I really agree with what you are saying, but counterintuitively buying “into the company vision as much as possible” seems to result in the most burnout for me when reality eventually hits.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to temper my natural tendency to go all-in with the reality that everything has some shit that sucks. I can understand the hope that there might be some psychological ease associated with dissociating yourself from the vision.

Whether you're working W2, 1099, or an LLC, you're still running a business that trades in engineering labor, namely yours. That's the company whose vision you want to invest in.

If you like your current clients' vision too, great! That kind of alignment is always preferable. But remember that you're always first representing your own interests, because you're the only one at the table for whom those interests are paramount. Good clients understand and respect that. Bad clients are what you use to avoid starving while you're out finding good clients.

I can only control small parts of the tech side of a company. It’s silly to worry about things outside of your control so I definitely don’t “buy into the company vision”. I just deliver good software and hope everyone else knows what they’re doing so I don’t need to find a new job.

You've obviously not yet worked for a company that's fucked you, and others you work with, over for profit.

Buying in to the vision can blind you to what's really going on

I , in the other hand, prefer a company that understand that they run a business, they pay me, I work, and that's the end of it. I don't need to be inspired by any egomaniac in some sort of culty "we are a family" company , or work my ass of to make someone else's dream true. Spending time with family, friends, nature, ... etc. is way more important than slaving away for some ramdo.

I hate to break it to you, but, most people in general have N "jobs that are purely about money in equals time out," where N is small. Most jobs are not inspiring, they don't make any visible difference in the world (until people stop doing them), and nobody in them is inspired by the work they're doing.

I cannot bring myself to strongly believe in putting more inputs on a CRUD app, adding some database columns, and doing some business logic on that data elsewhere. It's bog standard work most of the time. Small little incremental features that are just conveniences.

Almost no company tells you that in the interview though, and it's certainly not on their about page.

So basically you want to be worked hard like a horse and feel satisfied at the end of the day when you lay your head down to rest that you have made a difference, don’t even care much about the money because the work is it’s own reward.

I want to earn enough to have a good life and work hard. I think most tech jobs pay more than enough.

I mean, as long as you actually are satisfied at the end of the day that doesn’t sound like too much of a problem.

But I think most wouldn’t be.