For me, satisfaction comes primarily from the perceived level of usefulness.
If I'm either ineffective at my job, or my work doesn't seem very important(in a proximal or distal sense), or bureaucratic structure prevents me from being effective, then my interest plummets significantly.
I believe this is why some of my best work experiences were in less prestigious organizations. Despite how terrible my first employer was, there were times where I got tremendous satisfaction because I was allowed to be effective and my work had significant impact on company operations. (in retrospect, this wasn't a good thing since it came out that this company was running a massive robocalling ring, but you get what I'm saying)
In contrast, I certainly got paid much more in later jobs, but there would be long periods where I became dissatisfied because the majority of meaningful problems had already been solved and most of the work I was doing simply didn't matter. The most dissatisfying work I had was around propping up systems that, in reality, were creating more overhead than they were worth(i.e. the employer making things harder than they needed to be). It amazes me how many companies think that all the software they have is important to keep, even though it would be cheaper and simpler to figure out what really matters and then trim the fat.
Absolutely. i suspect this is a common trait for engineers/developers?
Although what the article says about "if you have a good supervisor, like your coworkers, and are treated fairly by your organization" also rings very true to me. I wonder if it's possible for these to mismatch -- feel useful despite having a terrible supervisor and not getting along with coworkers? Maybe not so much. Feel useless despite having a good supervisor and getting along with coworkers and being treated "fairly" by the organization--maybe?
You can definitely broaden it past engineers. I work management in food service, and I can definitely identify with the grandparent post.
I've worked for financial types who barely understood how to run a business, much less specifically a restaurant, and now I work for a giant multinational chain. Serious problems were way more common working with the former, but solutions were directly reachable. Now the interesting problems are all things that I just submit feedback into a void about.
Mastery and Autonomy are often intrinsically motivations.
Usefulness is a nice suggestion and certainly resonates with me. Working for nonprofits has more satisfying than commercial organisation. I expect age is a factor. I used to value interest, these days I value paycheck a bit more.
Did you really get paid much better? You're only as much as you save. Standardizing expenses to ensure a fair comparison usually surprises many.
Save to what? A bank account? Rather, let's say it's to buy some of the S&P 500 fund. Where's the savings leading? What's the growth rate? How much sooner does the extra dollars pull it into view?
For some it's not relevant, as they weren't saving (much) in the first place.
I've found that, for me, the sweet spot for job interest level is a solid "ehhhhh."
I want to be just interested enough in my job that it's easy to stay motivated during working hours. I don't want to be interested enough that I start to get emotionally invested, because then I'm at increased risk of doing things that are bad for my mental health, like letting myself get sucked into design arguments with other emotionally invested colleagues, taking my work home with me, or putting in overtime even when I don't need to.
Definitely right. After 13 years of this I just find it really hard to care that much about X startup or tech company. My daily work is basically the same no matter where and what industry I'm at. Given some baseline of company quality. There is probably some upper echelon that I'm not smart enough or hard working enough or care about enough to break into - because it would require sacrificing too much of my personal life. And I don't mean your run of the mill FAANG corporations.
The quality of my work is better than ever but my caring is at an all time low. I still study new technologies and learn better soft skills and it's easier than ever with great resources and the perspective from experience. I've had my share of lottery tickets in startups and grinding away at bigger companies and what I truly want is like a 3 or 4 day work week.
I wonder what would it be like if access to this upper echelon worked differently; if selection wasn’t based exclusively on total sacrifice and dedication.
My feeling is there is a lot of hidden potential wasted among the rank-and-file...
There's a limited number of spots at the upper echelon, so it's natural that they go to talented people who are most passionate about that kind of work (which translates into willingness to work longest hours and other personal sacrifices).
It's a very fair system - let's say the world has money for a total of 1000 string theoretists, so it makes sense to only assign the jobs to geniuses who are also in love with string theory, as opposed to say smart people who are kind of interested in physics.
Yup. Every job I've become emotionally invested in I end up working until 9PM on Fridays and being constantly ON CALL for the sake of the work. I have ended up burnt out every single time.
Something I enjoy enough to do 40ish hours a week and can walk away from on the weekends? Perfect.
Yeah this is what I'd call foundersyndrome - at least at startups if you're an early employee. It is easy to get sucked into the founder mentality and forget your piece of the pie is not that big.
There's a certain amount of dedication and emotional investment that you'd expect a founder to have. A good founder/leader will demonstrate that in a way that other employees are inspired but NOT sucked into it.
