Unicorn Jobs

The rather unethical alternative is to find a job in a fairly incompetent group at a company that's not extremely tech focused, then spend most of your time working on whatever you want to. I've had jobs (and spoken to many people with similar jobs) where I could accomplish all my tasks within a couple hours of actual, focused effort, leaving the rest of the work week for personal projects, side business, etc.

Whenever I give a talk about Erlang-related stuff, I almost inevitably get asked "do you do this for fun or for your job?" And I can genuinely answer "both, really".

While I'm the project lead for one of the more popular Erlang web frameworks (http://nitrogenproject.com), my main focus is on my sports league management system[1] (http://bracketpal.com), which runs on Nitrogen.

As a result, I can justify spending "free" time working on open source because at the end of the day, it improves my main products.

It's an interesting way to piggyback the so-called "unicorn" project onto a product (the design of which I get to control). Granted, it'd be nice to just get paid to work on Nitrogen all the time, since that work is generally more mentally stimulating, but I can't complain.

[1] I know the landing page is a total dog. It's the current project to fix that up to something not terrible.

I think the question is completely wrong ... the question you should be asking is "how do I turn my current job into a unicorn job?". I've done this for almost 30 years and, with the exception of the times I was forced into management roles, I've loved engineering.

The key is that you have to be doing something your employer feels provides value, and ultimately you want to tailor the work towards something you're enthusiastic about. For me, I try to determine which up-and-coming technologies are worth including in future products. This means I get to play with lots of cool (and sometimes not so cool) technologies - and when my employer asks how something should be done, they "redeem" that knowledge with a list of concrete pros and cons.

Even the author's examples were projects that he was passionate about before he started the unicorn job. One point I definitely agree with is that you have to be a good communicator to first convince your boss you can provide value, and again to deliver that value.

I'll also agree that it might be easier to find a unicorn job in a university setting where things aren't quite so structured. In July of 2012 I landed a job at Penn State as an enterprise software architect/developer ... and it was music to my ears when I found out that my bosses' bosses' boss felt the university need to be more engaged with the open-source community and contribute to more projects.

Getting someone to pay you to work on what you want and how you want is likely to be rarer than a unicorn.

Starting your own business is a much easier path to that and even then you will be pulled in all kinds of directions.

The only case of a unicorn job that did actually spring to mind was the CouchDB founder. This is a very motivational talk by him - http://www.infoq.com/presentations/katz-couchdb-and-me

This article might not be applicable to that many people. My guess is that many people are actually happiest working on things that are given to them. Working on your own projects requires that you think of an idea, and have the self-discipline to work on it in the absence of externally enforced constraints.

I think a better question for most people might be: how do I get a job where work on the job is itself interesting, rather than a job that allows me to do my own interesting stuff in my spare time.

I was lucky to start a small startup which functioned like a 'unicorn' job. It allowed me to work exactly on what I was interested in for 4 years, while making more money than I had been. The only drawback was the amount of time managing advertising.

So, don't leave out 'start a business!'. Surprised to not see that possibility mentioned in the article... This is HN, after all. You don't need an employer to have a job.

I have an unicorn job. 100% to my own projects. My secret? I don't use any standard technologies: Python, Ruby, PHP, etc. Too much competition there.

This setup is certainly rare. At my company (http://istrategylabs.com) we've done our best to at least feed this desire and tie it back to revenue.

1. Everyone in the company can work on R&D projects. 2. There's budget set aside for this work. 3. Everyone can pitch new ideas for new projects/products. 4. If something get green-lit you can join that project if you desire and have value to bring to it.

It's really challenging to assign dedicated "20% time" or some other formal allocation. We've tried serval times and failed. Instead, now, we just setup hackdays/internal innovation days where the entire company can work on whatever they want. It's great for morale and produces new things we can pitch to our customers.

I think this is why some people go into Finance. Spend 10 years in some miserable high stress job, but hopefully gather enough wealth to retire in your early 30s and work on whatever you want.

Also why people work part time and spend their off time painting or playing music. Be poor but have time to work on what you care about.

