Purpose: The aim of the study was to examine the relationships among teachers’ motives for career choice and satisfaction with life being a teacher, mediated by job competence. Special attention is given to the moderated mediation effect by job burnout. Methods: To address the research questions we utilized data from the first wave of the Seoul Educational Longitudinal Study, including 2418 teachers in elementary/secondary education. A structural equation model was conducted and for the main analysis a Process Macro (59) was applied to examine the moderated mediation effect in the main model. Results: Results indicate that a partial mediation effect of competence on the relationship between motivations and satisfaction. Also, the positive relationship of internal motivation and competence was moderated by job burnout. In sum, only internal motivation impacts teachers’ satisfaction with life and the competence’s mediation effect is moderated by job burnout (-). Conclusion: The implications of thefindings are that teachers motivated by internal factors show higher satisfaction with life being a teacher and that job competence plays a positive role in the psychological process. However, job burnout limits the chance by reducing the internal motivation’s positive effect on competence. Policy implications are drawn based on the results of the study.