One option is to find a job that has legacy work. A good place to look is a non-tech company. IE: a company that might use tech to run the business (which you will support), but tech isn't their main product. These companies tend be using older software because they aren't really required to have the latest and greatest.
Ask HN: Any jobs that don't force you to always be advancing career wise?
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Re: Ask HN: Any jobs that don't force you to always be advancing career wise?
#12That's every place I've ever worked, to be honest, including tech megacorps. Lots of places will put a lot of emphasis on career advancement, but I've never seen anyone punished for not doing it. I'm not counting "won't get promoted" as a punishment, for obvious reasons.
Re: Ask HN: Any jobs that don't force you to always be advancing career wise?
#13Re: Ask HN: Any jobs that don't force you to always be advancing career wise?
#14That kind of stability and valuing "being effective at the role your comfortable with" meant a lot to me. I also felt like I saw the best versions of each role and fewer folks stretching parts of themselves across different aspects of different roles.
Re: Ask HN: Any jobs that don't force you to always be advancing career wise?
#15Re: Ask HN: Any jobs that don't force you to always be advancing career wise?
#16If you think about it, I'm sure you can think of coworkers around you that are in the boat of just being an IC long-term, usually working on specialist tasks. I think that's basically what you want, a niche that you can specialize in.
Re: Ask HN: Any jobs that don't force you to always be advancing career wise?
#17Re: Ask HN: Any jobs that don't force you to always be advancing career wise?
#18Personally working in smaller companies, startups (the scene probably ends somehow in 1-3 years) and academic organizations (professors have a career path, staff not) I find that no advancement is a norm.
Startups though, ugh. Maybe tomorrow you will end up a millionaire with stock, or you're eating catfood and hoping the grocery bill difference will be enough to pay the mortgage next month while you desperately look for a job in the worst economy since 2008. If there's an in-between, I've never seen it personally.
Most startups will fail or "exit" with a sale that profits only a few key investors and insiders.
But eating catfood is always an good idea no matter your net worth.
Re: Ask HN: Any jobs that don't force you to always be advancing career wise?
#19Dead end jobs are the norm from what I've seen.
For OP, I feel there might be qualifiers that preclude such opportunities, like total comp or location. If you're looking for comp above the mid 100s or very low 200s at max, you're gonna struggle to find jobs that meet your criteria. On the converse side, these opportunities can be found in mid/low COL locations, so that number goes a lot farther.