Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?
I highly recommend doing what I have done most of my career. Get a job at smaller to medium sized non-tech company. Every company, in any industry, has computers. They need you. You don't have to work with a bunch of tech or finance people. You can get a job working with chill people in some other industry with a better culture.When it comes time to negotiate, negotiate HARD. And not just for money, but especially time. Ask for so much that you think they will laugh or be scared away. If they say no, you lose nothing. Eventually the right opportunity will appear. I didn't think anyone would say yes to a 4-day work week, but I kept asking. Eventually someone said yes.The one worry I am having these days is how long this strategy will remain viable. As SaaS and low/no code solutions proliferate, it makes little sense for non-tech companies to build when they can buy. This is especially true as engineer compensation continues to rise. Engineers who congregate at SaaS companies can build better products than a handful out on their own who are building a solution for just one company. Increasingly, the only engineers that non-tech companies need are people to manage their data, people to glue the SaaS APIs together, and maybe some frontend people to put a custom interface on it.