Ask HN: How to Get Back into Working?

4 points by vbh21 3 years ago | 3 comments

Hi HN: Out-of-work dev here. And I have a ton of experience working in tech as a top-level dev.

Now, after having left work due to personal reasons, I don’t feel like returning to work at smaller companies/faang due to fear of office politics and lack of challenging work.

I can work on open-source and my own projects but seem to not want to go back into work-life as it was before the pandemic struck.

Any advice you have for me will be much appreciated. I seem to have lost passion for my work but I need to be able to pay my bills.

readonthegoapp 3 years ago |

don't think i understand what smaller companies and faang have to do with office politics that other companies are not supposed to have...

outside of that, can't say i'm confident this is great advice but i do try to follow it, for better or worse.

Chomsky says something like, "find a problem you are interested in solving, then try to solve it."

that seems to me like a pretty good way to go.

maybe go for a 4 day work week. that leaves a real weekend, at least. to me, a 4-day, at $100k+ salary, is worth a salary reduction of at least 20%, maybe more, but that's just me. many places will claim to pay the full 100%.

i always think of Monograph -- project mgmt software for architects -- i've no connection to them:

https://monograph.com/jobs

this site lists 4-day jobs, if not many of them:

https://4dayweek.io/

also, contracting can give you a nice separation of YOU from THE COMPANY.

HN has their monthly "Who's hiring?" pages.

you're prob a bit depressed, so might want to do all the things that people say to do when that happens. oddly, going back to work might be a good thing, assuming it's not horrific.

hirundo 3 years ago |

You're over thinking it. You know that horrible feeling when you can't pay your bills? Work to avoid that. If tech work is the easiest way to do that, just do it for that reason. For many of us a passion for solvency is more reliable than a passion for the work itself. It is for me. Satisfying both passions on the job is a luxury.

elmerfud 3 years ago | |

This is truth. If you can find meaning of passion for your work that's great but don't believe these lies that is a requirement. Work is a way to get money and that provides a means to an end. Find what your end is and earning is easy.