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Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

truzzi.me

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Re: Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

#111

Post by mcshicks »

ftruzzi wrote: post #49
moritonal wrote: post #7

So Francesco says they refuse to do technical interviews and says their CV and Github are proof enough. The CV shows experience as a freelance engineer at Apple for a bit, then an engineer for Samsung which they were made redundant from. Their GitHub is 3 projects, a python script, a breakout board and then a beta libary. They argue that's fine though because they'd work for £1/hr, but the real cost of an upfront hir…

I completely understand your point of view and I would think the same if I were you, but that's probably the kind of work I'm trying to avoid. I only have one life, and I just don't want to be paid to "stay around and do the boring bits", or at least not full-time and in an office. Just as an example, having to stay in the office if there's nothing else to do for the day was absolutely soul-crushing for me. I might b…

I retired close to 7 years ago, and I have a similar set of guidelines for doing part time work. However I have another stipulation which is that if I don't personally know you, I'm not interested, at least for paid work. I've done some volunteer work where I've had introductions from someone I know and that's worked great. And for any given paid job the max I will work is 20 hours/month. That is I might work more than that, but I will only bill that. That allows me the flexibility to put the effort in I think is needed to do what I think is acceptable quality, without imposing my standards on someone who just wants something that will solve a problem immediately in front of them. Good luck!

Re: Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

#112

Post by langitbiru »

ftruzzi wrote: post #49
moritonal wrote: post #7

So Francesco says they refuse to do technical interviews and says their CV and Github are proof enough. The CV shows experience as a freelance engineer at Apple for a bit, then an engineer for Samsung which they were made redundant from. Their GitHub is 3 projects, a python script, a breakout board and then a beta libary. They argue that's fine though because they'd work for £1/hr, but the real cost of an upfront hir…

I completely understand your point of view and I would think the same if I were you, but that's probably the kind of work I'm trying to avoid. I only have one life, and I just don't want to be paid to "stay around and do the boring bits", or at least not full-time and in an office. Just as an example, having to stay in the office if there's nothing else to do for the day was absolutely soul-crushing for me. I might b…

I created a part-time jobs board, ParttimeCareers (https://parttime.careers). I collect remote and part-time jobs (mostly engineering jobs, but sometimes marketing jobs).

Yeah, I can see where you are coming from. Some people want to look for part-time jobs because they want to spend more time with their passions, kids, parents, or friends.

Re: Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

#113

Post by CaptArmchair »

beaconstudios wrote: post #82
ftruzzi wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely understand your point of view and I would think the same if I were you, but that's probably the kind of work I'm trying to avoid. I only have one life, and I just don't want to be paid to "stay around and do the boring bits", or at least not full-time and in an office. Just as an example, having to stay in the office if there's nothing else to do for the day was absolutely soul-crushing for me. I might b…

if you don't care about pay and you want to work on interesting projects, why not start your own? people typically get jobs because they have bills to pay, not because it's fun. If you are in a position where you don't need to pay the bills with work, then you're in a great position and can have fun all day long - so why not just do that? If you work on something that also turns out to be marketable then you might ev…

> people typically get jobs because they have bills to pay, not because it's fun.

If a position across the street becomes available which allows you to pursue a personal goal you aspire and afford your current lifestyle, would you remain at your current "non-fun" job or give it a shot and apply?

Many people don't just get job because they have bills to pay, they get jobs that they don't like because there is no alternative available to them which meshes with their lives.

To an extent, you could argue "that's personal responsibility, everyone makes tough choices".

Then again, the author tacitly references to the fact they were still obligated to physically attend an office space, even though they could their work remotely. Now expand that to the millions of workers who are forced to make long commutes.

Re: Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

#114

Post by mlboss »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #25

Anything is interesting if you engage with it. And being bored is a state of mind. It's a fallacy to say "that's boring". The bored-ness is in your head, not in the task.

Not sure why you were downvoted. I totally agree with you.

One of my past manager told me that the trick of making a boring job interesting is to introduce a layer of abstraction to the task.

For example, if you have to right a lot of boiler plate code then write a code generator.

Re: Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

#115

Post by exdsq »

yulaow wrote: post #67
exdsq wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't correct. You can work as a researcher without a degree, certainly in the UK. A general example would be an associate professor at a business school with extensive career experience who might contribute to some papers. An anecdotal example is myself; I don't have a bachelors degree but during my masters degree I had some summer research work. I ended up not finishing the masters degree but did chat about th…

I don't understand. In UK you can be associate professor without a degree? Then you talk about your time "during a master degree" but you say you had not a bachelors... How can you do a master without a bachelors? Now I understand why other members of academia, even when UK was part of EU, treated it as a special case for research positions. Btw not judging, just saying it is totally different of what I expected.

