How do you find a job that makes you happy?

So many companies are so unbelievably dysfunctional... I know amazing devs who slog through years of frustrating, uninspiring jobs. There are also just bad fits. Good person, good company, just the wrong match

Maybe make a written list of things that you liked vs didn't like about these companies? It took me a while to realize I didn't actually want the stress and chaos of a young company that isn't making a profit yet

I'm familiar with the crash of self-loathing and frustration after thinking that finally this job might be a good fit and then it isn't. It sounds like you're really feeling powerless right now so blaming yourself. What helped me in those times was a lot of patience with a long, long job search while getting my positive emotions from stuff outside work for a while. Like, still doing great focused work at work, but checking out deep in my soul and getting super oriented around personal life and hobbies every other moment of the day. Escapist, maybe, but it's surprisingly sustainable for the searches I had to do which have lasted months or years

I found my current job, which is great, through a former colleague I trusted who was already working there and said it was a great place to work. Right signs supporting that recommendation appeared while talking explicitly about healthy versus unhealthy work environments and best work practices during the course of the interview. I felt super lucky that everything happened to work out.

I think you should always be trying to iteratively improve the environment especially as a manager but if you start to go beyond frustration into feeling that something is hopeless or broken about the situation that's a sign it's time to move on. You should never feel doomed at work

I'm sorry it's so hard right now. You sound like you've been thoughtful about this, it may just be a long season of job hopping in your life right now. Best of luck

You want to know something, I don't think theres anything wrong with you. I think working, atleast in the way that we do in America, is draining and soulless. Even in highly paid positions with intellectually engaging work. I took two years off; I rage quit during a period of existential anxiety. A few months later, all of my anxiety and depression disappeared. For 18 months I was very happy, read novels, relaxed with family etc. Eventually that came to an end, I've been at my current job two years, it's a constant struggle. I am always fighting the urge to quit.

Happiness is a choice. Only thing that makes you happy is choosing to be happy.

Being “happy” and being “successful” are not mutually inclusive. Often they’re mutually exclusive, the most “successful” moments in my career (e.g. launching a major product or giving a big presentation to 100 people) I wasn’t happy in the moment at all. The preparation alone for these moments were super stressful.

I wrote out my core values and realized being autonomous was number one for me. Even more so than being happy or money. Now I don’t worry about being happy, which in a strange way makes me happier.

Been at doximity for 4+ years full time remote and I’ve been incredibly happy here. Excellent people all around, profitable and growing, non-evil business model, pragmatic tech choices.

And I found it almost purely by luck!

It’s made me realize how much a business can succeed by simply not making unforced errors (errors like allowing toxic bullshit, hiring bad people, misaligning incentives, chasing shiny, bad compensation, etc).

Simply put: being professional, humane, and rational is a winning strategy.

Been here. Have no words. Seems every job I start has a moment of hope and then it falls into the same traps of despair within a couple months because it becomes clear the people are completely checked out.

Sadly - only way I think I’d ever be happy is if I founded my own company and it was successful (been in enough failed startups - not interested in that). Being under other peoples incompetency and apathy is painful and unavoidable otherwise.

My impression is that most companies are a dysfunctional mess _on_purpose_. The burden of delivering something in this mess in on the employees, and it allows the the companies to move faster, at the cost of burning out people - but they can always be replaced.

The alternative, i.e. a hypothetical company would be a joy to work at, with good processes, good decision, plenty of time to make things right, would just take longer to deliver products and thus make less money for the owners. At least that's the short-term business thinking which seems to dominate current software world.

I can relate. I don't know what the magic formula is but I've had some jobs I really enjoyed and some that were closer to what you're describing (though not as bad). I think there are good companies out there with good people. There are bad companies with good people. And there are bad companies with bad people ;)

I've never worked at the third. I've had experiences that were more like the first and second. The second can be pretty depressing and I can't imagine how I'd react to being stuck in the third. Also things change over the years so a company might start at some place but over time evolve in different directions.

It's hard to pick up red flags because the people you don't want to work with aren't going to be honest about this stuff.

