I'm not primarily a financially motivated person. And I would prefer to spend my time doing something interesting. But in my experience, taking on some one else

I'm not primarily a financially motivated person. And I would prefer to spend my time doing something interesting. But in my experience, taking on some one else's projects that are interesting but not well paid has always gone badly. Positions are usually low paid for one of two reasons: either there isn't a budget for it, or there is but they're being cheap and cutting corners. If there isn't a budget, that's a sign of a failing organization or a bad startup idea, so probably not a job you should take. If they're being cheap, that's a sign that they don't respect or value the people doing the work, which is a huge red flag. I've taken jobs that were essentially volunteer work because I got to work on projects that were interesting to me. I've also taken jobs that weren't that interesting to me which paid generously. In the end, much of my volunteer work wasn't valued, and seen as disposable. The more highly paid work never got interesting, but having a decent amount of money took off a lot of the financial stress and ultimately made me happier and enabled me to spend more of my free time on things that interested me. At this point, no matter how interesting, there are only two people I would do underpaid work for: myself, and my grandmother.