You sound like me, or at least me during the best parts of my career, but rather younger than I am now (more like what I was then). In the good period of my career, my guiding principles were: - does this look like fun? - will it let me learn things that might open up new options? - will I be paid fairly, and enough for my needs? - is it at least not doing evil? (Doing good never seemed like a real option, for me, in software, frankly.) In the bad period, this got supplanted with: - will it move me towards more control over my work, and more status/money? - will it help me save a good sum for retirement? But by then I was watching people with good "soft skills" (ass kissing, office politics etc. in some cases; tact and not embarrassing managers in others) being put in positions where they got more money, more status, and the right to make decisions on topics even they agreed I knew more about. Rules that required people of a certain grade I couldn't get promoted to, to approve all decisions in my specialty, were pretty much the last straw.