True story, existential longing compelled me to leave a dream job, and I regret my idiocy every day.
Tell us more, what do you mean? If it was a dream job why did you feel such a longing?
Dream = high money, low stress.
Ask HN: Jobs with Meaning?
11–20 of 32 posts
Re: Ask HN: Jobs with Meaning?
#12I think what you might be looking for is urgency. If you're a high energy person, it can feel boring and unmotivating to work in an environment where nothing is needed from you on any non-distant timeframe.
That's my experience, anyway.
Re: Ask HN: Jobs with Meaning?
#13> I, like many of you, work on a project that doesn't really advance humankind. I work on a software product in a niche, within a niche, within a niche, to help a subset of large corporations process data a little bit more effectively during meetings. Sounds like you're actually contributing to progress? Also, the Apollo missions were actually just a part of a dick-measuring contest between the two leading empires at…
Right. I think OP might be conflating "meaning" with "working on a skilled team in order to achieve an audacious goal". Both are fine, but you can have one without the other.
Re: Ask HN: Jobs with Meaning?
#14No jobs are meaningless, whether you’re writing software, pumping gas, or flipping hamburgers. Yes, we’d all like to have gone to the moon, cure cancer, or whatever. It’s not how the world works. The question is, does the money or the work make you happier. If you want to work in aerospace, give up the money. Otherwise, realize you it sounds like you have a nice situation. If you want to keep the money, pursue other avenues for self fulfillment.
Re: Ask HN: Jobs with Meaning?
#15 Tangential: The astronauts struggled with life back on earth, post NASA…
> https://www.biography.com/scientists/buzz-aldrin-alcoholism-...
Re: Ask HN: Jobs with Meaning?
#16I think there is an additional layer of complexity in understanding this topic because the scale of software at large companies breaks our concept of impact.
You might feel like you're really impacting the world if you directly helped 25 members of your local community. Your job improving reports in some division your company could be just as impactful, if not more, but you're so many layers separated from the impact of your work that you don't feel it or maybe even understand it at all.
I feel like we end up in a position as software developers where we don't feel impact unless we're having some part in massive global change impacting millions of people or advancing the technology frontier, but that's just not realistic for everyone to do.
I don't have an answer, but I do think about how your organization might be impacting lots of people's lives, so your seemingly small contribution might actually be significant.
Re: Ask HN: Jobs with Meaning?
#17> I, like many of you, work on a project that doesn't really advance humankind. I work on a software product in a niche, within a niche, within a niche, to help a subset of large corporations process data a little bit more effectively during meetings. Sounds like you're actually contributing to progress? Also, the Apollo missions were actually just a part of a dick-measuring contest between the two leading empires at…
>Putting a man on the moon contributed nothing to nobody.
I think that’s a little dismissive. The whole of the Apollo missions definitely contributed directly to our understanding of physics, and engineering. It led us to solve problems that otherwise probably wouldn’t have been addressed. And perhaps more important than anything else it inspired people to be interested in science, and exploration.
Re: Ask HN: Jobs with Meaning?
#18I think there is an additional layer of complexity in understanding this topic because the scale of software at large companies breaks our concept of impact. You might feel like you're really impacting the world if you directly helped 25 members of your local community. Your job improving reports in some division your company could be just as impactful, if not more, but you're so many layers separated from the impact…
This somewhat evokes I, Pencil [1]. Seemingly unimpactful jobs make up some of the "innumerable antecedents" of virtually all other jobs, including the seemingly impactful ones. Clearly, by virtue of the fact that you're being paid, you're doing something that some person wants you to do. In a functional capitalist society, that person or people are also doing things that others want them to do. Whether we live in a functional capitalist society is open for debate, but assuming we do, that transitive relationship extends to satisfying the desires of the entire world. I realize this is not satisfying, but satisfaction is often irrational.
Re: Ask HN: Jobs with Meaning?
#19I went from a career that I felt not only did not advance humankind but was actively harming it to a new career with a job where I feel like I'm not really advancing humankind. Gotta say, the grass is greener. I sleep a lot better at night. Maybe some day I'll make the final leap and get a role where I feel like I'm actively working to make things better.
Re: Ask HN: Jobs with Meaning?
#20I always plug USDS and civic tech when I see questions like this one, but most USDSers make the maximum salary allowed under the civil service's general schedule, which is $183,500 in DC at present. There are a couple agencies that have their own pay schedules that can go a bit higher (CFPB is one), but anything in aerospace will be <$200K (unless you go to a contractor)