Wow, thanks for this post, it seems obvious now, but it really gives me some closure on a startup role I burned out on after a year. I totally had foundersyndrome, and it was extremely stressful because there was a total mismatch between my emotional investment in the company, my equity share, and my power to enact change.
I only had 0.5% equity yet was completely invested in the company at the detriment of my wellbeing. And it wasn't really discouraged, some of the other employees regularly worked weekends, and I was dumb enough to do it too when my work was particularly interesting.
I LOVED the work, but ultimately it just ran me into the ground, and when I didn't have the power to push initiatives through that were important to me it was extremely frustrating. That combined with being the first engineer and basically building the engineering team and V1 of the product, but then not being promoted to director of SW basically sealed the deal for me, and I was like fuck it I'm out of here.
Thanks for your comment, I've doubted myself many times for leaving that role, but now it's crystal clear that there needs to be a good match between emotional investment and ownership, and mine was completely out of balance, so it really was never going to work out.
I'm thinking that there is a similar dynamic going on in romantic relationships. There are people who choose a partner for other reasons beyond strict love or money. For example, you might want a partner who is at home and supports you and your work (traditional household model). In order for this relationship to actually support you, like ioseph said, a matching level of emotional investment is important. Otherwise you're too dependent on your partner and that won't work out in your favor. I hope I could clarify my train of thought a little.
Related: I once had a course called psychology of game-design. It was an amazing subject that I absolutely loved. One caveat, the teacher was an absolute authoritarian dictator that took away a lot of our freedom in how we were allowed to take this class (e.g. you didn't take your book to lecture? You fail the class instantly). That completely killed the fun for me of the whole course. I think there are parallels here with the working world.
Contrast that with another course called gaming and technology. It was relatively similar in content, but the teacher was quite good at facilitating and slightly below average at teaching. This resulted in people who aren't independent learners not liking the course and the independent learners loved the course.
Ultimately, there were also all-star teachers whom everyone loved.
One of the fondest memories I had was when I went to an honours program and saw teachers auditioning in front of us. One teacher was so amazing at presenting that I didn't even care for what she was teaching, I just took her course because she was an amazing presenter (and teacher, I later found out).
When I look at the satisfaction from those courses, I can see how external circumstances at work are way more important than the work you're actually going to do.
I think that for me, at this stage in life job satisfaction boils down to how well it feels I'm respected, or if the management I work under is constantly looking for an excuse to fire you from day one. I've been at organizations that had an "up or out" type of atmosphere, where you were a dead man walking if you were in the same role/department after 2 - 3 years -- you didn't necessarily have to move up to management, but at the minimum you needed to find a different group in the organization to move to.
Then there are organizations that feel they can't "survive" without you (although this is something to avoid too, since you can't advance or have peaceful days off).
Now as for the work itself -- in order for me to get to the point where management values my contributions, I have to have the skill and motivation to make useful things. And that skill comes from job interest (I have a difficult time building up a skill in a subject I'm not interested in). So the one is almost a necessary precursor to the other.
This should not be a surprise for anyone who's been working for a while and thought about what makes them love or hate a particular position.
My wife went back to school a while back to become an RN, having formerly been a piano teacher. Her initial goal was to work in a cancer unit in a hospital. She worked in a couple different hospitals and hated all of those positions, even though she was quite interested in cancer treatment. She had really shitty coworkers, poor managers, and terrible hours (night or switch shifts).
The job she's liked the most is at an internal medicine clinic at a downtown hospital. The hours are good, she gets along with most of her coworkers, and she likes the diverse patient population she works with. So even though it's not her area of greatest interest, it turned out that this was by far the _least_ important aspect of what gave her job satisfaction.
When we discussed this she was a bit surprised to realize this, but it wasn't a surprise for me. My current Team Lead position at ActiveState is my favorite position of my career. I really like the team I manage, I like the company's management and all of the people I work with. It's not perfect (nothing is), but overall it's just a really pleasant place to work.
Is it the answer to the question "Do you feel satisfied in your job?" If that's what it is, then for most people, it goes up and it goes down.
So what is "job satisfaction"? Is it the average feeling over time? Is it the height of the peak? Is it the low of the trough? Is it the frequency of the oscillations? Is it the slope of the transitions? The predictability? The unpredictability?
And where does "job satisfaction" come from? Does it come from the work? From co-workers? From the outcomes of the work? Or does it come from inside? And if it comes from inside, how is it affected by your circumstances, which change over time?
