[loxs]

One of my goals in life is to never be susceptible to this kind of situation (been there some years ago). So far I manage to have as big a financial buffer as needed to be able to quit instantly in that situation without batting an eye.

Indeed I never hide my ability to do so and I try to make very clear the things "I won't do" at any gig I take. Either before I start or very early in the process. At my current job it is "I won't program in a language without both types and IDE". Because of this I only work on the parts that are in TypeScript and the the JS, Ruby and Python parts are other people's problems.

I may seem like an asshole, but so far it works. Almost a year later I haven't been fired. And they seem happy about my work. And I am definitely not near burnout. Stark contrast with the older days.

[noir_lord]

You don’t to me, I spent the last 4 months saving every penny to so that I had 7mths runway in the bank as I was approaching the inevitable “fuck this point”.

I accepted an offer for a new job yesterday and so I won’t need that buffer but I’m keeping it, ISA’s and pensions are all good but I didn’t leave myself enough readily accessible cash to just say fuck it and walk if I needed to.

[jacquesm]

Smart person. Now don't stop saving and increase your runway even further. The difference between having a few years worth in the bank and not is incredible.

[noir_lord]

New offer comes with a big salary increase (and me and my partner are saving for a house) so I'm going to be able to save about 70% of my salary after all outgoings - outside of work my goal now is to max out ISA's and then save the rest until I have enough to cover at least 2 years - I noticed there is a peace that comes from having immediate access to enough money to quit (even if you have no intention).

[bartread]

I actually think this is a fair enough approach: better to be doing something you're happy doing than to be miserable and complaining, that's for sure.

There is, of course a trade-off, which I'll illustrate with our situation. I'll only hire full stack developers, by which I mean people who are willing to turn their hand to anything in our systems, because it gives us more flexibility in terms of building teams, working across sytems, providing support, and so on. But we're a relatively small tech organisation with a lot of demands on us and so need that flexibility. People obviously have areas of specialty, but broadly they'll poke around in any system they need to.

I'm not saying you're wrong: not at all. Just that the trade-off is perhaps more limited options. That may not be a bad thing if they're not options you want though.

[virgilp]

> I may seem like an asshole, but so far it works

I do the same, it's amazing how well it works. As long as you genuinely try putting (what you think is) the company interest first, people actually appreciate you more if you don't do what you're told, but what you think is best. At least that's my experience so far. And it makes sense - because not everybody can afford to challenge the status quo & conventional wisdom, people that can do it can become very valuable.

[hef19898]

Depends on the people so. I usually fail at the point when personal interests and politics come into play. Which is my most common "fuck this" event.

[C1sc0cat]

With out an IDE is a bit of a redflag - all developers need to be able to hack with just a cli, yes its not ideal but some times you have to do it.

A very experienced dep/ops in extrimis should be able to hack code even if there is no installed editor - I have recovered a stuck systems by editing config files with awk.

[loxs]

Used to do this when I was young, not any more. It's not that I can't I just refuse work with "hackish" languages, tools and projects.