Definitely, it is extremely rare though, and usually has a good reason for it. Had one guy I worked with who used to be Rihanna’s sound engineer, I asked him why he stopped doing that and started working for a local corporate AV company. His simple response was that it wasn’t worth the stress, and he got to stay home and see his kids.

Dude was easily one of the best sound engineers I’ve ever heard, he could make anything sound way better than it had any right to be, and yet he was the local guy pushing cases, running cable, and basically playing second chair to all the corporate AV guys thinking they were sound engineers, including myself for a while. All because it meant he could see his kids and not be stressed about it.

I ended up making him my go to audio guy anytime I needed someone, and stepped back so I could learn.

More qualification might also translate into doing a job less well. Sometimes what’s important is prompt response, staying on script, getting many jobs done. A deeper understanding could mean you’re more likely to be bored by the tedium of the more shallow role, more likely to spend too much time on an individual task.

For example, I am “overqualified” for many IT help desk roles and you bet I’d be slower than people that are good at the role. I’d be driven crazy by the repetitiveness and by stupid human tricks. At the end of my probation I’d be fired because while I answered that one customer in depth, my responsiveness metrics would be shit, I’d have addressed fewer than expected tickets, and I’d be dying to escape. Kudos to all of you who can do a better job than I.

Yes. In professional settings that means with that degree you can expect a certain salary, and the position pays considerably less.

Colloquially it's also used for: You'll be bored with a task. Or waste your potential.

Sometimes it means “We don’t want to spend a lot of money training this guy who we won’t be able to retain if he gets a better offer.”

At really entry-level jobs like fast food, where training is quick and turnover is always high, it sometimes also means "This guy might be able to read the workers’ rights poster on the door and explain the workers’ comp program to the idiot who spilled boiling grease on his foot.

I’ve seen a few people with PhD who want to be developers being put into management roles, getting quite unhappy.

That said, if this type of PhD clearly communicates they want to be developers, the often still get jobs, maybe with lower pay compared to the manager but a bit higher pay compared to the developer

Definitely. At the last corporate job I had I was told at the very beginning of the interview that I was overqualified and that the only reason I was there was because their trainer (a former coworker of mine) said they had to interview me.

I got the job. I was thinking about quitting when they fired me because I didn’t park my car on the property because I was following the rules.

I was thinking about quitting because the place was a total mess. The first clue was during the interview they warned me they didn’t have KPIs at this call center job. When I actually started working I noticed that I had no one person to report to, massive inefficiencies, I could have spent a day or two creating from scratch their much needed IVR and that after three months on the phone not one person I started with had had a review of any kind. I had 20 years of call center experience and 20 years of Linux administration and I was fighting back every urge to rearrange the furniture because this major company was a complete shit show. I was over qualified. I should have never taken the job. They should have never hired me.