What is job satisfaction for you? If you have an answer to that question, do you think the answer would be the same for other people, or might it be different?
I think it's a very pertinent question, just like asking someone "Are you happy?".
The definitions of happiness and satisfaction are different for each person, and even for the same person these vary over time, often unpredictably.
I guess this would be the list of questions one should ask herself/himself to measure their job satisfaction. This is the order that applies to me, a middle-aged, married, father of two; the order of questions would be different for others.
1. Do I need to work for money?
- If not, you don't _need_ to work but choose to work.
+ Hence the question of job satisfaction is moot.
- If you're working to earn money, the question of job satisfaction is pertinent.
+ This applies even if you work for yourself or own a business.
2. Am I making enough money to not worry about money?
- If not, I'm not going to be satisfied at the job, irrespective of the all other circumstances at work/office.
- Ask yourself: Am I able to
+ pay my bills
+ support my lifestyle, or lower the cost of lifestyle without too much inconvenience
+ take care of my and loved ones' health, wellness, education, plan for future/retirement, etc.
3. Do my coworkers respect me/my work?
- Coworkers include anyone who you work with: peers, subordinates, managers, their managers, etc.
4. Do I _want_ to do the job?
- You may have started with certain set of expectations, but over time the expectations and preferences change.
5. Am I able to do my job?
- Various circumstances may prevent you from doing your job.
6. Am I able to do my job the way _I_ want to?
- Getting the job done, and getting it done "right" are different things.
- Adjust own expectations and try to understand why your way may not be the best way to do the job.
7. Am I allowed to do new things, if/when I want to?
- If you want to, are you allowed to work outside your defined role?
- Is that work you did outside of your job definition appreciated?
"You don't leave your job, you leave you manager."
This has always resonated with me. Even the most interesting job in the world can be dreadful if you have a manager who's more interested in themselves than the people around them.
I tell everyone who will listen that the people you work with are more important than the business space. One of my happiest jobs was writing software to process insurance claims. My most miserable job was working on interesting mathematical models for a web company that was disrupting the industry.
I love writing code so I don't need to be motivated by the end product. That might make me different from others.
Similar experience. The most boring job I had was also the one I was most happy with. The domain was simple business logic with very low complexity (simple functions, mostly if-else logic - some challenges in testing, though).
I've had two highly technical engineering/math jobs, and while I loved the topic, I hated the job. Poor management, dysfunctional teams, rigid coworkers, etc. The last time I did a job hunt I explicitly did not make the problem domain a factor in the decision process.
It does make answering the "Why are you excited about working on this project?" a bit tougher, though.
Of course, let's not get into false dichotomies. Because a job doesn't sound interesting doesn't mean you'll enjoy it!
>I love writing code so I don't need to be motivated by the end product. That might make me different from others.
Imo that just makes you more self-aware regarding what makes you motivated/excited, not necessarily that it is just a minority of engineers who are the same way. It's just that most people don't really understand/realize what actually makes them tick.
After graduating college with not much experience, I thought that the shiniest/coolest projects were what made me happy/motivated/excited. After a year or two of working full time, I can decisively say that I was looking at the wrong thing, and a great manager and teammates make all the difference for me these days. The project being shiny is just a cherry on top, but it cannot override a terrible manager or teammates. But a great manager+teammates override shininess of the project every single time by a giant margin.
I initially started working on a pretty non-shiny-sounding enterprise project, and I was upset once i found out i was assigned to work on it. But after just a month or two, I wouldn't have chosen it any other way. The overall experience was amazing, and it opened so many doors for me. I ended up following the people, not the projects, and after a couple of team switches, that approach has never let me down so far.
Those people I observed following solely shiny projects ended up either being miserable due to the management or due to random mishaps with projects. Those who followed great managers and teammates ended up in a great position, no matter the projects. If those projects went a bit off-rails, great management always managed to pivot it back in a good direction without inconveniencing the engineers.
And then it kinda hit me that this trade-off just mirrors the whole systems vs. raw results argument. Sure, you might have a currently good looking project, but if it doesn't have a great team+manager behind it, it is just a single datapoint, and it can vanish any moment due to a random mishap. A great manager+team are like a good system. No matter the mishaps, the system can course-correct, and you will never end up screwed over or unsatisfied. It's like, you should not stress about building a perfect product that never fails, you should strive to build a fault-tolerant product that has effective and tested fallback systems in place.
Absolutely it's the people that are the most important.
