In my experience "going above and beyond" tends to get you more work and responsibility for roughly the same pay. I did get the occasional 5% annual raise instead of the standard 2-3% that most of my coworkers received. Even then the raises were usually more dependent on how well the company performed vs how well I performed.

I've noticed this a few times in my career and have had to start slowing myself down at times. If I deliver in a day instead of the expected two for example, I don't get that second day off, I get twice as much work and get paid the same for it. The harder I work, the less I make. If they want me to bust my ass and sacrifice sleep I need to be given hazard pay.

You're right, and as a result I try to work no more than 4 hours a day, preferably less. I take every possible opportunity to extend timelines, create buffer, and reduce scope. I'm highly incentivized to farm as much time as possible, so that's what I do.

I try to target obscure projects that I already know how to do, where there's an assumption that nobody really knows how to do it because it's obscure. Complexity and obscurity are great cover. Picking up legacy projects on old tech is a good way to do this. "Oh no, PHP sucks! Nobody's touched this code in years! Not to worry, give me a couple of days I'm sure I'll figure it out." Now my estimate is 3x longer than it would be if I was working in the areas under normal development.

I've also got my notifications pretty dialed-in so I never appear absent when someone needs me. I prevent slack from marking me idle. I turn my notifications to a more aggressive setting when I want to take a nap.

Nobody knows how long it takes to get a piece of code working, not even other programmers, so who cares if it takes a week instead of a day. Sometimes I keep a local branch that's represents my actual work and a second branch for pushing to the team. If I get in "flow" and want to get something done in a block of many hours, I can drip-feed the commits over a couple of days instead of dropping a PR at 2am and having everyone think I'm free to work on something else tomorrow. With a little shell scripting, I can make commits and push on a timer too, which is sometimes useful if I need to "work late" because everyone is stressed.

When something blows up in prod, I put in the extra hours with a good attitude. That helps create the perception that I'm the go-to person for things and a team player, so it's not surprising to anyone if I'm running a little late on a deliverable because I had to drop everything and help with something important (another way to add more buffer). I also try to pair sometimes, especially with new coworkers, so that they can see me working in short bursts. Pairing serves as a psychological anchor that I must work that way all the time. After all, I don't want people thinking I'm lazy.

Sometimes mistakes happen and I do get stuck working an 8 hour day, but those mistakes would have been 16 hour days if I wasn't actively avoiding doing as much work as possible.

As much as I can stomach it, I try to use the extra time to socialize with coworkers to help raise my visibility and build allies. That's the smart thing to do. In reality, I mostly play video games, do housework, and anxiously wait until work is "over" for the day so I can detach from my notifications.

Has tech turned me into a sociopath? Maybe. Do I feel like a prisoner in my own home? Certainly. But if I don't use this strategy, I'll constantly be over-committed, burned out, salty, and missing social connections with coworkers that are more valuable than the actual work.

I can't wait until I have enough money to be financially independent and never have to do this nonsense again.

I've started my first dev job earlier this year at a small company, around 10 people. And it scares me that I already do this. I used to deliver as quick as possible and working my ass off and finding that the only thing it got me was a little praise and that more was expected from me the next time. Now I'm browsing HN during work time still delivering within deadlines, just not a week ahead, and most importantly, I feel like I'll be sane doing this work for more than a year.

think this way - you have 40-50 years of work in front of you. Can you sprint the whole time?

Work your ass off when it's important, and just work otherwise. A valuable skill is distinguishing important from urgent

What brought me to do something similar in a former job was, that I realized it only hurts my coworkers when I do more than the average.

The management would say to everyone with performance below average something like: "How can we help you to improve your performance? What do you plan to improve your performance?"

The result was that most people stopped working once they reached their goals because otherwise they would only increase the average^^

I read a lot during this job xD

>I can't wait until I have enough money to be financially independent and never have to do this nonsense again.

There are a lot of people operating on that plan. Mostly it doesn't work out for them.

