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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: 0.211s | 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.

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fancyfredbot ◴[14 Mar 25 15:18 UTC] No.43363467[source]▶
Try to think of this from the organisation's point of view. The up or out culture serves two purposes. It helps ensure senior roles go to people they know well and trust, and it ensures there is room for other ambitious and motivated people to move up.

In other words the whole objective is to have a well run organisation with motivated employees. The objective is definitely not to force hard working and talented people to leave.

If you are hard working and talented it's incredibly unlikely they will want to push you out and then go through the whole process of hiring and training a replacement. It's worth having a conversation with your manager before looking for a new job.

replies(1): >>43363862 #
1. pbronez ◴[14 Mar 25 15:55 UTC] No.43363862[source]▶
Yes. Once I was leaving a managerial role for a lateral transfer and helped choose my replacement. One candidate was a high performing individual contributor. They felt obligated to apply for the job, but didn't really want it. They liked their current job and did it well. They were assured that they're welcome to continue as an IC at their current level as long as they continue to perform at their current level.

Worked out great. They have their role and continue to enjoy it and perform well. The managerial role went to someone with clear upward intention, who is also enjoying it and performing well.