We need someone who has done “it” before
My career gas been a little odd. I earn less than some, but more than most. But I don&#x27;t ever really feel like I&#x27;ve worked a day in my life. I get paid ${ridiculous_sum_of_monies} to play with cool toys. I find interesting problems people have, and then I sign up for that. Some days are more difficult than others, but I am not interested building yet another &quot;it.&quot; I am always looking for the &quot;it+1&quot; or &quot;it+that&quot; or &quot;it*n&quot; or &quot;it&#x2F;time&quot; or &quot;it=&gt;(return null)&quot;<p>I think I am more tactical in my approach to my career, rather than strategic. I don&#x27;t really have an end goal. I am not looking to maximize income or climb to the top. I see people racing ahead of me every day, younger people chasing up the corporate ladder to earn millions or get that VP role at BigMegaCorp. And they are so successful. And I know that isn&#x27;t in my mental makeup to want that.<p>I made a comment on another thread about &quot;I will stop work the day that I die&quot; and someone else pointed out that was the saddest thing they ever read. For me, it isn&#x27;t. Because I don&#x27;t define &quot;work&quot; as toiling away on a souless project without meaning, or building yet another CRUD app (doing &quot;it&quot;), or not finding meaning in my work.<p>I play.<p>Every day.<p>And I&#x27;m happy.<p>And when someone tries to get me to do something that is more like &quot;bullshit jobs&quot;, I&#x27;ll tolerate it for a while if it is &quot;we need to do this to ship.&quot; I am willing to do whatever it takes to make the project a success, and if that means I have to push a broom about for a while, cleaning up dust, I will. But if my role becomes permanently that, and we&#x27;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&#x27;d do the kind of work I do for free, even if I wasn&#x27;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 probably 90% of software engineers, if they are honest with themselves, probably are doing absolutely meaningless work that nobody wants.