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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

#271

Post by quentin_dck »

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…

The way you talk about the work culture you want to avoid makes me think you might be interested in "opale" companies and the way they operate. Check "Reinventing Organisations" by Frederic Laloux, there are a couple of software and none software company examples which might be of interest to you.

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

#272

Post by augustk »

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…

Personally I love doing the finishing touches but I'm usually not allowed to because the feature or product is considered good enough. It's hard to find a job where everyone really care about quality.

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

#273

Post by DiggyJohnson »

cletus wrote: post #211
teachingassist wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I agree the author hasn't emphasised those things. If I was in need of those things, I might not automatically engage with the author. But, you've given a list of what you don't like doing - that isn't a universal list. Given that the author asks to be deeply involved in a human-centred project, it is not obvious to me that they don't like or are not prepared to do these things.

The specific list of things doesn't matter. It'll vary from person to person and project to project. The point is, there'll always be something. My point is that if you're signaling from the outset that you want to cherrypick those things then I, as your employer, don't actually know what you will or won't do. I don't know if you'll follow up on tricky-to-reproduce bugs (as an example) because that's "boring". That's…

I genuinely think that you are missing the author's point, and thus precisely not the target of this article.

In my reading of the article, I did not get the impression that the author is opposed to the specific, discrete components of the job that he found "lame".

If the demands of the article are truly impossible (socially and/or economically), then I believe that is the *point*, not a criticism of this post.

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

#275

Post by pinky1417 »

wpietri wrote: post #257
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 ver…

Right. The key passage is under rule 1 from the article: “You will give me interesting or meaningful work.”

First, the author says interesting OR meaningful work. So even if it’s true that the developer won’t be interested in, say, writing documentation for a legacy steel manufacturer, this developer might be happy to do so for a good non-profit.

Second, the author never said documentation and the like weren’t interesting. Perhaps that’s true, but Francesco merely wrote that he prefers Python over PHP and had a few industries he thought were interesting.

We all have skills and industries were interested/not interested in. And I think we and Francesco generally recognize some unpleasant work must be done in any field.

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

#276

Post by DiggyJohnson »

throwawayboise wrote: post #231
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…

Exactly. I hire you (and pay you) to do what I need to be done, not what you want to do. Of course we both look for a situation where there is a lot of overlap in these things, because that means you are a good match for the job I am offering. But it will never be 100%.

How does the experience of a consultant fit into this evaluation?

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

#277

Post by username90 »

plutonorm wrote: post #254
toomuchtodo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stability and work life balance are terribly underrated.

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

Yeah, personally having a large chunk of the day be simple tedious tasks I don't have any control over makes me depressed and every day becomes a fight to keep the mental breakdown just out of reach. I envy people who can stay sane in such environments, makes life a lot easier.

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

#278

Post by tolbish »

fnord77 wrote: post #215
regularemployee wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is doing a bunch of stuff people don't enjoy I enjoy writing documentation and writing tests. To me, writing documentation is like teaching others about the awesome product / features we have built, and also the different technical tradeoff decisions we had to make. I can't grasp the mindset where an engineer builds something really cool that they are proud of, but don't enjoy talking about it / teaching people how…

it's almost like a form of solipsistic narcissism (the way The Last Psychiatrist describes it). Nobody else exists except as a supporting role. Why should they have to explain their genius work to anyone...

Or they just don't like writing? That's quite the leap.

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

#279

Post by ggggtez »

harikb wrote: post #66
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…

You may want to rephrase your proposal a bit. Include the part that you are willing to do the boring parts of an otherwise interesting project. The way it is worded, it would sound to me, as a hiring manager, that you might not finish the work. Because we all know the prototyping / experimentation part of a project is the most challenging and rewarding. Taking it live will involve dealing with the boring parts. I am…

> The way it is worded, it would sound to me, as a hiring manager, that you might not finish the work

You read that correctly. The OP said clearly he has no intention to do documentation or testing, meetings, or much of anything other than just write code for about 40 hours and then quit.

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