Edit: Grammar

Most founders/entrepreneurs have unicorn jobs, but it comes with a big caveat: being your own boss. Not as easy as it sounds.

Question #4: are you a virgin? According to Wikipedia, "In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, [the unicorn] was commonly described as an extremely wild woodland creature, a symbol of purity and grace, which could only be captured by a virgin."

The Meteor team has been working on Meteor for almost 3 years now and recently raised enough money to do it for a few more years.

For those of us whose "core dream" is exactly the kind of logistical problem solving and organizational coordination the author describes as "overhead", starting your own company is a unicorn job. Feeling lucky, I suppose :)

When your side project turns into a full time job via starting a company around it, your founding position at your startup is your unicorn job. I find that this is one of the biggest pulls towards entrepreneurship for me.

I personally think that there are more unicorn jobs than people think. It's just that everyone has a different idea of a unicorn. The work I'm currently doing (the level of influence I have over the final product, the technical challenge, and meaningfulness of the work) all combine to make this probably the best job I've had. However others I talk to doing similar work in the past couldn't wait to find a different job.

Side note: I went to high school with Phil (article author) - he is a smart guy.

I have to say that looks a weird and potentially very harmful way of thinking. Why by default pit yourself against your job? Why you have to work on some "personal project" which seems to be completely isolated from, even contrary to your job? I guess it has to do with some "unsuccessful intern experiences" by the author, but I don't believe it's the correct perceptions of things. The ideal scenario, obviously, is to blend personal interest/fun together with the job you are doing. And I believe a lot of, even the majority, of top people in their field do things by such principle, and are living a happy + productive life, not only satisfying their own intellectual appetite, but also benefiting the company, and more broadly the world as a whole.

I have a unicorn job. I sleep with the boss. It helps that we've been married for over 23 years.

A rather narrow view, of the thousands of occupations and careers you are just looking in the mirror. How about my friend who owns a bike shop? Or my other friend who runs an art/design webzine? Or my other friend with the micro-brewery? None of them are particularly skilled at what they do nor have the right networking. I think their secret lies between living within their means and choosing to do what they love. Anyone can do that and if that is what you are looking for, a sabbatical with enough money to go by and full time to inmerse in a great idea: go ahead and do it, do not over think it, do not be afraid to fail.

I've got a job where I get to spend a fair amount of time hacking on things that I'm personally interested in. I wonder if the 50% level, a la Guido Van Rossum, is some sort of optimum. Besides paying the bills, the non-unicorn work keeps me in touch with a lot of interesting people and ideas, and prevents me from getting tunnel vision.

Two things have helped me. First, the stuff that the company makes is close enough to my personal interests, that I don't have to fight too hard to justify my unicorn work. Second, I make damn sure that my hacks end up in products and patents once in a while.

I haven't seen a job ad since I started my current job (~3yrs ago) that looks more interesting than the job I have. I do desktop applications (WPF/C#) one day, C++ computer vision/algorithms another day with an occasional scoping of signals with an oscilloscope and logic analyzer thrown in. All this and no politics or deadlines.

Most of the jobs I see advertised are one dimensional - they want a GUI person OR a computer vision person OR an embedded person, rarely more than one thing.

I've had a lot of great jobs and the thing they shared in common is they were small or tiny companies.

I think most people don't spent enough time looking for the best fit. Most engineers I know select from the jobs offered to them by friends/recruiters. I did this for my first job (which sucked bigtime). The best jobs will never be offered (too many qualified people competing already). However, if you get out there and prove yourself to awesome people you'll get offered unicorn opportunities. My second job (helping schools write CS curriculum) came this way. My new years resolution: spend more time with less people.

A better way is to make a technology and keep reusing it for clients. Have clients find you more clients, make commissions and eventually earn their money back. Give old clients features developed for new clients. Eventually build out a productized service, get a bank loan, market it and sell the company. Or open source the tech and get a community around it (like symfony, etc)

This is the outline of working on your own stuff and just charging clients for high-margin projects, all the while building your technology.

I have one of these Unicorn Jobs.

