HN Explorer

Ask HN: Where can I work if I'm just a good developer?

9 points by hdhp ↗ HN
I live in the Bay Area and I’m exhausted trying to prepare and interview like I’m a 10x ultra high performing engineer that will transform everything I touch into solid gold if just given the chance. The truth is, I’m not this person and I don’t have any interest in becoming this person. I have a solid set of skills that I’ve worked hard to achieve, I take pride in my work and work well with others, and I’m confident I can do a good job once hired, but I am someone who does not want my work to be the defining characteristic of who I am. I just want work to be work and how I pay my bills so that I can do the things that bring me joy in life outside of work.

I feel like I’m at a crossroads in my career where I would need to do an enormous amount of self study, interview prep, and personal projects to get to the next level where most of the companies I have interviewed at seem to expect people to be at day one, and if I’m being honest with myself I don’t have the interest to do it anymore. I don’t want to spend my free time this way after already working a full time job where I write code all day, I’m not interested in learning the minute intricacies of technologies I already use at work, I have other ways I want to spend my time frankly.

Are there companies that exist that have a more realistic expectation of hiring and performance standards? I’m not asking for a free lunch, but just something where it’s enough to show up, put in a good day of productive work, then go home. I honestly feel like we (software engineers) take our profession and ourselves a little too seriously in general. Doctors get paged in emergency situations and might have to wake up in the middle of the night. The fact that I can be on call and have to wake up at 4 AM to debug an issue with an analytics dashboard is just ridiculous. Some companies are actually trying to go to 996 work schedules to “win” the AI race, like what is going on here?

9 comments

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bigyabai
My sincere advice: move out of the Bay Area.
nico
Definitely wouldn't recommend

Highest concentration of software engineering jobs are in the Bay Area, especially well paid ones. Even in LA is hard to find good software engineering roles outside of FAANG

In the Bay, the ratio of companies<>candidates is higher, ie. there are fewer candidates per engineering role than pretty much anywhere else

To OP: being in the Bay Area you might be perceived as a better candidate, even if subconsciously. So maybe try getting a remote job while still there, then move somewhere else. Or just keep looking. Especially here on HN, in the Who is hiring threads, there are plenty of well-funded startups that can pay good salaries and struggle to find engineers (but only hire locally in the Bay)

msgodel
The future of software is likely self employment. A lot of people haven't realized it yet but AI makes the corporation obsolete.
tjr
You might like working in aerospace.
al_borland
Pretty much every company has some software component to it these days, even if it’s for internal tooling. Find a normal company and work on that stuff, not a “tech company”.
squeegee_scream
There are probably tons of companies that fit this profile. I don't have any tricks for finding them, but you're going to have to do the research on companies including asking current employees. If they have a very rigorous interview process then you might want to skip that company.
gaws
Move away from the Bay Area.
UnknownUser1234
996? I’ve been working hours like that for a long time.