> Maybe I'm naive, but it just seems that almost every job out there is about squeezing more profit out of people, and absolutely nothing else, and it doesn't really make me want to work.
You may be naive, but this is right. Try not to see it as such a bad thing.
It sounds like you're looking for a job that does some good for the world and isn't concerned with efficiency.
All the jobs that promise this are lying to naive people to exploit them for profit.
The reality is that even the non-profit world is concerned with the cost of labor. As a SWE, you're essentially a high paid laborer.
"I'm kind of looking for a job" sounds like you're thinking about making a religious conversion to join "the employed". Jobs aren't where your identity should come from. Rethink your position as "I need to trade some of my time for money" and the labor market will make a lot more sense.
> People who work 8 hours a day, mostly for a paycheck, how do you cope without wanting to off yourself?
I'm betting that I'll be able to do the time<->money trade efficiently enough that I'll be able to stop working eventually.
As you're working and acquire capital, you need to invest as much of the capital that you earn as possible.
By investing, you're employing laborers (usually by proxy of a company) to produce capital for you.
Once your capital can produce more than your labor, you have achieved "financial independence" and no longer need to be concerned with finding work.
Given that anyone with basic coding skills can get a job paying $150k+/yr without too much effort, and all work is remote, you should be able to invest about $100k/yr without too much trouble. Without having other financial obligations, you should be able to hit financial independence in about 5-10 years.
You may be naive, but this is right. Try not to see it as such a bad thing.
It sounds like you're looking for a job that does some good for the world and isn't concerned with efficiency.
All the jobs that promise this are lying to naive people to exploit them for profit.
The reality is that even the non-profit world is concerned with the cost of labor. As a SWE, you're essentially a high paid laborer.
"I'm kind of looking for a job" sounds like you're thinking about making a religious conversion to join "the employed". Jobs aren't where your identity should come from. Rethink your position as "I need to trade some of my time for money" and the labor market will make a lot more sense.
> People who work 8 hours a day, mostly for a paycheck, how do you cope without wanting to off yourself?
I'm betting that I'll be able to do the time<->money trade efficiently enough that I'll be able to stop working eventually.
As you're working and acquire capital, you need to invest as much of the capital that you earn as possible.
By investing, you're employing laborers (usually by proxy of a company) to produce capital for you.
Once your capital can produce more than your labor, you have achieved "financial independence" and no longer need to be concerned with finding work.
Given that anyone with basic coding skills can get a job paying $150k+/yr without too much effort, and all work is remote, you should be able to invest about $100k/yr without too much trouble. Without having other financial obligations, you should be able to hit financial independence in about 5-10 years.