At your next job offer, yes evaluate the work itself, but after you've qualified it, spend more effort seeing if you can connect with the people. Come for the money, stay for the friends.
Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
141–150 of 214 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#142> that almost every job out there is about squeezing more profit out of people, and absolutely nothing else dude, where do you imagine the salaries come from?
There's a difference between a transaction where both parties benefit and one where it's an attempt to part a fool from his money.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#143I work at a music software company. I’ve been playing music my whole life, my work feels like an extension of that.
An observation: a lot of programmers get into it because they are interested in programming itself. Entering the industry can be frustrating because it is no longer about programming, it’s a means to an end.
Nothing wrong with being interested in programming (it’s what makes you good at it) but it helps to have an end you care about as well.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#144Yes, it is you (and few others). What you are experiencing is best described as depression. Been in a similar situation as you once. Of course the most important step is acknowledging that you need help otherwise that feeling will persist. Sometimes the source of the depression has not so much to do with your work life but has deeper roots.
What gaslighting! OP says the work for profit situation makes him depressed. Replier takes this and on the basis of five paragraphs of text discards this notion and says it must be some deeply rooted unrelated personal problem.
I'll take OP's assessment on its own merits and validate it and say the screwy work situation out there can be depressing.
Another interesting thing with replier is how he is trying to isolate you. You are alone in his view, or at least marginal, and have some deeply rooted defective aspect. The truth is OP is not alone in his thinking, as other posts in this thread can attest, and link to places like /r/antiwork where you can find more who think like this. You can see the move here to try to keep you isolated, and dull you on organizing together with others of a like mind.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anything that harms your ability to live happily can be considered a disease. Not being able to work at 99% of the companies that employ your profession is arguably something that harms your ability to live happily.
Or they could have just chosen a profession they don’t like?
Apparently so!
Maybe it's the desire to stick with a profession you hate in practice is caused by some kind of disease.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#146Strangely as it is, but I tend to agree with your observations.
Even though i have nothing against “squeazing more profits”.
Its just somehow doesn’t motivate me to work on someone else’s profits.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only if you fail. It is entirely possibly to seek out and find a meaningful job that gives you satisfaction.
This is shifting the blame to the depressed
Doesn't sound like OP has thought of this tack yet. Nor is it easy to pull off even if you do try. I'm just saying it's possible.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#148Don’t agree with most of these comments. Not wanting to work at a company that makes some uninteresting business product just a little more profitable does not mean that you are depressed. Working at a place like that can certainly make you depressed though! To the OP, I think you have a few options. On one hand you can keep taking short jobs / consulting or try to build some sort of simple SaaS business that you can…
For sure. Some people are ok with doing arbitrary tasks for the powerful as long as the money is good. Others of us, me included, care about actual impact on users and the world.
I remember interviewing one very sharp engineer who was desperate to get out of Facebook. He had been attracted by the exciting problems, but after a few years he was entirely sick of spending most of his time trying to shift metrics by fractions of a percent. Metrics whose only real meaning was, at best, increasing the money flowing into Facebook. And all of that was years before the recent revelations on the dangers FB poses and how little they care about that.
My current solution to this problem has been to work for an effective not-for-profit. It still has its problems, but my colleagues at least care about actual impact, and I'm still excited for the chance to make a dent in problems I care about.
(As an aside, I'll note that it's also possible to find meaning in commercial work. I love building things for users, and I'm happy to charge for them when we're creating real value. But given American managerial culture, user benefit is often at best a side effect at many companies.)
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#149I changed every few months a job after graduation. At the end I stayed in the one with best salary and okayish product. Workload is really low 9 months a year with some meetings and really relaxed deadlines. 3 months I do 50-60 hours weeks. Working topics and scope are a bit boring, but I have exciting private development as my side project what I intend to commercialize. That’s also my career path, there are enough potential candidates for better paid management roles at my day job. I goes without these stressful times I would feel bored and depressed. Salary wise only single company would be better in town, so my options are limited here.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#150I watched Good Will Hunting recently and was struck by this scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKQBHkzOYvw), particularly these lines:
WILL
What do you mean "cop out?" I mean, w-w-what's
wrong with layin' brick?
SEAN
Nothing.
WILL
There's nothing wrong---That's some-- That's
somebody's home I'm building.
SEAN
Right. My dad laid brick. Okay? Busted his ass so I
could have an education.
WILL
Exactly. That's an honorable profession. What's wrong
with..with fixing somebody's car. Someone can get to
work the next day because of me. There's honor in that.