I would say small company, get a feel for the people, ideally they (managers/founders/etc.) care about the happiness of their employees. That combination of people that are nice, care, and the actual work being interesting is a winning combination and I think you can find that. Ask in your network as well. Keep in mind that even the best of places will have its ups and downs such is life (for a lot of us anyways ;) some people seem to always be happy).

Sounds like you might need some support pulling yourself up from where you're feeling right now.

A bird can't teach a fish how to fly. Any advice you hear could be good, broadly speaking, and still ill suited to you because none of us know anything about what's causing your dissatisfaction.

With that in mind, what makes you hate your job? What are you looking for in a job?

What are your goals? What resources or talents do you have to help reach those goals? What things are you willing to sacrifice to meet your goals?

Start there, and maybe the rest will fall into place.

Now to completely disregard my previous statement. My answer to your original question is, 'you don't.' I've come to the conclusion that no job can make me happy because of my personality--this may not be true for you. Consequently I sought a job that didn't make me miserable, and that has been good enough for now.

I was very unhappy in my work for a long time. I found that doing something entirely different at the weekends helped a lot. I now have a small shed/office, big shed/office and small patio in my garden. I made them all with my own hands.

I said to my friend yesterday I'm not sure we are designed to sit on our rears all day typing. Such is the modern world. I'm coming to the end of 7 years of distraction in the garden. I have a new job now I really enjoy. Life is about more than work. Do things in your own time which give you sustenance.

My first job was ... magical. Great team, working on a thing I had passion about, with a supporting direct supervisor and great management all the way to the top. I worked hard, pay was okay, but it was about doing good work.

I think many people look for the best $$$ and not for great fit -- as our society is all about what bling you can show off. I had better paying jobs after that first one, but with office politics and whatnot thrown in, and that makes things more challenging for sure. One thing that I find helps is good people and opportunities. You can't be sure to have the same manager forever, but if you have options to change teams and most of the people are decent, that can very helpful.

Also, you have to understand what motivates you, and what gives you satisfaction. Is it working on a good team? Is it being a star performer? Is it successfully adding features? Is it having the largest paycheque possible? Looking for positions that give you the most personal satisfaction can help; and as long as it's not about getting the most pay, there are some tradeoffs you can make. (Like less pay for more say in what you work on, for instance).

Have you considered moving from management back to engineering? It sounds like you were a software engineer previously. How did you find that?

I quit working for other companies and started my own. Its five years now, sometimes it feels overwhelming but most days I love doing it.

The first couple of years were awful though. Incredibly hard and ran into issues with a co-founder that almost killed the venture. Got through that but still not sure how.

I still do occasional jobs for other people for cashflow and while I don't enjoy that, I do enjoy the freedom to turn those down when I feel like it.

It helps that my role is diverse: coding, small scale manufacturing, on-farm work and travel.

If you hate your current job, perhaps try to nail down whether that is due to temporary circumstances. I would also consider talking to a therapist if you feel that depression is affecting your life. A good therapist can really help get you settled and make a healthier mindset for making big decisions like changing jobs.

>> I can't get out of bed, am tired all the time. Sometimes on the brink of tears. I'm at a spot where it's very obvious to me that I'm depressed, it's impacting my family life

No job is going to fix that, you've got other issues that need to be dealt with.

So do that.

The question itself is totally inherently wrong — you sentence yourself to misery by wrong expectations.

Job (any job) is not there to make you happy!

It’s not your job’s job.

Yes, sometimes some people find deep satisfaction in what they do. But who said it’s because of the job and not because of the people?

You haven't described what is it that you hate about your jobs so much. Bureaucracy? Office politics? Type of work you get assigned? Meetings? Tech debt? Obsolete tech stack? Hard to suggest something without knowing.

You may want to get some useful imformations and do something to make the situations better. Before that, you should accept what you've been through is truly happen. It's okay to not to be okay.

Then, treat yourself like a friend, what you'll do for your best friend if they suffer the same issue.

