Ask HN: Who here feels their work is relevant and what do you do? - mezod
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vfulco
After 24 years on Wall Street in various capacities, I am now in Shanghai,
China. It took a personal tragedy for me to re-invent myself but currently I
am assisting people globally by resume editing, LinkedIn Profile creation,
interview coaching and final edit and review of academic applications to
overseas universities. The work is deeply satisfying vs. my prior role making
rich people a little richer. And I guesstimate, with proper use of technology,
I still have 4-5x revenue potential until I need to find more staff and layer
on some new biz lines.

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muzani
System analyst. It's the sweet spot between manager and developer.

I think the most important role is someone who can say to the client that they
can't do something impossible. This person can't be the developer themselves.
And they need to back it with facts.

It was really hard to do this as a developer because it would take a week to
gather the facts to explain that something can't be done in a week. So they'd
be unhappy that we spent the week on meetings instead of work.

This work also directly makes it easier for developers to do work and easier
for managers to schedule tasks. It's also a near irreplaceable role - it would
take at least a month to train a new SA's technical skills and a few months
for them to understand the user wishlist as well as why the limitations are
limitations.

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cimmanom
What does "relevant" mean? Relevant to what?

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cuchoi
Maybe she meant meaningful?

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ajeet_dhaliwal
I think you’re right. Also I’m guessing the answer changes depending on
whether the boss is asking or a friend.

David Graeber isn’t right about everything but look up his book ‘bullshit
jobs’, spoiler alert, a lot of people think their jobs are meaningless or even
totally useless. The more meaningless it feels the more the pay.

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mars4rp
who can explain that?

so the more meaningful and interesting jobs are more people want to do it, so
the pay comes down?

