What I did, when money was no object

In a previous blog I introduced the philosophy “what would you do if money was no object”. As many do with dev practice, sharing the experience of following that advice can be useful to others.

Firstly, moving to a job which involved taking a 30% paycut was the best thing that I ever did for my career. The career path I was on was getting less and less technical and therefore much less what I enjoyed. Software development is great fun, a hobby for most of us and to do it as a vocation is very lucky.

It’s therefore sad when so many give up being close to code due to a perception of financial gain. What can actually occur in this instance is getting a payrise for entering management/architechture/product/project management etc, but then overtime becoming less valuable in the market. Sometimes not focusing on finances, getting experience in areas that interest you can mean your longer term career earnings are actually higher. For me at the time this was eXtreme Programming (XP) practices and cutting edge technologies

Alan Watts sentiment was correct. Focusing on something you enjoy leads to a higher level of mastery for which you can command a decent fee.

I’ve also worked a shorter working week for considerably less pay over recent years. This was for a multitude of reasons from childcare to family sickness but has also meant having a few more hours to improve technically.

Finally, maybe less relevant to some people, but in a corporate world some people are more bothered by working on assignments that may lead to a bonus. This is also a short term view as maybe the project less likely to get you that “pat on the back” does get you some technical expertise that will lead to greater compensation in future roles.

As ever I’m sharing the wisdom of someone much wiser than me. Life is short, love what you do and you’ll likely be rewarded for it. It worked for me

Hope this helps