Be More With Less

I’m 51 and have had 10 jobs over 30 years. Those jobs have been everything from startups, to boring stable small and medium “lifestyle companies”, to boring big enterprise, to $BigTech and now I work in customer facing cloud consulting as a staff consultant.

And I’ve never seen a market this shitty. Even after the dot com bust if you were a regular old enterprise dev - and at the time I had 4 years of experience as a Windows developer in Atlanta - it was easy to find a job. 2009-2011 was a shit show but it wasn’t that bad.

While I did find a job quickly after being Amazon’ed in 2023 and again last year, things have gutted worse since then.

My only strategy is to keep our fixed living expenses way down (less than half my income and I’m the only one working by choice), stay out of debt, keep a years saving in the bank, keep my resume updated and a longer form career document [1], keep my skillset in line with the market (I lead a lot of “AI” related non chatbot projects) and keep a strong network.

I feel a tinge of FOMO knowing that an intern I mentored while they were an intern an a year after coming back makes a little more than I make. They are 25 and a mid level SA at AWS - similar to what I do. I have to think about the story of the “Mexican Fisherman”.

https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherman/

[1] A career document is a detailed list of all of your accomplishments in STAR format that you keep updated quarterly.

I’m saying that people who already have path dependencies and are making “enough” prioritize other things over the pursuit of money.

https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherman/

I know plenty of developers 40+ who would never give up their lives in the burbs of Atlanta (where I lived until this year) to move to the west coast.

Even now, I’m almost sure that the new college grads who I work with (and one that I mentored as an intern) that came in after I did at an L4 will be promoted to an L6 long before I will (if I ever get promoted). I actually told my manager and my skip manager that I don’t want to be an L6 or the responsibilities it entails. I’m already saving/investing every penny of my RSUs. My base salary is about the same as it was before I left “enterprise development”. My fixed expenses are actually lower

I spent my 30s in a VLCOL (very low cost of living) city. I’m now in my 40s and each year my sentimental feelings somehow keep growing. The small things in life: a local art museum, the local YMCA and its pickleball playing seniors, sauna, inline skating around lake paths, road cycling, local coffee roasters, a small upstart Italian restaurant, and of course my young kids. I’m absolutely in love with these things in a way that isn’t directly coming from them or a product or service… it’s coming from within me. Deep satisfaction. Not necessarily happiness. Somehow, these things define me in ways my business never can/could. I’m a participant in my community and it feels SO GOOD. I could optimize for something else … something “out there” but then what?

https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherman/

There were tax implications. Paying the top executives a gazillion dollars wasn’t attractive because that was also a gazillion dollars given to Uncle Sam.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15161755

Another change since then was the rise of the corporate raider. Used to be that you could run a public company without profit as the primary motive. Parable of the Mexican fisherman, and such. (https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherman/) But now people like Carl Icahn (and Mitt Romney in his private sector days) actually hunt for companies that are not maximizing return to investors, and remake them into companies that do. Apple actually had to fend off Carl Icahn recently. (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/carl-icahns-2-billion-apple-stake-was-a-prime-example-of-investment-inequality-2016-06-07)

I had this conversation with Dad a few months ago. He asked if I wanted to retire early and I said no. He asked why, and I told him if I could choose my week, I'd work part time on a video game project, golf 2-3x per week, get a date night with my fiancée, and an afternoon/evening with couple friends. I have all of that now (well, I golf 1-2x per week and work "full time" but on a project I like with people I like). Why would I spend the prime of my life optimising to enjoy the rest of my life, when I can have a balance and enjoy my whole life?

I don't think he understands, still. See the Mexican fisherman [0].

[0] https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherman/

The Mexican fisherman story [1] is what it comes down to for me. You can work a little, play a little, and generally have a good time with life and get by (Mexican fisherman), or you can start a business, work long hours, build a fleet of boats that makes a ton of money, and then sell it all someday when you retire, at which point you can work a little, play a little, and generally have a good time. (American businessman).

For me, I make enough to get by and then some. Yes I could work harder, but life is pretty good this way.

[1] https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherman/