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

51–60 of 418 posts

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

#51

Post by the_only_law »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #35

It's so good to hear someone else put into words what I feel. Having fulfilling work has been absolutely my #1 goal for as long as I can remember, like since I was 12 or 13 years old, and by that I mean it's more important than getting married, saving for retirement, traveling, having fun. It is a constant thought every waking moment in my life, the same way when you're hungry it's on the forefront of everything you…

I was always deathly afraid of this, in fact I was never really interested in wage labor period. For some years my ideal was doing independent consulting where I had control, I could pick what I worked on and could get a ton of exposure both to technical issues and wider business experience.

Well it quickly became apparent that that really wasn’t an option for some dumb kid. I had tried freelancing for a few years but got sick of the overwhelming amount of people who just wanted me to update their WP site. After humming around for a year or so I gave up trying for anything greater and just accepted a string of low paying, “boring” development jobs.

> I genuinely believe that for those of us who feel this way, there is nothing else to do but pursue it.

Yeah I’m starting to feel this way again, so fuck it, might as well. I haven’t been nearly as productive as I should have been the past years though. I have a better idea of what I want and there’s really only two choices. One of continuing stagnation or one of putting in the work and attempting to pursue something better. We’ll see though, I’m not betting on anything working out.

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

#52

Post by the_only_law »

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 have no problem whatsoever with staying around and doing the boring bits. But if those are exclusively the job, that’s when I take issue.

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

#53

Post by shubik22 »

I definitely sympathize with the author's dissatisfactions. It's difficult to find meaningful, interesting work that pays well, and when you find yourself sacrificing one part of that equation, it can be very disheartening.

However, the answer to this is not to just cut out the "pays well" part of the equation and assume that the rest will follow as a result. As others in the comments here have pointed out, interesting work is hard to find, full stop.

I would actually think that the non-conventional nature of the author's offer would actually decrease the quality of the work. In my experience, work can be enjoyable based on two dimensions: the technical aspect of the work (am I learning? is this engaging?) and the "organizational" nature of the work (is the company well organized and run? are there clear expectations? or is there just chaos everywhere?). Even if work you can find from this kind of offer is better on the first dimension, I imagine it'll be far worse on the second dimension.

That being said, I hope the author proves me wrong and finds a work situation which makes them happy. Good luck!

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

#54

Post by op03 »

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…

That depends on your job title and where it falls on the explore-exploit spectrum.

If your job is to keep the gold mine running all your underlings are working on the mine. If they go do something else its a waste of your time and resources.

If your job is to explore the jungle for new mines, then the story is very different. Its more about finding as many curious cheap chimps as you can and sending them out in every direction. In such cases imaginative managers use all the chimps they can find.

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

#55

Post by blentz »

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 else better came along for them. There was no incentive to keep the relationship going over a longer term. My organization just wasn’t setup to see any upside to short lived but high quality team members.

Is there anyone out there who does work agreements like this currently and benefits from them? Would love to hear more details. Perhaps that feedback could help Franceso with his pitch.

Franceso please come back in a week and let us know what kinds of offers you received. Will be very interested to see where this goes.

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

#56

Post by arcturus17 »

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 read a post about Gumroad here on HN, and that's how I want to work. The way Gitlab does it is also very interesting.

But surely they do a lot of boring work at those companies too, as in all tech companies?

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

#57

Post by PascLeRasc »

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…

The ATX breakout board looks great, thanks for pointing it out! I think that's a good example of an interesting/fulfilling project, since those generally don't exist and the author talks about how it was a direct request from regular people, not some corporate directive.

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

#59

Post by bserge »

the_only_law wrote: post #34
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 didn’t even know Apple or any of the other FAANG’s hired freelancers.

Quite a few "AI" companies hire their "AI" via intermediaries like Lionbridge and Appen heh

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

#60

Post by ftruzzi »

arcturus17 wrote: post #56
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…

> I read a post about Gumroad here on HN, and that's how I want to work. The way Gitlab does it is also very interesting. But surely they do a lot of boring work at those companies too, as in all tech companies?

Of course, but if it's part-time and full remote then it doesn't take away most of your day/life and I would have no problem with that. I also do translation work which can be tedious at times but I really enjoy it because I can do it from anywhere and just a few hours per week.

The "needs to be interesting" part is more tied to the "pay what you want" thing.

Post reply on HN