Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

I'm mid-thirties working in Software/Data Engineering. I've been working at different companies during the last decade, and currently making ~$120k, and hitting no more than 40h/week.

I don't consider myself especially intelligent. Neither I'm dumb. I suffer from imposter syndrome from time to time, especially when I start a new job/challenge. I usually acknowledge these situations and manage to drive them without major problems. I have been in places where I was making way more but the job was boring, in startups where I was learning x10 every single day, I cut my salary to join especially talented teams, I stayed at places that required less than 10h/week while being paid for 40h... Sometimes I have been focused on pursuing a bigger salary, a promotion, or becoming a manager. I successfully accomplish most of these challenges. Every single situation had pros and cons, and none of them made me feel completely full-filled.

I thought I had a pretty good work-life balance but lately, I've been through health issues and every single doctor/therapist is pointing out to stress and sedentarism. Due to that, I've been reading some articles where researchers explain how people in tech started to care more about happiness and less about salary. I thought I was already doing that but looks like I've been doing something wrong with my professional career, and there is a path more equilibrated and focused on happiness I should follow.

Do you do something special?

I've optimized for different things at different parts of my career. I've made FAANG level salaries working 7 days a week as a consultant. It was horrible.

I'm currently making a little less than you but working 20 hour weeks. It's amazing, and I spend the rest of my time usually working on side projects I hope to monetize one day. Since September I've just been traveling with my wife.

I'm very happy doing that. So my suggestion is find part time work even if it means a pay cut off you want to optimize for personal satisfaction.

wrong framing.

what do you need to do to be happy is better.

what do you need to do to not be sad is best.

then what work should be becomes obvious.

I simply don't work much anymore.

Below 10h a week on average.

I haven't set an alarm for years anymore and sleep 9h a night

That made me quite happy.

Happiness depends on a lot on what you truly want, as opposed to what you want to want, so I'd encourage you to get familiar with where those diverge. E.g., a lot of people want to want to get rich, but as you've discovered, more money doesn't actually leave them more fulfilled. If you're finding that hard to discover, a good therapist can help a lot, as talking with a lot of people lets them see patterns an individual can't.

Personally, I am also not great at telling when I'm stressed. So I've learned to look for obvious correlates. As an example, I am normally the sort of person who spends change. That is, I generally don't have more than $1 of coins, as I use them to make purchases. But when I'm stressed or depressed, I'm less likely to take the time to count out change, so I end up with an increasing number of coins on my dresser. That's a sign to me to ask what's wrong.

Also useful to me has been tracking the number of steps per week. I have a Garmin running watch I never take off. If I'm stressed, I'll become more sedentary. That's not just bad for my long-term health; it also decreases my resilience in the face of stress.

These things sound small, but they're useful to me as clues to the bigger things in life. If these indicators tell me I'm not doing well, I'll go down a mental checklist of things that could contribute. Am I sleeping enough? Eating well? How much alcohol am I drinking? How much sunlight am I getting? How do I feel before starting work? After the first couple of hours of work? At the end of the day? How are the important relationships in my life?

With that mindset, you can turn it into a debugging problem. E.g., if being too sedentary is one hypothesis as to why you're not happy, there's lots to experiment with there.