> By far the most typical thing is some potential employer sees your work and is like, "oh wow, he must be good to have made this—I can get him to write LOTS of

> By far the most typical thing is some potential employer sees your work and is like, "oh wow, he must be good to have made this—I can get him to write LOTS of CODE for me!!" but they'll use their knowledge that you value developing original ideas to lure you in, pretending they also care about your ideas, and then allow the memory to slowly fade as your new role doing totally vanilla software engineering solidifies. I laughed. While I've never heard employer say that explicitly, it fits with my experience. Many employers seem to think solely about what a candidate can do for them and not in terms of what they can do for the candidate. When phrased like that, the employer might say something like "But we have generous pay/benefits/whatever!", which just shows that they don't understand their problem. I'd gladly take a reduction in pay and benefits if it gave me more control over my work. It might be worth asking a potential employer who claims to value your work to state in the employment contract that you can choose X hours per week for your own work. This would be a more formal way to test how serious a potential employer is about your work. Unfortunately few employers seem to be willing to make that deal, but after I finish my PhD I'll be asking.