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Ask HN: Any jobs that don't force you to always be advancing career wise?

108 points throwaway929997 | 1 comments | 14 Mar 25 14:17 UTC | HN request time: 0.555s | source

(Throwaway for hopefully obvious reasons) I’m a software developer (web, fullstack) that’s been in the industry for about 10 years now and I’ve gotten to a point where I don’t care about advancing my career. My current title is Senior Software Engineer and, if I had it my way, I would be happy to keep that title for the rest of my career. I tried being a manager for a bit and hated it, and, in a similar fashion, the increased responsibility and scope of going down the road of Staff+ engineer holds no interest to me.

My only issue is that my current job has a very strong “up or out” mentality that I’m starting to push up against. And most other places I’ve worked at or talk about with friends seem to have similar attitudes toward career progression. I just want to do my job well, learn new things, and contribute to the businesses success. I don’t want to have to try and figure out with my manager what projects I should work on to make myself look good and be able to work my way up the ladder.

Has anyone worked somewhere that they felt they could just do their job without worrying about the career advancement aspect? I’ve contracted a bit and know that this would align well with this goal, but I enjoy having health insurance and not having to scrounge for work all the time.

1. jghn ◴[14 Mar 25 15:44 UTC] No.43363737[source]▶
Most companies have a similar profile. There's an up-or-out phase and then there's some level where it no longer matters. Because titles are all over the place it's hard to predict what that level is. But it roughly translates to the point where your value exceeds your cost. For most software companies this is usually the point where one is a very capable IC, able to work independently, as well as able to guide & mentor more junior employees. YMMV

It will never be the case that it's okay to coast for a long time at the lower/middle levels because in the grand scheme of things you're not worth the hassle for them.