Play this forward ten years with a family to support and a mortgage which committed you to personal inflation and a track record of ...? You can absolutely fool people for a week or a year, but a decade of non-experience will stick out like a sore thumb. Experience compounds, and the one you describe is compounding down. Do this for ten years and you will be much less accomplished than you could be.

> Play this forward ten years with a family to support and a mortgage which committed you to personal inflation and a track record of ...?

Being an excellent employee?

I understand your point, but I actually have been doing this for about 10 years now, and I consistently have improved my "career trajectory" by switching jobs when I start to feel that my coworkers are overachieving and throwing me under the bus. I look at it like a forcing function to switch jobs and get a raise.

I already had a decade of pre-work experience just from being a lifelong hacker, so it's not like I'm relying on my job to learn new technology. I don't have a fear of falling behind. If anything, I've noticed a huge decrease in SWE competence over my time in industry.

Some of my most "successful" friends at FAANGs are bad developers that just devote more time to playing the system than I am willing to do. I find the social con-man stuff to be really draining and I hate doing it. I also hate interviewing, which limited my career more than I'd care to admit.

Also, I've opted to not support a family or carry a mortgage. I'm doing something similar to FIRE. I'm hoping to be FI with a total of 15 years as a tech employee.

"But do you really hate working so much that you would sacrifice having children!?". Yes. Very yes.

It's also likely that tech workers are "overpaid" right now, as we're compartmentalizing more work, lowering the skills required to join tech companies, and remote work is now the norm. It's a race to the bottom, and I want out as soon as possible.

I SO agree with this comment! Nowadays the only place in which I'm incentivized to deliver as quickly as possible at my personal project/micro-ventures. But at work I also work 4 hours or less, and those 4 hours are after I have worked and given my most productive/creative time to my projects.

So, if less than 4 hours and whatever is left of my brain is enough for my company, that's all they'll get

I love this comment so much.

This sums up perfectly why I’m pro universal basic income. How many people do this? Think of all the collective brain cycles wasted. We’re stealing from our future. You’re clearly smart and capable. Work you don’t find rewarding stole your motivation. If you could work on projects that reflect the world you want to live in you would create something much more valuable top society than whatever it is you’re half assing now.

I agree, but I think the reason we're unlikely to see something like this no matter how much evidence we present that it is better for everyone is that people with money and power generally got there because they craved money and power. Owning people's time, even if that time isn't being spent productively for them, is as close as they can get to owning people themselves and they desperately crave the power to own people.

I'm not for UBI but I totally get & agree with the reasoning behind it; including yours here which I think is pretty dead on as to why it would be beneficial (in theory). In fact the "stealing from our future" part jumped out at me as similar to the way I think of societal debt cycles (the kind Ray Dalio talks about in his books - short-and long-term [~10yr; ~100yr] cyclical sine waves of waxing & waning [in/de]flation). You probably would avoid taking on a ton of debt during the peak of a given credit cycle (when rates are at their highest %), especially if you know you're simply fking yourself that much harder than if you were to take on the debt at some point in the future, when rates are much more likely to be low, and thus save you a ton of money in the long run.

Same thing with putting in extra effort at work. No reason to actually take on the extra hustle if it pays off minimally when all is said & done anyway. Better to say no thank you, I'd rather not take on a burden of effort-debt yet and wait till it makes significantly more sense to do so

I don't know who's downvoting you, but this is also why I support UBI.

One of my biggest fears is that by the time I can stop working, I won't have any will left to pursue passionate endeavors that would benefit society.

Even if I just didn't need to worry about health insurance cost, that would be enough to shorten my financial independence timeline by years.

If I had sufficient UBI to cover basic expenses for the year, I would quit right now.

Working hard for a raise/promotion is a losing strategy. Working hard so you can change jobs every 18-24 months with big salary jumps is rather easy to do consistently.

Trying to get a promotion is deciding to compete for one position in one company with essentially every qualified candidate in the world. It’s easy to see how looking for a better job every so often has better odds for success.

