Important to me:<p>- Full Remote or at least 3 days per week remote (my commute sucks)<p>- Flexibility (Basically, I just want to be able to make it to doctor appointments without having to waste vacation days. I also like flexible start times so I can workout in the AM.)<p>- Paid vacation days set in policy (I will assume "unlimited" means none.)<p>- Ability to learn marketable job skills (I've been trapped in a position for the last 5 years that has me basically only know our proprietary software. That's probably partly my fault for not doing enough side work. Either way I've been applying for positions for probably 3 years now and only got one reasonable offer in which I declined after talking to some employees about the company culture.)<p>- Sane working hours (Every week can't be "crunch time". If you expect 60+ hours each week from your exempt employees something is wrong.)<p>- Salary (but free time is much more important to me at this point)<p>- Paid overtime (one could wish)<p>- Ability to choose my hardware and an upgrade cycle that allows me to get a new machine before 5 years.
Flexible working hours and remote work option.<p>Probably the most important thing, which isn't really a perk, is having a good boss who doesn't micromanage or try to get you to work more hours than you're comfortable with.
Remote, remote, remote. My job is remote. I own a house in upstate New York, I will not work for a company that expects me to sell it and move to them in $BIG_CITY.<p>Also the thing I think is the dumbest is when a company won't shell out a couple thousand for decent hardware for the engineers. Like, you want us to be productive, right?
In order (which is actually very hard to find):<p><pre><code> - Mission which truly helps people and focuses on the end-user and not simply the bottom line
- Working with extremely smart/talented people, who don't take themselves too seriously
- Robust development practices, to the point you can feel proud of your work and allowed to be the best in your field
- Treats employees as adults and also truly value their work/life balance (i.e. happy employees are good employees)
- Money
</code></pre>
I'd take ~40k less a year (e.g. 85k vs 125k) if it meant being truly happy in my career with a company that meets the items on that list.
Flexible hours, especially start times. Other than that, market rate salary. I really couldn't care less about anything else. Keep the ping pong table - just stay off my ass about showing up at 9AM every day.<p>(This assumes standard health/dental/vision coverage and casual dress code, which should be prerequisites at this point)
Important to me (now):<p><pre><code> - Remote working / short commute with private office
- Functional Programming
- Enough $
- Smart, enthusiastic, pleasant, professional coworkers.
- Additional vacation (unpaid if need be) is available.
- Should get me to the next level of my career</code></pre>
Important things:<p>-- Modern development practices.<p>-- Good hardware, paid up.<p>-- Health insurance.<p>-- Short commute or remote work.<p>-- Significant equity or revenue/profit sharing.<p>-- Autonomy to solve problems.
If I had my own company, the policies would be like this:<p>- Flexibility to work the hours around your peak creativity.<p>- Ability to remote work whenever you want.<p>- A quiet office!<p>- Freedom to work in all layers of the stack. I personally like to involve myself in design, frontend, backend and devops, and welcome the idea of generalists.<p>- Market rate salary or above.
- Respect for developer judgement when it comes to technical issues. Including not committing to deadlines or features without discussion and agreement with the developers concerned.<p>There have been a lot of projects I've seen crash and burn, with all the associated drama, based on commitments made without any understanding of the work involved. It's not fun for anyone.<p>- The option for privacy. No, a glass-walled office doesn't count.<p>Sometimes I need somewhere quiet to think. Or take a nap. Or read a book. Sometimes I just need to get away from pressure somewhere and have a quiet cuppa. I'm not paid to type, I'm paid to think - that's not best done in a factory-floor type setting.
Hourly pay. Some weeks I want to work 20 hours. Some I would be willing to do 50. Others, I might want to take off. Hourly is the only way to be fair to you and fair to me.<p>No exclusivity. I'll sign an NDA, but you don't own me. I may want to do other things from time to time.<p>At least 75% remote. Tech work doesn't need physical presence. Online communication is more efficient and has the bonus of auditability. Commuting wastes time and resources.<p>TLDR: spec and hire independent contractors.
- Location/remote.<p>- Work/life.<p>The two are very closely related as overall quality of life is effected by both. Life is too short to:<p>- Overspend it at work<p>- Overspend it on a commute<p>- Delay it due to cost of living (ie: delay having a family)
full remote, flextime.<p>salary, medical dental, incentive pay -> bonus / stock options / etc.<p>Important to embrace work-life balance, and not expect people to go above and beyond working on nights/weekends (though imo, it should be allowed - if the employee prefers working that way, etc..).
Flexibility on work hours and the ability to work from home occasionally. Being able to flex around doctors appointments, errands that can only be done during normal business hours, etc makes life a lot less complicated.
Mission - either where we directly effect the lives of people.<p>Working with a talented and motivated group of people<p>Salary - competitive salary based on location etc<p>Paid vacation time and an understanding that people do have lives outside of work
Out of 46 comments the word "remote" was mentioned 17 times. That is interesting to me. Especially when a majority of positions are obviously not offering a remote option.