Could it be that you are over worked? Let me flip it around - You are good at the business side of things so why not do that full time? Move to a completely managerial/business role and quit coding completely. Get your life back under control. Coding is something you can always do in your spare time. I work on side projects at 10 or 11 at night for a few hours and it's enough to satisfy me. Of course it depends on what you want but it seems to me that you are good enough to make more money by moving up the chain and you should think about not losing that. SLC is awesome btw.
Ask HN: What to do when you are successful, hate it, and can't seem to change?
21–30 of 61 posts
Re: Ask HN: What to do when you are successful, hate it, and can't seem to change?
#22Refuse. Do you have a problem saying no? Why are you not setting boundaries? If your home life is important to you then you need to speak your mind. Tell them 'No, I dont want your promotion, I will be going home at a reasonable time to my family'. Is that so hard? Here's another tip - accept remote positions, and remove any business education from your resume.
Honestly, I do have a hard time saying no. Rarely is the conversation "We'd like to increase your responsibility, here is some more pay and a new title". It's more like "Hey, your opinion in stand up this morning was awesome, can you sit in on this meeting." This seems to lead into "You can't make it to yet another meeting about strategy with the investor's? Do you know what will happen if you're not there! It's the…
Better than saying no is using some negotiating tactics to take the pressure off you.
Use an external constraint and pre-disqualify yourself. So one day when you're not being asked out, ask to have a talk with the founders.
"Hey guys, had this talk with my significant other last night and they told me that while it was okay to put in some extra hours, I couldn't be burning both ends of the candle by doing both tech and business work. It makes me impossible to get along with, cranky and miserable."
This sets your limits, puts the onus on some outside party, and presents the founders with a constraint at a time when the constrain is meaningless -- after all, they don't need you now. Then when an actual event comes up, gently remind them that you've already had this conversation. Offer to talk sometime during the day. Hell, have the biz folks come by the next standup. That way they can talk to the whole team.
The point is, you're not trying to hurt the founders, you're just placing some reasonable constraints on what's possible and what's not possible. It's not your idea (and in reality, it's not, it's just the way you are), and it's not the end of the world.
At the end of the day, you have to set limits. There are tricks to setting limits that reduce conflict. You should use them. But as long as you're needed for something you'd prefer not to do, you'll never completely eliminate that stress.
Re: Ask HN: What to do when you are successful, hate it, and can't seem to change?
#23People equally skilled in programming and business are rare. Hell, even moderately tech-literate businesspeople are rare. So you are being recruited to positions where your combination of skills is going to profit the company the most. What do you do? If quality of life is more important to you than money, you say no to the recruiting. Otherwise, you say yes. We can't make this decision for you. Everyone's value orde…
Alternatively, your employer realizes they can get two employees' worth of work out of you, so they do.
I believe there's additional value being generated by having both skills at the same time, beyond the total productivity of two regular employees in their respective fields.
Re: Ask HN: What to do when you are successful, hate it, and can't seem to change?
#24Refuse. Do you have a problem saying no? Why are you not setting boundaries? If your home life is important to you then you need to speak your mind. Tell them 'No, I dont want your promotion, I will be going home at a reasonable time to my family'. Is that so hard? Here's another tip - accept remote positions, and remove any business education from your resume.
In my experience, doing this will ultimately end up in being let go as 'not a team player'. I was in the same position as the OP many times and got tired of always getting moved out of software into more business management. When I started saying no, I was always cut loose before long. Went to companies after this occurred and didn't say no, and got right back into the same situation.
This is pretty much in line with what happens to me. Though I don't say no, I just leave. Another commenter asked why I am having to look for work so often, it is entirely by choice.
Frankly, I shouldn't be complaining as I have not been fired or laid off and a lot of others have it much harder in this job market. But getting into these situations and then looking up every 6 months and saying "Damn it, here I am again" gets old.
Re: Ask HN: What to do when you are successful, hate it, and can't seem to change?
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your advice of living frugally and investing is good, but since you need, let's say $5M, to retire in your 30-40s with the expectation of living the same lifestyle, "a few years" is much longer than you might think.
