[throwawaysleep]

Anecdotally, the idea of a career is dying among many I know. People just want the money.

So some of it is probably being Overemployed. I have a job where I am just doing the minimum to keep it.

Some of it is just waiting to be fired while their build their own businesses.

[anonzzzies]

> People just want the money.

I cannot imagine doing a job just for the money myself; I rather sleep under a bridge (probably not really but luckily I don’t have that issue).

I just cannot belief it’s true; people here whine about tech all the time and updating to the latest stuff etc while you can make 250-350/hr doing CRUD in Java + Oracle in enterprises with knowledge you hardly have to update for the past two decades. If you are really in it ‘only for the money’, you have a Delaware company, cayman accounts, live in dubai and you do multiple boring crud jobs for Fortune 500 companies that require no learning with max income and you invest that money in ETFs. You don’t build your own business (very large chance of failure aka wasted no-money time) or you build one by talking your vc friend in investing in you so there exists no waste. And you don’t wait to get fired, you try continuously to find more higher paying and easier stuff and just do it concurrently. In most boring non tech companies with 100k+ employees no one will notice you underperform as that is the norm.

[happytoexplain]

>I cannot imagine doing a job just for the money myself

Realistically, this is the source of 90% of misery in developed nations. It is logistically impossible for even half of all people to have jobs they enjoy so much it doesn't make them at least somewhat miserable doing it 40 hours a week.

[overtomanu]

It's not that easy to do Java+enterprise CRUD job. Even though there might not be much to learn technically, you will be expected to learn about functional/business rules related to the application. ERP software can be one of the most complicated soul sucking job. It is in here where stuff gets tough, in that you have to deal with legacy codebase, poorly documented rules, bug would have become feature etc.

If you don't bring more value to the table and just coast off without learning anything, you will not get hike and effectively be taking demotion year after year. You will not have any bargaining power since they can replace you with a new grad anytime.

[anonzzzies]

I agree somewhat, but we were talking about maximising money without caring about the work; that, at least to me, means I am working as a company for a company, not in a traditional job. Contracting as a company means I can deduct almost everything I buy and/or charge it to the client which means more money. It also means multiple clients and work from ‘my office’ (which looks a lot like my home) has been allowed forever as if you are a company they cannot dictate where you work. Demotion does not exist; they can just tell me they don’t need my services anymore: I have too many clients so I have to say ‘in 6 months’ anyway and get offers all the time for more.

And yes you are right about the learning but that happens automatically when you are building ERP stuff. But that’s always the case: my point is: if you chase the newest tech crap, you are not focusing on making max money as you don’t need to update your tech knowledge. No one cares about that outside the tech realm. For both old and new tech, the business rules you learn by doing and you start to see patterns fairly fast so the next project will be similar to the current. I don’t want to think how many times I implemented almost identical employee benefits self service portals…

[overtomanu]

Yes, I was talking from the POV of employee. If I am going through the trouble of setting my own company and doing contracting job which involve similar work, then to maximize money for work, I would be thinking of offering some SaaS service via the company. If so many companies want a similar thing, then there is some gap in the market.

[anonzzzies]

Different budgets (in a lot of companies they don't have to do paperwork for a project that fits in the assigned budget, but monthly contracts have to be improved higher up and with the IT dep etc) and one doesn’t exclude the other; once I built it for that company I can recreate it and try to sell if I believe it's worth it. My first SaaS company actually was created (in 2001) when one of my enterprise clients said I was allowed to not only sell the solution we built for them but they would actually encourage their competitors to use it so they get new features without having to start a new project themselves. But we kept selling custom/from scratch implementations as well because some companies simply want to own things. The company still exists and sells the same product (very much changed over the years). Was built in Java.

[overtomanu]

yes that makes sense

[toomuchtodo]

You need the money to survive and none of the tech or business will matter in the end. Optimize accordingly.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39942397 (examples of useless work)

[anonzzzies]

If that is the case, you would end your life (as it doesn’t matter) or optimise the hell out of the apparently miserable time working like I said. Or maybe it does matter and people do pick jobs based on other factors IF they have the choice. And GP was talking about people with a choice as it seems choiceless people don’t hang on HN.

[toomuchtodo]

Or just coast, as others in the thread have mentioned. It is a perfectly fine choice if you can make it work.

If you “just cannot belief it’s true,” get out more. You haven’t talked to enough people.

[azinman2]

Are there really a lot of 250-350/hr jobs building crud apps for enterprises? Where is this market drawing from?

[anonzzzies]

Even in Europe I got those amounts for those types of jobs; I don’t do them anymore as I don’t like them anymore (when I started out it was interesting and sometimes challenging work, now it’s just crud; I can dream up those things without effort), but if you have a bit of a network of enterprise management types, you can get more and more of those gigs. Usually departmental apps which every dep will have done ‘their own way’ (which means it’s all the same but built from scratch every time).

[AndriyKunitsyn]

So somebody is going to pay 250$/hr for a job requiring only stale public knowledge? Why hasn't it been outsourced yet?

If I only cared about money, I'd probably just make drugs :)

[Brian_K_White]

What career?

Companies haven't been loyal to employees in a long time, so now they get to enjoy employees not being loyal to them.

[eru]

> Companies haven't been loyal to employees in a long time, [...]

Some companies have, some companies haven't.

[zzzzzzzzzz10]

Career, dont make me laugh - the concept was failing for my dad already.

There is no loyalty or trust from companies and you can be axed at any minute without notice. It's time to realize that a "career" was just indentured service with extra steps. Take what you can from corporations and give nothing back.

[MattPalmer1086]

If you see a career as some kind of progression within a single company, then sure. I always saw it as my own progression, and I've rarely stayed at a single company longer than 2 years. I have no loyalty to companies, and I don't expect it from them either. Doesn't mean I don't have a career!