Find a medium-sized company with a local monopoly. - They are not competing in their market / has had dominance for more than a decade. - Their business model

Find a medium-sized company with a local monopoly. - They are not competing in their market / has had dominance for more than a decade. - Their business model does not depend on innovation or moving fast. - The ambitious people are all located in sales/marketing. - The development dept. is known for saying "good things take time" because they can afford to. - Career advancement typically isn't possible unless a tech lead quits, but they're cushy. You can't trade low effort for low wage. You have to qualify skill-wise and drop the effort over time. You may be able to find something on the low end for your skill level, but an employer will think it's average. Picking something you think is below your skill level might boost your psychology, and you might be able to pull 2-3x. As for picking tasks where you can minimize effort: - Pick a role where spending time on other people's task is justified. During stand-ups when you have to explain what you did, you can say that you worked on your own thing, and that you helped the other person. This is not just a way to cheat: I care more about what I do, if I'm helping someone who cares more. I invented this coping strategy at points where I didn't care at all myself. - Pick more researchy tasks: People don't know exactly what to expect, the work isn't as easily quantified. So when you spend longer or don't have as much to show for it, that may make sense. - Become highly available on emergency / show high effort once in a while: This counts against not making an effort, but people will remember you for fixing things when it matters, and they tolerate you working at your own pace most of the time. - Select somewhere with a new CTO / tech lead: They're super busy learning how to juggle management and mentoring, so if you're stuck onboarding for more time than normal, they won't blame you. This may sound leechy, but just make sure you provide some kind of value to everyone else other than your full attention. Also, this was my best-paying job for 3 years focusing on family and mental health outside of work.