For instance, what do you think is the best suggestion for them. Do it to yourself.

These things happen not because you were not wise enough or not hard enough. Like a heavy rain, it just a weather but not a fault.

Good luck! Hope you'll find a job that you love!

Give up. It doesn’t exist.

charles_f: Why do you think your jobs are the issue? What's painful about working there?

What was the last job where you were happy?

Have you had happy times as a manager before?

I think one the challenges with being happy at a job is that every job where you are happy is a single change away from being a job where you not happy. Your manager could leave. Budgets or Prioritizes could change. Your org structure or upper management could change. Your team and org could be great, but suddenly your competitor changes strategies and you have to pivot to face that. Even an unexpected change in your personal life could change what you need your job to be.

And change in inevitable. At every job I've been in, it takes me 6 months - 1 year to really settle into it. And by that point, there's always been at least 1 major change that had some impact on my job.

If change is inevitable, what does it mean to find a job that makes you happy anyway?

>What are the concessions you made?

I've given up finding a job that makes me happy. But I do now strive for a job where I'm not miserable. One realization I had about myself is that I need to be in a stable environment with a stable schedule. Constant fires are hazardous to my mental health. I now work as an ant in a big company. I feel like my work is useful to the other people in the company who consume it, and when I stand up from my work computer at the end of the day I can disengage my mind and focus on personal stuff (family, hobbies, etc).

The compromise for me was that I never saw myself as a big company person. I worked for a decade in fast paced consulting roles that were exciting. And I burned out badly, both from overwork and repeated violations of my ethics. There are days when I really can't believe that I'm willingly working in a big company and I'm dealing with some byzantine process that has taken 6 months to fix a small thing. But then I hear from a friend who works for a startup and he tells me about the CEO texting him on Saturday morning. Honestly, the byzantine process is less stressful.

I'm not trying to say you need to work in a boring big company job. What I'm trying to do is give an example of how something you fear (for me, working at a huge company), might be the thing that you need right now. Don't dismiss things just because you feel like "That's not me."

>What are the red flags (or the right signs) to tell you a job is the right one?

To me there are two big things.

1) Your need to agree (for the most part) and get along with the people you work with and your manager. I think this is extra important when you are a manager. This is important because you want your values and ethics to be aligned with the place you work. You need to ask a ton of direct questions in the interview. I think the right people will understand why you are asking and respect you for it. The people who you don't want to work for will see it as a red flag and you won't get the job.

Of course, this doesn't always work either. At my current job the hiring manager quit and left between the day I signed the offer and my start date. Thankfully the team got a new manager who is great.

2) The pace you need to work has to match the pace of work at the company. Fast, slow, whatever - make sure they match.

>Did you manage to reform a shitty job in something at least tenable?

No, never. At multiple jobs I stayed longer than I should have trying to make things better. What I should have done is stopped caring, worked a pace that allowed my mental health to stabilize, and moved on.

>I can't get out of bed, am tired all the time. Sometimes on the brink of tears. I'm at a spot where it's very obvious to me that I'm depressed, it's impacting my family life.

I've been there. Personally, I think the jobs that cause the most damage are the ones where you find yourself constantly feeling like the decisions being made make no sense. Or worse, are unethical. I once worked for an EVP who constantly pushed for us to spin stuff and put stuff in slides that my team (I was the manager) thought was BS or lies. I used wake up and feel nauseous with the thought that things would be shown to the president of the company saying it came out of my group. Leaving was the only solution.

>Despite spending more and more time carefully picking a job, it always feels like I'm either deceived, or missed some stuff I should have caught earlier.

It's stupidly hard to find a job with a working environment that suits you. Nobody is allowed to just be honest about what's good and bad about their job. The bad is always re-framed into something that doesn't seem that bad. And sometimes the things that you hate are things that other people love, so they can say "X is good" when actually X would be terrible for you. Lots of people are expert bullshiters when it comes to getting a candidate to take the offer. The reality is that the job interview process is just the trailer for the movie. And there are a lot of terrible movies with great trailers. Don't beat yourself up about it.