My career has been a little odd. I earn less than some, but more than most. I don’t ever really feel like I’ve worked a day in my life. I get paid $$$ to play. I find interesting problems, and I sign up for that. Some days are difficult. I am not interested building yet another “it.” I am always looking for the “it+1” or “it+that” or “it*n” or “it/time” or “it=>(return null)”
I am more tactical than strategic in my career path. I don’t have an end goal. I’m not looking to min/max income or position. People race ahead of me, younger people chasing that brass ring at BigMegaCorp. I know that isn’t in my mental makeup to want that.
I made a comment once that “I will stop work the day that I die” and someone pointed out it was the saddest thing they ever read. For me, it isn’t. Because I don’t define “work” as toiling away on a souless project without meaning, or building yet another CRUD app (doing “it”).
I play.
Every day.
And I’m happy.
And when someone tries to get me to do something that is more like “bullshit jobs”, I’ll tolerate it for a while if “we need to do this to ship.” I am willing to do whatever it takes to ship. If that means I have to push a broom about for a while, I will.
But if my work becomes permanently that, and we’ve shipped, or we keep delaying our ship date and the bullshit goes on too long, I wander off to find something else to play with. I do what I do out of love for my work, but not out of love for my job or love for a company. I’d do the kind of work I do for free, even if I wasn’t getting paid. But I still want to get paid for my production. I think I have an incredibly privileged position and I realise that over 90% of software engineers, if they are honest with themselves, probably are doing absolutely meaningless work that nobody wants.