> In UK you can be associate professor without a degree?

Yes, in rare occasions! More frequently without say a higher degree. One that springs to mind is the current Professor of Poetry at Oxford University who read classics for their undergrad but with no further education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Oswald

I know there are other examples but I'd need to google a bit to find them. Notable people who got a PhD without a Bachelors or Masters in the US include Wolfram, so it's not just in the UK where rules get a little bent.

> How can you do a master without a bachelors?

Experience in industry counts if its highly related. I was offered or interviewed for postgraduate courses at the University of Leeds, Oxford University, University of Leicester, and a few others. All in Software Engineering and I eventually accepted a part-time position on an MSc in Computer Science. A bit of rigmarole but not that much - I started the course at 25 with 6 years experience in tech. After some pestering I was able to help with some lecturers papers which led to the whole PhD discussion but dropped the MSc because it wasn't as rigorous as I hoped it'd be (I'm interested in the foundations of computer science and this was more applied). If it helps I've been to doctoral summer schools in both the EU and US without any credentials either!

Maybe the UK is the only place with such ways, I emailed Stanford a while back (I'm moving there this Summer, my partners a postdoc, and wanted to try audit some of their postgraduate CS courses) and got shot down pretty quickly!

Re: Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

#116

Post by bikingbismuth »

tenacious_tuna wrote: post #42
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After kids and mortage, you will be upset with the boring part again :(

not OP, but at that point I imagine the equation changes: stability becomes less important when you aren't the sole provider for a pile of people, and/or once cost-of-living goes down (e.g., paid off mortgage).

I was able to pay off my mortgage about a year ago (I am in my late 30s), and work has taken on a new aspect for me. I feel a bit more comfortable challenging the status quo and trying to take on more "interesting work". With that in mind, I am still attentive to the fact I need to maintain a sustainable career for another 25/30 years.

Re: Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

#117

Post by Tade0 »

The project I was working on was moved from Milan to Poland in what was most likely an effort to downsize the project and cut costs.

Odd choice of location given that hailing from Poland and having lived in Italy I had an opportunity to compare costs of employment and generally they're not that different.

Perhaps Milan is exceptional - can anyone from that location tell me whether €60k annual costs of employment are considered a lot for a senior developer?

Re: Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

#118

Post by Bukhmanizer »

farhadhf wrote: post #68
blentz wrote: post #55

I’ve been on the receiving end of similar requests before. “I’ll work for free or nothing if you let me do what I love under the umbrella of your organization because I love it so much.” I did one or two agreements like this and then stopped altogether. The individual would start their work, others would start to depend on its existence and the individual would leave in a matter or weeks or months because something e…

I have some similar experiences. Especially with people saying "let me do what I love" or "give me a position where I can learn new things". People like variety - the initial love doesn't last long. After a few weeks/months it gets boring and repetitive. Learning the shiny new tech is only fun until you you've figured out how it works, but the project doesn't end there and you have to deliver a product in the end. Bu…

I feel like this is me with side projects sometimes. Do you have any tips for staying on target?

I generally don’t have this issue in my actual job.

Re: Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

#119

Post by daemonk »

Hiring is a lot of the times more about finding someone that'll fit in your current team than about an individual with a lot of skill/enthusiasm. You don't sound very reliable and that would be my main concern. Even if you were working for nothing, it would still be a waste of the time invested if you are just going to leave in a month or two.

You should go into academia. I think that model is more what you are looking for.

Re: Hire me and pay what you want, just give me interesting work

#120

Post by ska »

beaconstudios wrote: post #82
ftruzzi wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely understand your point of view and I would think the same if I were you, but that's probably the kind of work I'm trying to avoid. I only have one life, and I just don't want to be paid to "stay around and do the boring bits", or at least not full-time and in an office. Just as an example, having to stay in the office if there's nothing else to do for the day was absolutely soul-crushing for me. I might b…

if you don't care about pay and you want to work on interesting projects, why not start your own? people typically get jobs because they have bills to pay, not because it's fun. If you are in a position where you don't need to pay the bills with work, then you're in a great position and can have fun all day long - so why not just do that? If you work on something that also turns out to be marketable then you might ev…

> work on interesting projects, why not start your own?

For what it's worth, many people who don't need the paycheck, or don't need a particular paycheck still go to a "real" job just because the scope of what they can do on their own doesn't match what they want to achieve.

People also join projects to learn things that are harder/less efficient to learn on your own.

I'm certainly not saying you can't do an interesting project on your own, just that many people are interested in projects they can't practically do on their own. Some might scratch that itch with an open source project or whatever, but especially if it requires hardware development, it may not be practical for many individuals.

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