Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

truzzi.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 418 posts

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

#251

Post by plutonorm »

christophergs wrote: post #174
farhadhf wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well said. This is why engineers who know how to finish the last 10% are truly valued by good colleagues and managers.

And those who aren't like that by nature are much less useful I suppose?

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

#252

Post by andrewfromx »

now here we go, I had this exact same feeling after doing a contract job recently. I'm going to place this url (https://truzzi.me/hire-me-pay-what-you-want-interesting-work...) into a db and start a site and also add my own profile and... wait, how will this different from linkedin? its like at some point, I need a MOTIVATED programmer that will give me that 24/7 move mountains full effort. Like there is famous James Cameron quote while he was filming 1997 Titanic movie, something about his top professionals needed to play like it was the superbowl. So like how does a company hire that vs. its all on them to make US interested in the project? I'm just playing devils advocate. I think there is a happy medium somewhere.

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

#254

Post by plutonorm »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #23
lnsru wrote: post #13

I have nice boring job. Few years ago I was upset with the boring part. But with kids and mortgage I don’t really care anymore. I am very happy to be paid more than a manager in a small company being only individual contributor in big Corp. I also have approval to sell my hardware from big Corp. So I can explore new things with commercial potential without a fear. Life is good.

Stability and work life balance are terribly underrated.

Depends on personality. For some its poison and burnout and depression are not far behind.

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

#255

Post by the_only_law »

freetime2 wrote: post #150
azhenley wrote: post #10

My advice: pursue a PhD. If you can find the right advisor, then you will have almost complete creative freedom to pursue interesting projects while getting paid to do it.

I have considered retiring from software development and pursuing a PhD. But I have heard some scary things about the culture and competitiveness in academia. Are there “laid back” PhD programs for people for people who don’t really have an interest in tenure track, but just want to learn and apply themselves to some novel problem?

How easy is it for someone to go back and just get a PhD. After recently being rejected from a handful of schools (albeit undergrad, not graduate) I’m starting to feel like academia only wants people who played into their game from the start.

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

#256

Post by codingdave »

I completely understand wanting a gig like this if you are a dev. But it seems to be missing a key truth of hiring - I already know a dozen brilliant engineers who would jump at such a gig. If my company supported setting this up, I would go with someone I already know and love, not risk it with a stranger.

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

#257

Post by wpietri »

cletus wrote: post #160

So there are two issues with this: 1. If I were looking to hire someone and read this, I would immediately be turned off. Why? Because part of being an engineer (or any employee really) is doing a bunch of stuff people don't enjoy doing. This includes: - Writing documentation - Writing tests - Fixing bugs - Talking to partners about a change/launch - Talking to lawyers - etc So I would be wondering: if you're signali…

I don't read this as a signal he won't do the work. From his talk about the stuff he enjoys doing, I don't doubt it includes things that feel work-like. He just wants the work to be meaningful. That seems reasonable to me, and that's how I am. As long as there's some point to the work, I'm happy to do the tedious stuff all day long.

I recently user-tested a job posting for a high-meaning job. [1] Some people were very excited by the meaning, and were strongly motivated to apply. Others cared very little or not at all about the purpose; they worked because they wanted money for other things. Both are perfectly valid ways to approach work, I think, but I would handle each kind of employee differently.

[1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yNITCTtVh5qHPof12cSf5PWh...

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

#258

Post by plutonorm »

tarsinge wrote: post #140
onion2k wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. That should literally never be the case for a developer though. You can always be improving the documentation, increasing the test coverage, optimizing for speed/bandwidth/complexity/some other metric you've measured, working out how to measure something, learning new tools or tech that coul…

> If you see those things as "the boring bits" that you don't want to do then you're not a developer. You're a hacker. Well put. Professional software is only a mean for business not an end by itself. I recommend not deriving your satisfaction from code only if you work for a company otherwise you risk to both spoil your hobby and always be unhappy at work.

So what do you derive satisfaction from if you don't enjoy coding for its own sake?

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

#259

Post by jpe90 »

Bukhmanizer wrote: post #118
farhadhf wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When I get stuck on projects that are very meaningful to me, I chip away at the pieces I don't want to do and allow myself to take as long as I need to complete them.

When I get stuck on projects that are not so meaningful to me, I reduce scope.

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

#260

Post by yongjik »

A generic advice: 15 years ago I might have felt similarly, but now I think it's the other way. If you want interesting work, demand higher pays and try to get into such positions.

When you're highly paid you will get more interesting work, because the company will see you as a valuable asset that should be working on "hard" things. When you're being paid a penny, the company will think you're worth a penny and will assign you menial tasks.

BTW I didn't really live up to my own advice, either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Post reply on HN