with php + mysql, put in on a v…

Medium sized law firms (25+ attorneys) are a good place to look. They have a lot of internal business processes that can be wrangled with some fairly simple apps. Not a single person in the whole firm knows anything about computers. Profit margins are fat. If you automate a couple things the managing partner thinks are a PITA, you'll be treated like a god. Also law firms seems especially fearful of tech talent leavin…

More generally still, look at established, unsexy industries flush with (old) money, such as finance, law, oil&gas, government services, infrastructure, real estate...

If you can find a space in there where you can accelerate things just by 5% mostly on your own, you'll find yourself in a highly paid, irreplaceable position soon enough.

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

#796

Post by krmmalik »

hnarn wrote: post #415

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…

This is great advice but if I could just add one thing, from experience, and that is, do treat the interview with dispassion. I have consistently found employers (esp in a dysfunctional organisation) often read dispassion as confidence and that is always a plus point.

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

#797

Post by r0s »

> - No / very little involvement in the product itself (I do not care.)

You're in luck! This is almost every tech job.

I'm hitting a creative wall currently where I want to explore the product side of the business. I can only learn so much about code and implementation before I want to change the actual product itself.

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

#798

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

I met a guy who did work in developer relations, which honestly seemed like a great job:

1. Very low stress, no 'on-call' (i.e. when you're off the clock you're off, no worry about servers blowing up).

2. His job basically consisted of writing demo projects showing how to use his company's API, which sounded cool.

3. Also had to do things like run webinars, go to conferences (back when that was a thing), etc.

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

#799

Post by tryauuum »

gitowiec wrote: post #756

My friend found an IT job in a manufacturing company. That is his way to stay a little productive and to not to stress too much. He told me to not to choose software house without its own product, because it is the worst, most stressful and full of "very important" tasks. Instead he found a job as a PHP developer in a company that produces hearts. He just do simple stuff with CSS, WordPress, PHP. He is so lazy he eve…

"produces hearts"?

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

#800

Post by subpixel »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #760
User23 wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I'm not going to name specific companies, but you know those international calling cards that are sold basically everywhere in areas with a large migrant work force? Those cards tend to use these discount VOIP networks.

I assumed WhatsApp audio and FaceTime audio killed that market years ago.

You might also assume Vonage was killed off, as I did until recently discovering they have a multi-billion market cap.
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