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Getting Paid and Enjoying It

Choosing a new job (a privilege that you don't get in most industries) is hard, and I've made mistakes.

My first dev job I worked with people that had never worked anywhere else and didnt know basic things - like how to unit test. They were and probably are locked into a technology stack which is not that modern and not doing a lot of things they should be - still, for me it was a great job and I learned tons from them so I cant say they're bad devs. Its more that I'm confused about how they got to the point of writing code for big name brands and not know what a unit test was.

I knew something wasn't right and my next job was very eye opening. I learned tons about agile deving and testing.

I decided to leave for unrelated reasons and I assumed that any new job that could make me feel happy in an interview and were paying their devs decent money would naturally be doing good stuff - or at least be moving in that direction which is very important to me. Turns out that isn't true and that job in particular didn't involve correct testing, CI, agile practices, peer reviews, pull requests or basically anything I think is a good idea.

Interviewing for new jobs after that I wasn't convinced by most that they were working towards industry standards either.

I don't think I'm that great but there are people I've worked with that are amazing devs so I get caught in trying to decide if these new people can be that good if they completely disagree with what I've learned from people I already respect. I've also learned (from a sage, eloquent drunkard) that you can't easily bring change to a new company, and if you are relatively new to deving they might not even be ready to hear it and get offended.

All of this brings me to my latest worry; Am I getting swayed by money? If I am I will probably keep ending up in jobs I hate since I now know that once I start a job my opinion probably wont matter much - even if they say it will.

Recently I underestimated my market value (which I think all devs massively do) and almost took a job offering almost 50% less than my new job just because I was scared of turning down an offer for a place doing things properly...ish. Of around 15-20 interviews only 2 seemed to be aiming for industry standards.

What is my point here? I've learned that the right offer will always come up and choosing one should not be driven by worry - draw a line in the sand for money and never go below it, draw a line in the sand for the kind of job you want and never go below it. Stick to your guns even if you start getting worried that you're getting less calls and you will definitely, and probably quickly, get an amazing offer. This is a privilege of being a dev so make the most of it!

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