One of the best jobs I ever had was early in my career during a bit of a bubble period where there was such a scarcity of workers that the company was desperate enough to fill the roles with misfit weirdos (coincidentally why I was hired). It was amazing fun.
In total contrast years later I worked for Electronic Arts and its highly corporate vibe and dull atmosphere lead me to bail as soon as my short contract was up.
Very early in someone's career most people's job interest is more a factor of environment, salary, perceived social status etc. than it is of true interest. This is also because at that stage you don't really know what interests you since academic life is so different from a real job or career. A clear example of this is how many students 10 yrs ago claimed to be interested in a career in investment banking, consulting etc. vs how many actually satisfied investment bankers there are.
Honestly, the dirty truth is that many investment bankers who actually make it are very satisfied with their jobs. By make it, I mean they are still in the profession after 3-5 years. We would like to believe that ultimately the bankers are the ones losing out, but the combination of massive income, very high social status and with it great choices for a spouse, interesting and globally impactful work, etc. The list goes on, but you have to break through the lower ranks, which arent really "investment banking" and are more like a job interview for the real work.
What I mean to say is that often times we like to convince ourselves that superior roles are actually inferior, but are blind to just how much better those people have it.
I'm not so sure about this. The work does not seem to end in such professions.
You feel lucky if you can get a bit of sleep and eat three meals in a day. Being content with such a profession requires making no personal plans even on weekends and being ready to sacrifice anything. The work dictates your life.
Once you stop fighting it, it gets easier. I think that's what you learn after 3-5 years.
I Googled "investment banker marriage" for fun and it seems they are more of rare and you easily end up choosing between being fired or divorce. Married who prioritize relationship seems to be seen as looser.
Plus sounds like the spouse that is half with that setup tends to be someone who wants your paycheck more then you (since you are never around anyway).
I mean, they might be happy and enjoying that. Just the great spouse thing is less likely to be part of picture.
Women go for status the same way men go for youth and beauty. If you increase your status suddenly you'll have more options in the dating market.
It seems petty shallow from both sides and there are some women who don't care that much about status and some men who don't care that much about looks, but generally it holds true remarkably well.
It's also terrible for women who enjoy their peak power in their twenties in a way all but the very highest status men will never know, but then youth and beauty fade and it's all downhill from there. On the other side, low status men in middle age are basically persona non grata, but men always theoretically have something under their control to improve their lot.
In both cases hopefully the relationship becomes less about what attracted you in the first place and more about the friendship and shared life.
I did not talked about what women go after. I came to this conclusion from reading about what investment bankers themselves say. It was not about who is shallow or who is deep. You can be super shallow and still end up more attracted to new guy that is actually around, more then to partner that brings money but is never around.
> In both cases hopefully the relationship becomes less about what attracted you in the first place and more about the friendship and shared life.
Yeah, but there is no friendship if you two don't see each other at all. There is no shared life between investment banker and his wife. There can be attraction part, due to good look and money and social status as you say. But exactly this friendship and shared life is something they cant really have.
> It's also terrible for women who enjoy their peak power in their twenties in a way all but the very highest status men will never know
I've been working about 2-3 years since graduating and I still haven't found a job I liked.
First job, big co well structured but different field and uninteresting job for me. Second job (moved country) startup in the field I like, where I had (disproportionate) impact, but the arcane work culture and CTOs lack of technical understanding and direction, general sense of not learning anything made me quit. Third company, promising start up, good coworkers, learn new things daily but unachievable goal setting and high stress,
uncooperative company culture, long hours and emotionally too invested.
I don't know what makes a job satisfactory but having good coworkers, being useful, "learning" at work, flexibility, seems to not be enough.
I think it can be dangerous when the product is something you want to use yourself, because now you're invested in how it works. The temptation to make the app conform to your expectations closely is very high, and as a tech savvy person with knowledge of the internals, your expectations may not be at all reasonable for other users.
You are also more likely to take decisions personally, which causes you both to lose some satisfaction and expend social capital that may have been better invested later on for something else, causing a loop of disappointment.
In some ways I think it may be better to find a project that people you know will enjoy using, but which you might take or leave.
I went through a few companies, some better than others and some in more interesting spaces than others. I ended up going back to a different company in the field I found most interesting (energy/environment), and it was very much the right choice.
A lot of comments here say the most important thing is getting on with your colleagues, and I would say that I think interesting work makes that more likely.
If everyone is sold on the direction of the company, then they're more likely to pull together and take pride in their work. Lowever levels of politicking that way too.
