This study explores the job satisfaction and career development of beginning teachers in Hong Kong at a time of education reform. The authors are interested to understand teachers’ reasons for joining the profession, and how their personal goals interact with the teaching environment to shape job satisfaction. The participants were eleven graduates from the Post-graduate Diploma of Education (PGDE) Primary Programme of the Hong Kong Institute of Education in 2007. The findings reveal that the school environment was found to be more determinative of teachers’ satisfaction and their initial teaching orientation. The authors suggest that teachers’ level of job satisfaction may be improved through systematically reducing their non-teaching workload by a generous increase in the number of supporting staff in schools.