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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

#291

Post by bikingbismuth »

foobarian wrote: post #179
bikingbismuth wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Many people in my circle are proud of paying off mortgages, so I kind of assumed by default that it is a worthwhile thing. But looking at the numbers I'm not so sure: it seems much better in current market to cash out as much as possible and let that money sit in an index fund. I guess the main issues are some risks with downturns and/or liquidity.

I completely agree that it wasn't the right financial decision, but I don't regret it at all. I grew up working poor and watched multiple people lose their houses (some crash related, others not). This gave me a fairly conservative risk tolerance regarding debt. I feel "lighter" without debt hanging over me.

The question that ultimately convinced me to just pay off my mortgage was "If someone gave you a house, free and clear, would you mortgage it to buy investments?". My gut reaction was "no, I would really like to have a free and clear house."

I have considered buying a second home to rent, but I have some moral qualms about exacerbating the housing crisis where I live. Furthermore, the stress of tenants isn't something I really want to deal with.

Everyone here has great points about maximizing returns, and I know I will have less money in the long run because of my decision. With that in mind, I am investing about half of my old mortgage payment, and the rest goes to the family vacation fund.

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

#292

Post by splistud »

bumby wrote: post #224
jedberg wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. None of those people account for the time value of money. If I could get an interest only mortgage I would (where I literally pay to rent the money). There are so many better things I can do with a few hundred thousand dollars now. If you have the money to pay off your mortgage, why not buy a second house with it and rent that out? Let someone pay your mortgage while you get the appreciation? Or invest…

I think the part that needs to be factored into your analysis is the volatility/risk aspect. A mortgage may be relatively low ROI but it’s also relatively low risk compared to the market. E.g., maybe somebody has a certain percentage invested into low risk bonds. Maybe it makes sense to pare back some of that and put it towards their mortgage during a period when bonds are being crushed. Neither bonds or the mortgage…

The 'mortgage return' will compete very well over a long period of time, especially if you ensure the comparison is fair. For instance, 15 years in, when your mortgage note is 60 to 70% of prevailing rent or lease, consider the return on that savings as part of the 'mortgage return' - because this is part of the return in the form of inflation hedge.

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

#293

Post by tyrex2017 »

I dont understand the OP and others who feel it is soul crushing to do stupid tasks.

For one, whats the big deal? I can put in the difficult hours and continue. Secondly, often, what is considered inefficient and stupid is not, or just cant be done better because organizations are not perfect.

Having said that, OP, I have lots of respect for your strength to go for what you want.

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

#294

Post by aembleton »

plutonorm wrote: post #258
tarsinge wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Problem solving

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

#295

Post by MarblePillar »

reggieband wrote: post #247

So many responses here are of the type: "My org couldn't hire someone like that for legitimate reasons". They then list a series of fears they might have with such an employee. This is typical engineering thought, a pessimism firmly rooted in avoidance of problems. Engineers tend to focus on what can go wrong so that they can avoid negative outcomes. One myopia of our discipline is we don't often consider "what would…

That isn't just "so many responses", that is every single response. Never try to sell an engineer anything, especially not "your self".

Fortunately, engineers don't dispense budget.

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

#296

Post by username90 »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #285
toomuchtodo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stability and work life balance are terribly underrated.

I'll take a boring stable 40 hour a week job over a fun job that somewhat frequently requires 50+ hours. Time is the only thing I cant get back. Money really is just a number after a certain point.

Why do you still work for others if money is just a number at this point? I worked for Google for a while and quit to do my own projects once I had enough money that I felt it didn't matter any more.

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

#297

Post by caffeine »

plutonorm wrote: post #249
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…

But this is my personality. Given repetitive work I become depressed quite quickly. I say this as a 40 yo who understands themselves well. Yes I can struggle through, but this career has brought me to the brink of suicide on two occasions. Working to the grind of an agile development cycle is poison to me, it drains all color from the world. I'd rather break my bones. Where is the space for people of my color? Who dr…

You have to do your own thing ... usually that's bad advice but for people with the temperament you describe I think it's reasonable.

Also a lot depends on expectations and finding good partners. In a previous job I worked with another guy as a team. I would start projects and get an MVP out and delivering value - then move on to the next thing. He would go through and essentially rewrite them to be high quality, solidly engineered products, well integrated with the rest of the stack.

We both got to do what we enjoyed and were good at: I am very fast at breaking new ground and delivering new value, and find engineering a bit boring. He was very good at improving existing systems, but too slow and plodding to try out new ideas effectively.

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

#298

Post by salil999 »

dragosmocrii wrote: post #62
salil999 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their GitHub profile has more than 3 projects - you might have only looked at the pinned ones. But overall, I somewhat agree with Francesco. I used to work at a large corporation where majority of the work was minor config changes and rolling out deployments for handsome pay (somewhat KTLO work). I left because I wasn't growing my career. As companies get bigger the money gets bigger as well but the interesting work…

But if the work becomes smaller, and they pay bigger, doesn't that mean you now have more time on your hands and more financial security to do something that piques your interest? I understand that one would like to switch from a boring but well paid job, in order to grow their career, but I feel this is for people who need to be told what to do. If you're not that type of person, you have so many opportunities for g…

> But if the work becomes smaller, and they pay bigger, doesn't that mean you now have more time on your hands and more financial security to do something that piques your interest?

I actually used to think similarly. I might have worded it badly but when I mean the work becomes smaller I am talking about scope and impact - not necessarily the effort required. The example I can give is what I described above: config changes. At a high level it sounds pretty simple but when you delve deeper into how your company/team works with such technologies then there are many barriers in place which hinder you from getting work done efficiently. And processes are slow. In my old team it used to take ~a month to deploy our software world-wide.

You are correct about financial security. At least for me, I am not comfortable enough taking a risk to start something on my own or make a big career change.

I think the overall goal is that you SHOULD be told what to do - up to a certain extent. I am a software engineer so an example for me would sound like "design me a system that does this" or "a customer is asking for this feature request" and that's it. Everything else can and should be left upon the engineers to figure out. Good engineers will design a good system with respect to time for delivery and feature request compatibility.

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

#299

Post by tyrex2017 »

jrh206 wrote: post #29

This attitude comes across as a little arrogant, and I'm not sure whether it's warranted without a host of achievements to back it up. Nevertheless, I hope the best for the author, who seems to know what they want. I think they would have better success by actively seeking what they want, though, rather than expecting it to turn up at their doorstep.

imho this post is pretty much going for what you want! :)

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

#300

Post by watwut »

plutonorm wrote: post #262
fnord77 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 are stimulated by new ideas and and general patterns? To those kinds of people writing how something that already exists works is supremely boring. It doesn't require narcissism

The difference is in whether you are willing to do the part that is not the most simulating but useful or whether you expect others to put up and do it instead of you.

And generally z others are as bored by that work as you, as simulated by new thing. Pretty often, the difference is not in how much you like boring parts, but in whether you are willing to do it anyway.

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