Zooming out a little: lots of programmers here, right? Isn't it great getting paid to muck around with computers?
This makes complete sense for non obvious reasons. I enjoy writing software. I love it so much that I do it more outside work when I am not being paid.
First, in order to enjoy a job you have to be able to do the job. In most of my career as a software developer I have rarely written software. Corporate meetings mean time not writing software. Frameworks, gimmicks, excess tools, and other insecurity bullshit mean not actually writing software.
Currently I am a junior director managing a help desk. My staff at one point was a headcount of 14. I don’t like the subject matter and would never do this sort of work as a chosen profession but I absolutely love the job. I love it because I am actually doing a real job. I have people to manage, decisions to make, products to build, and still get my hands dirty working help desk tickets. It is sometime stressing, frequently exhausting, and very fulfilling. I don’t feel this writing corporate software.
Secondly, it helps to enjoy the people you work with. Corporate software has proven to be an odd dichotomy. On one hand I frequently find that everybody around me is super insecure. The idea of making/owning decisions or writing something truly original scares people into health problems. Sadly this isn’t an exaggeration.
The times where I have seen this turned around are teams of confident senior developers banding together under weak leadership. In this case the developers are generally secure in their performance and that personal security magnifies as developers come together for support against weakness in the form of soft (interpersonal) skills of their leadership. Most senior developers are pretty candid about their existence as tools to produce a product and just need guidance/direction to shield them from the stupidity and indecision further up the chain.
Finally there needs to be some level of professional growth. In most cases of writing corporate software this lack of direction only compounds existing problems, which is how you can regularly produce something so absurd as an expert beginner. An expert beginner is a toolsmith who has mastered use of common tools and configurations, like a rockstar ninja, but still can’t engineer any original solution to save their lives. In other words they are supremely good at the things popular among beginners, like becoming a world class expert of reading books for small children or paint by numbers.
Thank you. I needed to read this. I had been debating about switching careers entirely (from IT to genetics/bioinformatics) and as I’m progressing through courses I’m slowly realizing more and more that I’m going to still be expected to do various similar mundane, boring tasks. I’m interested in the stuff now because it’s neat, shiny, and new (to me). But in 8-10 years I’ll probably begin hating it all over again.
Misleading headline. From the abstract of the underlying study:
"Interest fit significantly predicts overall job satisfaction."
What the article and the paper's abstract (because I didn't pay for it) say is that it IS a predictor, but not in the absence of other factors like a good culture.
Which makes sense- I love coding, but I've (thankfully rarely) been on dysfunctional teams. Despite still liking to code, I did not like my job when on a terrible team.
I believe the "significantly" in that claim was the statistical type, and the correct interpretation was, "The data show that interest does in fact affect job satisfaction, but not very much."
One piece that goes unmentioned is that article is that interest in a job is something that is relatively easy to know before you take a job. Other aspects that lead to satisfaction like the quality of your boss and coworkers are more of a mystery. Therefore interest likely plays a bigger factor in avoiding jobs you hate rather than finding jobs you love.
I hate feeling like the things im learning are never going to help.
Last place i left didn't want to do what seems like the bare minimum to be a Cloud Native company. so learning the advanced stuff in my free time/between tickets does nothing for anyone here.
If i had seen the basics being embraced, then learning the next level keeps me interested.
Would the company actually benefit from chasing after a Capital B Buzzword? The most useful skill an engineer can develop is not learning the latest fad, it's learning what this company needs right now to get the most benefit from their tech.
“Being interested in your work seems more important for job performance and the downstream consequences of performing well, like raises or promotions,” such a lovely insight
If I'm either ineffective at my job, or my work doesn't seem very important(in a proximal or distal sense), or bureaucratic structure prevents me from being effective, then my interest plummets significantly.
I believe this is why some of my best work experiences were in less prestigious organizations. Despite how terrible my first employer was, there were times where I got tremendous satisfaction because I was allowed to be effective and my work had significant impact on company operations. (in retrospect, this wasn't a good thing since it came out that this company was running a massive robocalling ring, but you get what I'm saying)
In contrast, I certainly got paid much more in later jobs, but there would be long periods where I became dissatisfied because the majority of meaningful problems had already been solved and most of the work I was doing simply didn't matter. The most dissatisfying work I had was around propping up systems that, in reality, were creating more overhead than they were worth(i.e. the employer making things harder than they needed to be). It amazes me how many companies think that all the software they have is important to keep, even though it would be cheaper and simpler to figure out what really matters and then trim the fat.