I'm paid 40 hours a week, most weeks to warm the couch. I get time to work on my own projects.

But, alas, I'm a contractor and some point in the not too far future this ride will end. knocks on wood Hopefully its not soon however.

I don't know if I believe that Guido Van Rossum has to spend 50% of his time on not making python better, but perhaps it's true. Isn't he at dropbox now as well?

Programming may be the wrong profession. Ed Witten says he has the greatest job in the world.

Now there are sinecures, but I certainly would not admit to having one, now or in the past...

Isn't solutions/application architecture a kind of unicorn job by this definition?

best way to find a unicorn job is to build and release a library of some sort and then contract yourself out to customize it for specific needs.

There are unicorns. And you can catch them.

OP is writing rubbish.

I've worked in enough companies and done enough consulting and advising to have some thoughts about this.

First, stop obsessing over binary distinctions that don't exist like "unicorn job". It's like "being rich". You won't get there by obsessing about it. There are shades of gray on this one.

Second, it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. If Guido only spends 50% of his time on Python, that's probably because he doesn't want to spend more than 50% of his time on Python. (I doubt he explicitly asked for permission to spend 50 vs. 75 or 25 percent of his time on it.) As with the creative arts, you'll make better stuff if you're part of the world, rather than completely isolated. Work for other people-- and, except when its interests contradict your own, for the benefit of your firm-- but on your own terms.

Third, "political forces" always exist but are not always irresistible. Yes, sometimes you have to work on things that wouldn't be your first pick if you were unconstrained, but that build your credibility or advance your career. Accept that. Everyone has to do some selling and alliance-building. Do that work, do it well, and make allies. It's important to stop hating that aspect of work; it's part of the game, too. It's actually fun once you're halfway good at it, and if someone like me can develop those skills then anyone can.

Fourth, make sure to find people, companies, and managers whose passions match your own. Don't try to sell a Java shop on Python. Find a company that uses Python, if that's what you want. It's much easier in the long run to keep looking until you find a company that agrees with your ideology, than it is to try to change everything.

Fifth, never work on stuff that isn't interesting to you or good for your career. If you get assigned work that hurts your career and bores you, work quickly to find someone powerful who can use you for something else. (You might get fired in this process; accept that risk. It's better than being taken advantage of for 5+ years.)

Sixth, don't use the words "personal project". It may be something you initiated, but it's probably useful to someone. Find some way (possibly an abstract one) that your project is useful to someone else, and preferably your company as a whole. Again, make allies. Ask others for advice (this is a big one!) and let them have input into your work (but don't compromise on the vision in a major way). Treat people you work with as first customers, not as obstacles. Don't make it obvious that you're trying to take control of the show. People will ask you to join them long before they'll be ready to be led by you.

There's a lot more that I can say, but I hope I've made my points clear. You don't get this "unicorn" job or environment by becoming a brand-name engineer (it works in reverse; the great engineers get the autonomy and use it to become really good at something). Rather, you get creative at selling the work you want to do, make allies, and find companies and managers who are going in the same direction. I don't want to make it sound easy, but you don't have to be a celebrity to pull it off. You need to know what you want and work hard to get it. You also need to learn the difference between asking for permission (never do it) and consulting others (often do it). Don't ask "Can I do this?" (Counterintuitive fact: most bosses dislike being explicitly asked for permission. You're not doing him a favor, but asking him to take on risk-- for mostly your benefit.) Say, "This is what I want to do; how would you recommend that I go about it and make it maximally useful to those around me?"

I thought this post would be about jobs for 'unicorns' designer + developers positions conjoined.

That's what I want. A job where I won't be dictated by designers who can't implement their bullshit photoshop mockups.

I'm not an entrepreneur, but I like to create things. I am OK with a paycheck (where eating out on McDonalds is a luxury) with no equity, hell that's my current situation - sans creative freedom. Right now I'm a code monkey, and I kinda hate it, so I'm hoping that would change in the future. Just need a project without the photoshop-guy.

That being said, creating my own tech demos on my own free time helps keep my sanity in check