There are only three dev jobs:
- Hate the job
- Feel neutral
- Love the job

Two are choices that you make because of where you are in your life. The other choice you get stuck with and only stay long enough to avoid damage to your reputation.

Baby or bills? Often the middle choice is the best choice. Dream jobs come at a massive cost and risk to your personal stability.

I went from the the best job I’ve ever had to pretty much the worst.

@Root I think it's better if you do it in the reverse order.

I am at a strange point. My salary is good, but I feel like my skills are improving and given that rising confidence there is probably a much higher salary to be earned elsewhere with my skills.

But my project manager is great, so is the team I work with and it feels like a cuddly bubble of happiness.

Sure, I have to deal with the upper management every now and then, coming up with decisions while being on drugs or something, cause their ideas are not in any way connected to reality. But considering what I have already seen in the industry, that's a minor complaint.

Thinking about staying on long-term, because the salary is good enough to live a good life and work no longer drives my mental health into a wall.. Kinda seems preferable to a bigger paycheck.

Provided things stay as they are out become even better. If investors and upper management finally managed to screw up the ecosystem we have, pretty sure everyone will be gone within months.

then there is the option of "work to live not live to work"
Get as good as possible to work 50% for an average 100% job's pay.

I agree with the last statement. Great things in life come at a very high cost.

@heyheni “Work to live not live to work” is either of the bottom two. You might take something awful just to survive. Or you do some stuff but and don’t worry too much about it. If you are working for the pay check you are either neutral about the job or hate it.

@irene that sounds to me very unhealthy american tbh.

hypothetical questions....
Do you feel guilty when taking a day off ? Are you feeling at unease just slacking off and not being productive? Do you define your selfworth only by how many overtime hours you work, money you make and which consumer status symbols you own?
Do you see life as a contest who can endure the most suffering?

@heyheni I’m not even an American so painting me with that caricature is kinda on you.

I had a “dream job” for a while and I was so engaged by how much I loved it that the rest of my life became secondary importance. Obsessive love of a job comes with opportunity costs. It doesn’t matter where on the planet you are. You have a purpose and you lean into it.

Right now I feel neutral about work. At the end of the day I don’t think about it much. The job isn’t super important. It isn’t the high or lows. It’s meh. I’m not eager for change because the stability is very good for my family now.

I had a job that I hated that paid well. It was such a nightmare that I almost committed suicide in a moment of mental anguish.

Basically every job I have done in tech falls into one of the three categories. The majority of jobs are in the middle. You tolerate the work, take your cheque, then try to forget when you get home. So basically work to live not live to work.