In 2021, I wrote this post describing the kind of work I wanted then. Almost five years later, it’s time for an update.
What kind of work do I want?
I want to work remote. I’m happy to do quarterly in-person offsites or similar, but I’m not interested in a formal hybrid working environment. I put a high value on not having to commute and on being able to work in a style that suits me. I enjoy living where I do in Australia and am not willing to relocate.
I want to work on something central to the company. I am more comfortable in a medium or high-pressure environment than in a low-pressure one.
I’m happy to build on top of legacy systems - in fact, getting stuff done in monolithic codebases is my specialty - as long as I’m working on something that’s top-of-mind for company leadership. I prefer iterating fast on an 80% solution than spending a lot of time to slowly polish a 100% solution.
I do not care about doing greenfield work or building the most interesting part of the product. I will happily build a billing or permissions system if that’s what needs doing.
As an Australian software engineer, I prefer working for American tech companies because I want to work on large systems that people have heard of. That doesn’t mean I want to exclusively work for American companies - there are some Australian companies that are well-known enough that I would also happily work there - but it would be a hard sell to get me into a startup.
Right now, I am very interested in AI, both as a tool for software engineering and as a transformative technology in general. I’m currently working on AI products at GitHub, but a seriously innovative AI product at some other company would be a compelling draw.
I do not want to work on systems I consider obviously unethical. No proof-of-work blockchain, no online gambling, no autonomous weapons of war.
I value a healthy company culture. That means a diverse culture with different kinds of people and different perspectives. A monoculture can be productive, but it’s brittle: an external shock can cause it to turn toxic very quickly.
I want a low-process management style that trusts me to do my job. I have worked in environments with many hours of scrum meetings per-week, and environments with no formal scrum meetings at all, and productivity was about the same. A company that takes Agile software development very seriously is unlikely to be a good fit for me.
What’s changed since 2021?
Recruiters can probably stop reading here. But I want to reflect a bit about what’s changed since the last time I wrote this kind of post. In 2021, I wrote that I’m looking for:
A job where reliability and performance is important, at scale. Ideally remote. No tiny startups. No gambling, predatory fintech, or blockchain. I value D&I, emotionally healthy teams, and good management.
What’s changed, almost five years later? A lot has happened since 2021.
- Overall, the balance of power in tech has shifted away from engineers and towards tech companies.I personally went to work for GitHub, where (among other things) I spent two years working on Copilot as it grew from a few tens of millions to over $300M ARR1.I went through the staff engineer promotion process for a second time.Finally, this blog really took off, after this post - thanks to that, I’ve now been on podcasts and even Australian national news
The biggest change in my engineering values is that I no longer want to work in a pure maintenance role on existing legacy systems. I still love that kind of work, but in 2025 it’s just not sensible to try and position yourself like that. Legacy systems - even ones beloved by users - are never tech companies’ top priority. They’re always going to be fertile ground for layoffs and cutbacks. In the 2010s, you could carve out a really good career optimizing and lovingly maintaining this stuff. Now you can’t. Instead, I want to work on projects that are top-of-mind for company leadership. Put me under the spotlight!
I still feel mostly the same about organizations. I think D&I is a competitive strength, and that low-process is usually better than high-process. I still don’t want to work for proof-of-work blockchain (although there are many fewer jobs there than there were in 2021!) or gambling tech. It’s worth noting that the current evil technology du jour - large language models - is not something I have decisive moral objections about, and I currently do work on AI products. See here for more thoughts on that.
My view on what I want from a manager has changed as well. My 2021 post listed a bunch of things I want out of a manager - to be an active participant in my career progression, to help me develop new skills, and so on. In 2025, I really just want a manager who’s good at their job (i.e. able to get stuff done in the org) and who’s willing to tell me the truth once they realize I can be trusted. Either way, that’s not something that recruiters are going to be able to help with, so it’s much less prominent in this version of the post.
Final thoughts
Overall I’m struck by how similar my 2021 and 2025 statements of values are. I feel as though I’ve changed a lot as an engineer in four (almost five) years, but my general values have only changed in minor ways: I’m more comfortable with low-process environments, I’m happy to not work on performance and reliability stuff, and I have different expectations of my manager.
Part of this is just that engineers don’t have as many options in 2025. If we were still in the zero-interest-rates era, maybe I would have increasingly baroque conditions about what job I’m willing to accept. Right now, I just want to be doing interesting work that the company cares about.
That was a very informative (and formative) experience. I’d love to write about it in another five years.
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