Does it really cost $5M to retire in your 30s?
Since very very very few people make that much gross in their lifetime, I'd say hell no.
Maybe the OP is thinking 100K for 50 more years.
Re: Ask HN: What to do when you are successful, hate it, and can't seem to change?
#26Refuse. Do you have a problem saying no? Why are you not setting boundaries? If your home life is important to you then you need to speak your mind. Tell them 'No, I dont want your promotion, I will be going home at a reasonable time to my family'. Is that so hard? Here's another tip - accept remote positions, and remove any business education from your resume.
Honestly, I do have a hard time saying no. Rarely is the conversation "We'd like to increase your responsibility, here is some more pay and a new title". It's more like "Hey, your opinion in stand up this morning was awesome, can you sit in on this meeting." This seems to lead into "You can't make it to yet another meeting about strategy with the investor's? Do you know what will happen if you're not there! It's the…
Also, make yourself an invaluable engineer. If your strengths in business are so evident that you repeatedly get pulled in that direction you have 1. Actively hide those strengths and 2. Doggedly pursue engineering greatness.
Great engineers set their own rules. One of the best I know gets in at 9 and leaves at 4. His schedule is set and no-one questions it because he's obviously a better and more productive engineer than the rest of us!
Re: Ask HN: What to do when you are successful, hate it, and can't seem to change?
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your advice of living frugally and investing is good, but since you need, let's say $5M, to retire in your 30-40s with the expectation of living the same lifestyle, "a few years" is much longer than you might think.
Does it really cost $5M to retire in your 30s?
This dovetails nicely with the conventional wisdom that over 30s is unemployable in tech fields.
So either retire penniless in your 30s and never work in tech again, or retire with $5M in the bank in your 30s and never work in tech again.
Also if your gross is say $120K and you keep about $90K of it and save most of it to retire, living off maybe $30K which is more than most Americans get, 5e6/30e3 = a mere 166 years of retirement, assuming your investments return about the real world inflation rate, which is a fairly realistic goal. Of course $5M in the bank and $60K/yr invested means you will have to start your savings program at age -60 or so if you want to retire in your 30s.
Its probably a lot simpler to just contract like my Dad did. Do your thing when you need the cash, and when you don't need the cash, don't work for awhile. Nobody wants the programming contractor to advise the board at the end of a 16 hour day, especially when they see your hourly overtime rate.
Re: Ask HN: What to do when you are successful, hate it, and can't seem to change?
#28Go on "sabbatical" - it's basically a holiday, but people will think you are being productive and not just relaxing.
You should argue that the sabbatical is a years off unpaid holiday. Take a break, but still have connections and commitments to the company.
Re: Ask HN: What to do when you are successful, hate it, and can't seem to change?
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your advice of living frugally and investing is good, but since you need, let's say $5M, to retire in your 30-40s with the expectation of living the same lifestyle, "a few years" is much longer than you might think.
Does it really cost $5M to retire in your 30s?
That depends entirely on what sort of lifestyle you're trying to sustain.
There shouldn't be much difference between the level of savings needed to retire at (say) 35 and (say) 45. In either case, you want enough that with low-end-of-plausible stock market growth, you're taking out less than growth is putting back.
There's some research around what level of growth it's safe to assume; how much you trust it depends on whether you think the past behaviour of the US stock market is a good predictor of the future behaviour of whatever you invest in. I suggest (but this is Not Financial Advice and I am Not a Financial Advisor) working on the basis that you can probably get ~2.5% of your investment out per year pretty safely. (Usually it'll grow more than that, even after inflation. That cushions you a bit against cases where bad things happen. I assume you are willing to trim your lifestyle back a bit in bad times.)
That means you need about 40 years' worth of spending in your savings. That would be $5M if you are spending $125k/year. In my opinion (about which you need not care), if you are spending $125k/year then either you are earning so much that saying $5M isn't going to be a big challenge for you, or else something is amiss with your priorities.
Re: Ask HN: What to do when you are successful, hate it, and can't seem to change?
#30Are you willing to sacrifice the tailwind in your career that comes from leveraging your business skills?