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Ask HN: Can a software engineer help change the world?

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Re: Ask HN: Can a software engineer help change the world?

#41

Post by dguaraglia »

dguaraglia wrote: post #18

Of course you can! It'll all depend on what career choices you make. If you become a software engineer to then go develop corporate Java software for Big Corporation Inc, then you won't have much of an impact. Join a startup with a valuable vision and a good product and you definitely will.

I don't get why my answer is being downvoted. I guess I didn't write a super philosophical, clever reply that'd "change this 'ere lad's life forever". I wasn't going for that either.

I just wanted to give my perspective, as someone who's done both, regarding 'working for a product you love' and 'working for a big company because you get paid well'.

If anyone got personally offended because they think they can be a corporate Java developer and change the world by contributing to a charity... well, I guess it's pretty clear the OP wasn't asking about that. Anyone can do that, no need to be a software engineer.

Re: Ask HN: Can a software engineer help change the world?

#42

Post by sbov »

Anything changes the world, some inconsequential, some not, some for better, some for worse, some neutral. If you mean make a positive impact on the world though:

Probably one of the most direct ways to help is to work for a company whose impact you believe will help change the world in a positive way.

E.g. online learning, green tech, or whatever you personally are passionate about.

Another example: in the last 5-10 years there's been a lot of work done in helping consumers understand their power and water usage. This lets us make smarter choices and reduce our energy and water usage.

Re: Ask HN: Can a software engineer help change the world?

#44

Post by rhizome31 »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #36

Sometimes I think we software engineers are really arrogant. Can a plumber change the world? Can a teacher? Can an architect? Can a civil engineer change the world? Yes they all can, but you'll only hear a software engineer ask a question like that. Anytime I see an article saying something along the lines of "Big data can cure cancer," I just laugh. All occupations help the world in their own way. Software just happ…

This is a legitimate question because, as opposed to other professions such as the ones you mentioned, software engineers very often do not change the world at all. A lot of software projects fail, have a very short lifetime, replicate something that already exist or do something that may not seem very useful (eg. the plethora of "social" apps). In all these cases, the impact of software engineering is actually rather negative: wasted natural resources, wasted time, etc. Even when the software is innovative and has users, we can often question its usefulness for humanity. For example, high-frequency trading or mass destruction weaponry are fields where the question of meaning may arise. I think the question of meaning is important to software engineers because it's not obvious at all that what they do is meaningful.

Re: Ask HN: Can a software engineer help change the world?

#45

Post by Kephael »

MichaelGG wrote: post #32
eastbayjake wrote: post #24

I hate to admit this as an engineer, but the people who make a difference are working at the strategy level and not the implementation level, which is where most of us engineers spend our time. No world-changing startup ever failed because "we couldn't get the code right" -- they fail because they build things the world doesn't want, or they fail to market the things they build to people who want them. The second dif…

Well one big exception being Bitcoin, for some values of "change the world". Without BTC, maybe dark markets wouldn't have taken off, and who knows how many people would go without access to medicines, or deal with quality/legal/violence issues. People thought of digital money before, but Bitcoin's implementation set it apart, no? Perhaps the same can be said for Tor, as well.

I've never seen a legal use of Tor in a Western country.

Re: Ask HN: Can a software engineer help change the world?

#46

Post by olalonde »

saint_fiasco wrote: post #2

The boring answer is that as long as you are making money, you can donate some to charity. Making lots of money and donating it to an effective charity is usually a more efficient way to change the world for the better than choosing a sub-optimal career trying to change the world by yourself. If you think you can be a good software engineer, you should go for it.

Not sure why this is getting down voted. Software engineers have high earning potential and can have more impact by donating part of their salary instead of volunteering or doing non-profit work. Plus, software seems to be a good industry to be in for getting a shot at making ridiculous amounts of money which can eventually be donated (e.g. Bill Gates).

This is indeed a boring answer but a realistic one, especially given how vague "an actual impact on the world" is.

Re: Ask HN: Can a software engineer help change the world?

#47

Post by carc »

eastbayjake wrote: post #24

I hate to admit this as an engineer, but the people who make a difference are working at the strategy level and not the implementation level, which is where most of us engineers spend our time. No world-changing startup ever failed because "we couldn't get the code right" -- they fail because they build things the world doesn't want, or they fail to market the things they build to people who want them. The second dif…

I think you're a bit off base about the implementation level not making much of a difference compared to the strategy level. Have you never seen engineers essentially fail at building a spec because they couldn't implement something well enough? I've seen a team of full stack developers build an ambitious web UI with lots of complicated data visualizations/animations/interactions/etc. There were tons of performance issues because they did not understand the browser/javascript/css well enough to optimize things. A front end pro needed to go in and salvage the whole thing because it was not usable.

Another anecdote I personally have is a friend who is obsessed with being an entrepreneur. He keeps coming up with these ideas that are actually pretty decent, but he tries to build them himself (he's self taught but still doesn't really know what he's doing) and what he ends up with are things no one would ever, ever use twice.

Strategy is nothing without good implementation, and implementation is nothing without good strategy.

Re: Ask HN: Can a software engineer help change the world?

#48

Post by nmrm2 »

eastbayjake wrote: post #35
hkmurakami wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While what you are saying isn't entirely without merit, isn't that like saying that the success of the Apollo missions lie with the bureaucrats rather than the engineers and astronauts?

I'm saying that man wouldn't have set foot on the moon without John F. Kennedy declaring it would be so, but man would probably still have walked on the moon if the Apollo engineering team were slightly less skilled. (Probably would have taken longer and had more deadly failures, so thank God for the highly-skilled people who worked together to make it all possible, but engineering skill adds incremental improvement…

You don't think a bunch of astronaut deaths and costly mission failures would've eventually eroded public will?

Re: Ask HN: Can a software engineer help change the world?

#49

Post by JoeAltmaier »

nmrm2 wrote: post #48
eastbayjake wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying that man wouldn't have set foot on the moon without John F. Kennedy declaring it would be so, but man would probably still have walked on the moon if the Apollo engineering team were slightly less skilled. (Probably would have taken longer and had more deadly failures, so thank God for the highly-skilled people who worked together to make it all possible, but engineering skill adds incremental improvement…

You don't think a bunch of astronaut deaths and costly mission failures would've eventually eroded public will?

Depends on the mix. As long as there are some spectacular successes, there will be interest.

Re: Ask HN: Can a software engineer help change the world?

#50

Post by crimsonalucard »

rhizome31 wrote: post #44
crimsonalucard wrote: post #36

Sometimes I think we software engineers are really arrogant. Can a plumber change the world? Can a teacher? Can an architect? Can a civil engineer change the world? Yes they all can, but you'll only hear a software engineer ask a question like that. Anytime I see an article saying something along the lines of "Big data can cure cancer," I just laugh. All occupations help the world in their own way. Software just happ…

This is a legitimate question because, as opposed to other professions such as the ones you mentioned, software engineers very often do not change the world at all. A lot of software projects fail, have a very short lifetime, replicate something that already exist or do something that may not seem very useful (eg. the plethora of "social" apps). In all these cases, the impact of software engineering is actually rathe…

I think you illustrated the reality of software engineering, not the perception. The perception is that all these startup entrepreneurs and software engineers are ninjas and rockstars. Software Engineers are curing cancer and ending terrorism with big data, all while becoming millionaires over night.

I believe the reason this question is asked, is not because of the stark reality of software engineering, but because of the perception.

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