How 9-5 Jobs Nerf Talented Engineers
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After ~8 years working full-time as a Software Engineer in the industry, I’ve concluded that 9-5 jobs are strange. The biggest reason is that they don’t give employees strong incentives, but I feel that’s the price that you pay for all the other benefits 9-5 jobs provide (stability, predictable income, (hopefully) work-life balance, etc).
As an employee of a company, you’re beholden to the company with regard to how much you can benefit from your actions. All companies tend to follow very specific guidelines for what warrants a promotion, a good bonus, and a raise among other performance driven incentives. The problem I’ve come to have with this is that this structure largely caps you at what is possible and regardless of what kind of returns your work may bring to the company you’re still at their will for how and when you’re compensated.
Because of this, I’ve come to the realization that 9-5 jobs can nerf very talented engineers. And to be clear, the point of this article isn’t to rag on “traditional” jobs (or claim that I’m a very talented engineer), but rather to explore this thought that’s been brewing in my mind for quite a while now, especially since leaving my job at the beginning of May.
I think the truth is, deep down, throughout my career I’ve slowly realized that I’m just simply not that good of a traditional employee. And when I think deeply, thankfully, I don’t feel it’s due to inability, but rather my inability to commit to a company. As I’ve gone through my career thus far, I’ve always had “other things” that I’ve wanted to invest my time into that didn’t involve my 9-5 job.
Originally, I chalked this up to the fact that I decided to invest my time elsewhere outside of companies because I wasn’t working at the very select few companies I had dreamed of working at. But as time moved on, and I was fortunate enough to work at these dream companies, I found the way that I allocated my time to be the same: get what I need finished for work and invest all of my remaining time to my own outside ventures.
So how bad of an employee am I? I’m good enough to not get fired, but I’m not “good enough” (a more accurate phasing is probably “invested enough”) to actually excel at a company and climb the corporate ladder. Because of this, at every company I’d go to I’d find myself stuck in this strange purgatory.
This is why I believe that 9-5 jobs can nerf talented engineers — or in my case, nerf at least their motivation. To make matters worse, lots of tech companies, especially large tech companies, will strictly limit what their employees are allowed to do and work on outside of work. This not only limits what employees feel motivated to do during work, but also what they might even consider doing outside of work.
This loss of motivation was ironically a big motivator for me to leave and try working for myself. I don’t want to operate beneath my capacity whether that be in my ability, motivation, or any other quality. I’ve also never enjoyed needing to strictly adhere to what I’m “allowed” to do — a problem I’ve never had at smaller companies.
Losing out on a predictable sum of money because I’m not interested in dedicating more of my time than required to a job is one thing; it’s a whole other thing to arbitrarily cap my theoretically infinite upside, my motivation, and my potential avenues of exploration. It’s possible that working for myself won’t pan out the way I’m hoping for, but if it doesn’t, it won’t be because I reached a specific ceiling, wasn’t motivated, or didn’t try something I was passionate about pursuing.
Ownership and agency are what really matter to me. They’re the two elements that allow me to believe:
1. What I’m doing matters.
2. What happens (good and bad) is up to me.
Where you can find me online:
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