Hacker News Reader

Comment by porksoda | Hacker News Reader

I took 8 months off fishing in the ocean, and never could really look that code in the eye again.

After that, I found it helps to move between teams and projects often. I last about 1-3 years with overlapping contracting jobs. Pays well, about $30 an hour on average, for as many hours as I want.

Honestly, I'm still edging the ~buildout~burnout vortex, so when I start to feel the first tendrils of that morning-sickness, I just let clients know that their number is up and that although I'll give them some time, they need to replace me.

It's happened that doing that in slack revitalized the whole workspace for a few more months.

edit: I neglect to mention, after the Great Rest my wife and I started serially travelling... so work is something I snatch time for, instead of "waking up to the grind". Covid put a pause on that, but it's in the air!

View on HN

Pays well, about $30 an hour on average, for as many hours as I want

What country are you in? Around here, interns still in college can earn more than that.

I travel serially :) After covid settles a bit, I'll continue trawling south america, until then new zealand, who knows.

There are often jobs that pay more, but they're either the fixed-price ones, or have fewer hours.

Although as you point out, if I lived in the states I'd be poked. I visit there often enough, but family is kind enough to put me up and I take the time to save.

So you're in NZ now?

Do you live in a particularly expensive area?

Yes, the San Francisco Bay Area... which is not only expensive to live in, but software engineers are in high demand and well paid. But pretty much anywhere in the USA, $30 is not high pay for a software engineer.

$30/hour for software devs in Scandinavia divides how much people earn up to if their education is short, and from if their education is long.

long education being, what, a PhD?

I did finally cave, for some "easy money", and backslid into a job with that same system (which has evolved in really nice ways since then).

I might have to give the deposit back if I can't start soon :)

Are you fishing with a boat? I’m interested to read your blog if you have one.

This is by far the longest I have ever been with a company. I am rolling on 7 years at the moment. Part of me thinks that time off and a new company could be the answer but it's hard to know.

Well you knnow, after all this time you can find a place to "coast" with your skills.

Example, I've always been a bit put off by the plethora of syntaxes and frameworks in javascript, and I lawnmowered my toes off with angular one fine july, but recently discovered svelte-kit.

It's a cinch, a few practice projects, a few paid ones, and one upwork refund later, I'm getting quite confident in my abilities to turn out decent stuff fast.

And the "fast" is the most important thing, with my new found impatience for not being thirty anymore.

That's an incredibly long time!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com