I think there’s a lot more that goes into “being happy at a job” and I’ve come to realize that “primary coding language” doesn’t even make my top 10

because I’m friends with a bunch of people who have religion about ruby on rails and have been griping about how opportunities for that seem to be dwindling, I actually compiled that list

• flexibility of work hours and schedule • compensation (without getting into it, having RSUs on top of a great salary has greatly improved my quality of life) • company’s values/work align with my values • pace of work and quality of planning • generally aimiable immediate team members • opportunities for growth and feeling like the company wants to invest in me • interesting problems to work on • being empowered to solve those problems (lack of bureaucracy, timely code reviews, good product management, etc) • having a feedback cycle with the people I’m building software for (I tend to do front-end work, this is important for me) • feeling the impact of my work and what it accomplished

that said, if I found an opportunity to use Clojure at a place that I was certain had these qualities in the way my current employer did, it’d be really tempting

Go is not bad, but it’s quickly becoming the new lowest common denominator language, and there are a lot of things about it that would make most clojurists cringe

javascript continues to be terrible

but otherwise my current employer has provided by far and away the best working enivronment I’ve ever had, and that makes the language quibbles seem minor

I agree 100%, and also finding a workplace like that seems, in my experience, to be the hardest part of any career.

I'm not really sure how to suss this out from interviews, though. How have you gone about finding such a place?

Luck in that I got referred in by a colleague

and then seeing that the company had been near the top of this list for several years in a row https://fortune.com/best-companies/2021

as far as “values align with my own” I did some research beforehand about their commitments to the environment, diversity inclusion & equity, and whatnot

as far as compensation goes, I’ll defer that to https://www.levels.fyi/

I suspect the lucky referral is the strongest factor. That's been my experience so far, at least.

Having a broader network means a higher likelihood that someone has found this kind of environment, and it doesn't have to be just you.

The top company on the list is usigng Clojure. But they don't seem to pay particularly well.

Offering a high pay, often seems a necessity for some companies. If it's the number one reason for people to work at a certain company, it gets me worried.

@U26FJ5FDM What if you worry whether you're paid enough?

Enough is very relative.

I’ve turned down an offer at a FAANG (or is it MAANA now?) for nearly twice what I was making at the time, because I felt the company’s values didn’t align with mine

That said, even since leaving the Clojure world, I’ve fielded recruiter inquiries from Clojure-based companies and when I bring up compensation expectations they’re invariably shocked by what I set based on what I’m making now

Roughly half my compensation this year though is through RSUs and how they’ve increased in value since they were granted

so I got lucky

FAANG -> MAGA

remember Google is now Alphabet