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Comment by johansch | Hacker News Reader

The problem with those of us who make money in the tech field is that it's often pretty much binary.. all work pretty much all the time (and decent to great money) or no work (living on savings). Add to this employer's resistance to hire if you have you haven't been working lately... :/

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I've thought of this. I've been living off savings for quite a few years, but it would be nice to do a bit of work for extra money / challenge / variety. But it seems unlikely that anyone would employ me.

Try contracting.

That is easy as an individual contributor but harder when what you do is running engineering teams.

Then don't run engineering teams :) - assuming you can code. When I realized most software companies treat engineers better than they do managers, I switched. I actually can't recall a single employer who didn't treat the engineers at least as well as the (non-executive) management. It's not a panacea, but there is a more regular sense of achievement and less BS.

I think you may be on to something. Whenever I fall back to actual coding I do feel happier...

Being a non-executive manager, as you imply, is often the shittiest of jobs. :/

I think you're right, but there are plenty of companies (especially startups with new founders/inexperienced engineers/no engineers) that could use some help with running a software team. It's definitely doable.

Apparently being a 'virtual CTO' is a thing these days. Might be worth looking into.

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