I don't think so at all. I have worked hard, and had a lot of fun at now two of the FAANG's. Sure the reward has not been like winning the startup lottery, but if you told myself 20 years ago I would have this impact and earn this much money I would not have believed it. I totally suck at politics, and have seen others rise quicker, but doing good work does get rewarded in my experience.

I would think FAANG would be considered as "endgame company" for many. Including myself.

Back in the day you wanted in to get shares before they went public. Then the dream was to cashout and using your google money you can create something. Then people stopped getting stocks but used it to get funding. Then there are the people who get in any position for less than 2 years and use that expereince to get a CTO job at a smaller org.

Why do you consider it your endgame? Top salary? Interesting problems? Making a difference?

This is an interesting question. I moved into to IT/Security from another sector, and I'm trying to figure out my endgame. At least at my company, there aren't any jobs I covet. Most of the higher ups don't impress me, and they don't seem to know what's going on in their company very well. It seems like if I moved into leadership, I'd have to spend a lot of time lying-via-powerpoint. (that is, taking a complex problem, and both simplifying and misrepresenting in a powerpoint which shows "progress" happening.)

I wasn't a loser in my old career, and I don't want to be a loser in tech. But, it seems like everyone is a loser here. IT/Security is seen as a well-paid janitor; someone you need, but not someone you really care to learn about. Worse, becoming "important" in a company seems to be useful only in so far as you have sway at that particular company. ie, it's a lot of work for some very local, and very useless prestige. And worse, there's no external meaning other than your own status. Why do I care if I have a little fiefdom within company walls? Nothing worthwhile is being accomplished, it's just more sales.

I think endgame is considered differently by different people, i.e. endgame for me is financial independence through micro-ventures thus FAANG, which I'm considering right now would just be to pay the bills and create a comfortable financial buffer until I can leave them taking with me the ex-google/facebook/netflix badge and cash on hand.

I honestly think you can do it if you want even not knowing much about you. People there are not all special. If you want some tips or a referral let me know, email is my username @ gmail.

I guess this observation doesn’t really apply to the FAANGs quite as much. They have such an insatiable demand for labor that it’s much easier to work your way up to more money consistently over time.

I guess you just find the level you want to coast at. I haven’t won the start up lottery either. But I have been able to be fully employed as a contractor with a very good hourly rate for quite a long time. Which probably means I’m coasting right now. But I still manage to bump my rates up every so often, so maybe not.

Seems like you are doing pretty well. Coasting means different things to different people, do what’s right for you. Just make sure there are no regrets later, life is too short for that.

Sometimes that means coasting and spending more time on your hobbies or with your family. Can’t see anything wrong with that.

A friend of mine just doubled his salary. He wanted to resign and look for an other job, but his company offered him double salary.

If your work makes you an important person in the company, you have a strong basis for negotiation. Most people just don't use it...

kudos to your friend, but signalling your intent to leave is red flag for management

often times companies will opt to pay more as a stop-gap until they find a cheaper replacement

I honestly think this is a myth propogated by managers to discourage negotiation

They know the game, no employee ever is going to stay if they're being paid half their market value. "Commitment" my ass lol. But more to the point in order to replace you they have to pay market value for your job. They can only find someone cheaper if your job is beneath you.

Parlaying offers is fine as long as the work they need doing is worth that money. Who are they going to replace you with? Hiring is expensive even if they find a sucker. The only risk is if your market value is higher than they need to pay to get your job done.

maybe, i'm not saying employees shouldn't negotiate but there's a lot of ways it can backfire so you might be better of hopping to another company at that point, rather than waiting around to have the rug pulled out from underneath you

I agree, but it's still cheaper to counteroffer than to hire someone new if the demand is market price for that job. There's big overhead in replacing you.

Fundamentally the operative variable is: "can they get your job done for less than you're demanding." That's what matters, more than the impression of commitment.

Only if the company realize your important.