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> He just wants the work to be meaningful.

well, he just slid down to "more unreasonable" with that clarification :) I can understand a "great coder doesn't want to write documentation" broadcast message, but if you want meaningful work to your standards, it's really on you to find the companies doing it and apply to them.

I would extend the common good advice to employees to this applicant: Offer to your manager solutions to problems, rather than just complaining about problems; managers have enough headaches, what they ache for are helpful employees; this also applies to hiring managers, so find a hiring manager who will want you, don't make him find you.




Then it sounds like you're in the second category I describe above, not the first.

Personally, I'd be unlikely to hire somebody in the "great coder who won't write documentation" category. But I'm happy to help a mission-oriented person find the right thing for them, even if it's not with me. Right now I'm also going to a great deal of effort to find the right people for a role.

And I don't particularly ache for helpful employees. What I want are people who care enough about the problems to think deeply about them and find approaches to solving them that I might never have come up with. And then are intrinsically motivated to see them through. If in that process they come to me with problems, that's great. Solving employee problems so they can get stuff done? That's my job.




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