I think I found what I want to do, but who offers this job position? | Hacker News Reader

I think I found what I want to do, but who offers this job position?

3 pointsshapiro924 comments

Hello all!

So in short after almost 5-6 years of working, I think I might have found what I actaully want to do!

Background, I am a web developer, worked in startups and big corps and then started also my own startup which ended :)

The problem is that I get easily bored, I need constant engagement and I do not mean this in the same way that job adverts list this. I need problems!

Recently I had the experience to help a company with their problems in terms of legal and due to my previous experience I knew who to call etc.

But in the end this is what I want to do. Get a problem, solve it and move to the next one, this is why I thought I liked development.

Now is there even such a thing? Is there a title a position who deals with this?

Thanks a lot!

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> Get a problem, solve it and move to the next one...

This sounds like what freelancers/consultants do. A company hires them to solve a specific problem, and when it's done, they get a contract at another company.

The downside of this way of life is that you constantly need to look for work and sell yourself. The upside is the variety of experience you get and being your own boss.

If you search HN articles for "freelancer", "freelancing", "consulting", etc., you'll find lots of threads in which people have asked how to get into this kind of work.

There are also full-time employees who have development jobs like this (solving problems and moving on to another project), but those are pretty rare in my experience. Companies that have products/systems to support generally find value in having someone who developed a product continuing to work on it for a while (at least until they can transfer their knowledge to others).

Ye I am not much into freelancing / consulting due to the environment ( I like coworkers ).

I thought actually outside of web development. Do companies need people like that?

Large consulting firms do not have those drawbacks.

You'll need define the type and scope of the problems you like better.

Most software development could be considered problem solving "user has problem x, let's solve it by coding y", even if you're just gluing frameworks together you're solving someone's problem. Other problems are more like bugs, in which case support developer might be more your speed. Support developer is a rarely seen job title these days but still very much exists.

In my current role I'm somewhat on the support side and sometimes get some really gnarly bugs that require weeks and some creative approaches to solve. I love doing this because it's like being paid to solve fun puzzles, but other peoples definition of problem solving is to be creating my problems :)

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