Work com­plex­ity and auton­omy are the two largest fac­tors in decid­ing work­place sat­is­fac­tion, sug­gested find­ings reported in a 1985 arti­cle in The New York Times.

The find­ings came from research by Dr. Jey­lan T. Mor­timer and Dr. Melvin L. Kohn and seems to agree with a more recent dis­cus­sion on the three keys to pro­gram­mer work­place sat­is­fac­tion (auton­omy, mas­tery, purpose).

The most impor­tant deter­mi­nant of job sat­is­fac­tion is ‘work auton­omy,’ or the degree to which employ­ees feel they can make their own deci­sions and influ­ence what hap­pens on the job.

[The researcher] also found, in sharp con­trast to most pre­vi­ous research, that income had no sig­nif­i­cant inde­pen­dent effect on job sat­is­fac­tion. Peo­ple earn­ing high incomes typ­i­cally enjoy the most auton­omy on the job […] which tends to make them happy. But if one looks at indi­vid­u­als who have equally autonomous jobs […] then they appear equally happy with those jobs, regard­less of any income dis­par­i­ties among them.

Another inter­est­ing find­ing dis­cussed in this arti­cle is how “the social posi­tion and job con­di­tions” of your job influ­ence the value sys­tems of your children:

If the par­ents have jobs that allow self-direction […] then they and their chil­dren are likely to value such traits as depend­abilty, curios­ity and respon­si­bil­ity. But if the par­ents have a job that requires con­for­mity to super­vi­sion, he added, then they and their chil­dren tend to value such traits as obe­di­ence, neat­ness and cleanliness.

Update: The cur­rent (01 July 2010) most high­lighted pas­sage on the Ama­zon Kin­dle is this, from Mal­colm Gladwell’s Out­liers:

Three things—autonomy, com­plex­ity, and a con­nec­tion between effort and reward—are, most peo­ple agree, the three qual­i­ties that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.