Developer on $90k automates job, complains about lack of work
When it comes to the workplace, one mans trash is another mans treasure. If you were offered a $90k salary for a job consisting of just a five hour workweek, chances are you'd take it in a heartbeat. One engineer on Reddit already has that dream, but he wants out.
"I have all my work automated," he says, "and the most I do is answer questions from users or give insights." Despite working no more than two to five hours a week, he says his boss loves him, and that he received a 10% raise this year and a 26% raise the year before.
How can this be achieved? The anonymous engineer is a 'business intelligence developer.' He says he's become indispensable, having built the architecture from the ground up. And yet he feels, "very unmotivated and bored without challenges." He's eyeing a different job with a 30-50 hour workweek. The salary itself is a little better, at $120k, but the hourly pay is incomparably worse. The journey to the office would also transform from "a two-minute walk" to "a 30-minute commute."
It's not clear where the anonymous Reddit engineer works, but in the finance world, automation has been steadily increasing its dominance at the expense of non-technical staff. Last year's banking bonuses were squeezed in some of the areas where automation is industry standard. However, if even the engineers doing the automation lack motivation, it poses the question; who really benefits from it all?
The rise of OE workers
Though the anonymous developer is an outlier, he seems to be part of a common trend. He's an example of the rising phenomenon of 'Overemployed' or OE workers, in which employees are paid full time salaries for part-time work.
Another developer claims to have three full time jobs. "I do less than an hour a sprint at J1 and maybe 2 hours a week of consulting at J2" he says, "yet both are full-time roles." The third job is closer to a thirty hour week, but he claims to "love the work." Despite graduating in May of last year he also (dubiously) claims to have two Porsches.
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