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

108 points throwaway929997 | 10 comments | 14 Mar 25 14:17 UTC | HN request time: 0.805s | source | bottom

(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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pelagicAustral ◴[14 Mar 25 15:00 UTC] No.43363263[source]▶
Get the same job working for government. Work stability in government is unparalleled, and there is so much cruft and technical debt that you will literally spend up until your last breath fixing legacy code and trying to get people off ancient software systems.

You will stagnate, and nobody will give a shit. People will come and go next to you, but you will be stable through the ages, like a pillar in an ancient Roman temple... Seasons will leave behind memories, but the winds will not take you with them. You will prevail, no matter what. Maybe forgotten, maybe overlooked, but more certainly not underestimated.

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1. mrcsharp ◴[15 Mar 25 02:45 UTC] No.43369475[source]▶
This basically shows why DOGE is a thing. This sort of attitude is why governments are slow to achieve anything, why any government contract ends up over budget, etc...

I await your downvotes.

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2. kweingar ◴[15 Mar 25 04:22 UTC] No.43369955[source]▶
If the government was a dynamic work environment, it would burn just as much money. But instead of saying "the project went over budget", they'd say "we executed a strategic pivot."

Instead of employees "stagnating", employees would launch all sorts of initiatives and then abandon them after getting promoted.

Instead of maintaining legacy systems for decades, teams would turn down systems so that employees can work on shinier greenfield projects, leaving users in the lurch.

I do not oppose government efficiency. I support reforms to identify and eliminate waste in government. Unfortunately that's not what DOGE is doing.

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3. pelagicAustral ◴[15 Mar 25 05:22 UTC] No.43370186[source]▶
Not every software project needs the mentality you want to stamp on it. Most software in the world is boring, stagnant, legacy code. Maybe it was 'hip' one time, no one cares... that's the reason we have tons of COBOL still running around...

I am not here to tell you what we SHOULD do. Not to tell you who SHOULD get a job. My point is to tell you that some people, in this crazy world, want to do some work, and some of that work is not fancy, and for that they get a special place in the current environment.

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4. mrcsharp ◴[15 Mar 25 12:05 UTC] No.43371987[source]▶
> But instead of saying "the project went over budget", they'd say "we executed a strategic pivot."

Yeah, politicians already do this. They use different words but to the same effect.

I am not going to pretend I have the ultimate solution to all of this, but the idea that government employees get to sit there, do bare minimum for the entirety of their careers, and without any desire to improve anything for the sake of the people they serve (because clearly they forgot they work for the citizens of the country in which said government operates) is just so wrong. Maybe we deserve to live in mediocrity.

You can, at least, vote out a congress, house, or a parliament member if they are mediocre and not doing much (doesn't always happen but the option exists). Government employees are un-elected (technically) and get to spend their entire life in a "stable" job regardless of their performance. Is this status quo actually good for the country?

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5. mrcsharp ◴[15 Mar 25 12:15 UTC] No.43372035[source]▶
> My point is to tell you that some people, in this crazy world, want to do some work, and some of that work is not fancy, and for that they get a special place in the current environment.

And this is fine. It is good to recognize this and build around it. My comment and my annoyance is with the idea that the government is a good place to act as a, and I mean no offense, dumping ground for such people.

The reputation of government jobs being very stable attracts such people and they then form the majority and things stagnates and nothing improves because there is no will.

To be clear, I am not saying every government department should be a copy of google in how they work and hire. But a balance needs to be struck between keeping government departments stable and striving to trim the fat and improve.

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6. archagon ◴[15 Mar 25 18:31 UTC] No.43374334{3}[source]▶
> The reputation of government jobs being very stable attracts such people and they then form the majority and things stagnates and nothing improves because there is no will.

This is substantiated entirely by feels. Do you actually know any government workers?

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7. mrcsharp ◴[15 Mar 25 23:48 UTC] No.43375956{4}[source]▶
I'm only allowed an opinion on governments and government jobs if I personally know government workers? Do you know what "reputation" actually means?
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8. jghn ◴[15 Mar 25 23:52 UTC] No.43375979[source]▶
> Most software in the world is boring, stagnant, legacy code

Honestly as I get older I find myself starting to look to that world in a more appealing light. Call it the tech version of Barrista FIRE but there's a certain appeal to getting a job crunching boring ass enterprise Java for some stupid company, getting a decent wage (relative to the rest of the country, not tech in general) and reasonable benefits.

9. archagon ◴[15 Mar 25 23:53 UTC] No.43375982{5}[source]▶
Can you discern between genuine reputation and conservative propaganda?
10. kweingar ◴[17 Mar 25 09:17 UTC] No.43386523{3}[source]▶
If you want private sector work ethic, you gotta pay private sector salaries.

(Many federal employees have a better work ethic than the average private sector worker. But you can't make that an expectation if you're paying less than they could make elsewhere.)