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Ask HN: What jobs would allow you to program your own projects almost full time?

25 points by andrewstuart ↗ HN
I was wondering, there must be jobs that allow you to be paid for full time work, and spend most of your time coding.

The only job I could up with though is maybe car park attendant where you sit in the booth. If you found a quite carpark you might get to spend most of your time coding?

Any other jobs like this?

28 comments

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jleyank
Einstein thought that being a patent clerk was a good way to go. He did ok. More seriously, you have to pick a job that allows you to live but isn’t so physically draining or mentally deadening that you can’t think. Lash yourself to the wheel for 10-20 years, make a pile and you’re home free. Might have to choose where you live but the nets everywhere.
btrettel
USPTO patent examiner here. I don't think that being a patent examiner (clerk is the historical term) would be a good choice, and it probably wasn't a great choice when Einstein was an examiner either. The USPTO is based on a quota system and few examiners think the amount of time given is reasonable. The vast majority of newer examiners find the job stressful. The pay isn't particularly good given the amount of work and its difficulty. Einstein referred to himself as a "patent slave" in a letter, so that's why I think it wasn't particularly different back then. I think Einstein succeeded in spite of the disadvantages of being a patent examiner.

An earlier comment of mine along these lines: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30056203

(Note that this comment is only my opinion, not that of the USPTO, federal government, etc. They like to whitewash the problems at the USPTO. :-P)

devKnight
being a night shift security guard might work
ggeorgovassilis
Aren't you supposed to pay attention and watch out for danger in such a job?
tbihl
The great lie of security. At the level where much (most) of security operates, you're lucky not to have serious breaches of conduct generated from unending boredom.
giantg2
You are supposed to. In reality, many don't. If you're client facing or have cameras on you, you can be fired for not paying attention (or at least looking like you are).

Also, depending on your location it can be a very dangerous job (I believe more security officers are killed than police officers nationally).

spcebar
Most night shift jobs. A friend of mine worked as a concierge at a fancy building doing overnight shifts. She basically just sat there all night listening to podcasts. Someone might get locked out or there might be a noise complaint, but that was usually it. If you can manage the hours, that kind of work seems like a great opportunity to write a lot of code.
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notjustanymike
Get really good at excel, and quite a few jobs can be automated out of effort, freeing up your time. Just remember, never tell anyone you're good at excel.
badpun
You're basically asking "who's going to give me money for nothing?" Forgetting for a while the fact that it's THE holy grail of most of working population (and hence can be rather difficult to obtain), government jobs are your best bet, as it has the most inefficiencies. For example, the lady who sells tickets in a local museum in my city seems bored out of her mind, as there are basically no visitors there.
nonameiguess
Not sure what country you're in, but in the U.S., museums are non-profits. They aren't run by the government. Much of the staff is also volunteers. Actual civil servants tend to be more busy than less busy. The inefficiency of government, where it happens in public-facing jobs, is more to the sheer amount of bureaucracy and paperwork anyone needs to tackle do something, but busywork is still work. They're not being paid to sit around.

Very likely, things like manning an extremely low-traffic store or working night security at a place that never has any crime, anything where a warm body just needs to be present but whether work needs to be done entirely depends on whether anyone shows up or not, are your best bet.

Possibly babysitting. If you can get the kids to sleep or sit still watching television, you only need to be there and able to respond if necessary, not actively engaged through your entire shift.

tkk23
You could try house sitting.

Instead of seeking a job, why not create an environment that allows you to code? You could become a Youtube or Twitch streamer or you could seek angle investors that pay for your projects.

lakomen
"No one" watches coding streams. An insignificant number.

IRL streamers can be happy if they got over 8k viewers, politics get a lot more and them esports are the top of the pops.

Coding streams have less than 100 viewers, with the odd 300 viewers spike exception. Compare that to 55k viewers CSGO esports.

I wanted to do exactly that, but our profession is not a very entertaining one. Lots of unreadable text, lots of thinking, not much movement or action happening. And IMHO you can either work and get something done or you can entertain people, not both.

HeyLaughingBoy
Raising this a level... I don't know if you can do this anymore, but a long time ago (like ~25 years ago) a couple I know lived at very low rent in houses that were for sale, but where the owner had already moved out.

They were typically very nice and very expensive houses where the realtor needed the house to be in showable condition at a moment's notice, so in exchange for under 25% market rate rent, they just had to make sure that the house was clean and be ready to leave within an hour if there was going to be a showing. Since the houses were pretty pricy and upscale, they tended to take a very long time to sell so they were usually there for quite a while.

Not quite what OP wants, but almost free housing is nothing to sneeze at.

shapefrog
Being professionally unemployed.
leros
Being a junior developer. You'll get paid pretty well and only have a few meetings a week. Most of your time will be coding your own work.
Bhurn00985
Starting your own company can be pretty much this, but you'll have to build something other people want.
yrgulation
Yes that is the main question - what do people want?
msmenardi
Generally, people want to do less work so they can spend more time focused on their own dreams and aspirations.
fragmede
I see! So we should start a consulting firm to do less work for people.
jjk166
There are a lot of clerical jobs out there where the bulk of the work could be pretty easily automated by someone with moderate programming skills, thus potentially leaving you with many hours per week where you are expected to be working on a computer but don't have any urgent work tasks to accomplish.
walthamstow
SWE for a big, old non-tech company. My last job I was at a 140yo retailer in the UK and I basically did about 6 hours work a week
Mezzie
I was an overnight library technician at a university (11:30 PM to 7:30 AM).

That job had a lot of downtime, consistent internet/computer/resource access, and no censorship or blocking (since anything could be needed to answer an honest query).

There were a few weeks a year where I did more than 10 real hours of work. Mostly finals weeks.

thenoblesunfish
Edward Snowden described one of his jobs, in his books, as something he could mostly automate, and he was then mainly just waiting, on call. Perhaps you can find some sort of overnight government contractor sysadmin type of job?
HeyLaughingBoy
Posting this for the umpteenth time :-)

Someone I knew was an engineer at a water treatment facility. His job consisted of sitting around waiting for alarms to go off. He coded an entire (if basic) SCADA application while he worked there and sold it to the company I worked for.

So, you do need to be an engineer first if you're going to do this :-)

schwartzworld
I interviewed for a concierge position at a fancy building years ago. The guy made it very clear that most of the time was spent idle at the desk, and all the other concierges would bring laptops and do other work online.
tacostakohashi
Fire fighter.

Doorman, night shift.

Senior management.

speedylight
Night shift unarmed security guard, the holy trinity of getting paid to do nothing.