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Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

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31–40 of 214 posts

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#31
I’ve thought that a lot recently too. I often look into SWE jobs, companies that announce funding, or I notice a “somebody got a new job” alert on LinkedIn.

It seems 90% of the time the company involved in the above scenarios is some sort of “marketing analytics platform to grab more insight from your customers allowing you to make actionable decisions!” Again. And again, and again.

Why does it seem like there are 2 billion companies doing the exact same thing (ie tracking users, probably in the grey-ish ethical zone, and throwing a bunch of garbage buzzwords around like “synergy”)? I suppose that’s where the money is flowing but it just seems so soul sucking to me.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#33
post #4

Not an SWE, but reading your post I am concerned that this may be more than an unfulfilling career. Please consider reaching out to these good people: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org

Make sure to get your causal arrows in the right direction. A favorite quote from Mark Fisher:

> “Instead of accepting the vast privatization of stress that has taken place over the last thirty years, we need to ask: how has it become acceptable that so many people, and especially so many young people, are ill? The ‘mental health plague’ in capitalist societies would suggest that, instead of being the only social system that works, capitalism is inherently dysfunctional, and that the cost of it appearing to work is very high.”

OP is not finding work dissatisfying because they are depressed, if they ever were depressed it is because software engineering today is a meaningless, valueless trudge ultimately to shift around some investor's money.

If the situation doesn't depress you it's only because you don't see it, but seeing it and reacting to it as the OP does is the only reasonable reaction. It is not a symptom of the sickness of the individual but of sickness of the larger system manifested in the individual.

To the OP: as a general rule I wouldn't seek out advice like this on HN, more comments will be undermining you and your observation of reality than will give you any meaningful advice.

What has worked for me is finding work that isn't repulsive (e.g. not actively and directly contributing to individual or ecological harm, of course they all do in some sense but many do it so directly you can't even look away without extreme cognitive dissonance), for a team of people that treat you as a human (no company will do this, but there are teams). No work is meaningful because we are in a bubble (not just finance) of unimaginable scale, in some capitalist fantasy land detached from reality (we aren't even really generating profits any more rather than shuffling around surplus value).

Acknowledge that you need a job to provide income, not meaning. Find other sources of meaning in your life (think Candide's garden), and try to keep sane.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#34
As the comments already reflect, HN is biased. My advice: get a second opinion somewhere else. It's not just you, in fact a lot of people are having the same thoughts inside and outside of software engineering. I'm one of them, as I just quit a SWE role to pursue literally anything else. We only have so much time on this Earth. Don't let anyone try to convince you that "the economy" is worth working for. Your happiness and self-fulfillment is.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#36
Don’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 just maintain. Alternatively you can try to find work that is meaningful to you - perhaps at a nonprofit or government job, or by building your own company or organization.

On a related note, I recommend reading Tribe by Sebastian Junger, which goes into great detail on how western society is arguably terribly unfulfilling.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#37

Maybe you just see capitalism for what it is [1]. If so, this might be the wrong forum for you to be asking that question on. On the other hand, not every job is unproductive busywork (despite being for profit), so maybe you're just not feeling well or you've had exceptionally bad luck? 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/

As someone who lived through communism - this kind of phrasing is really dangerous. What people complain about on /r/antiwork is problems that people from my country would kill to have.

Capitalism has it's faults, but just complaining, without a constructive alternative can lead to way worse outcomes.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#40
It's not just you. I feel this way too. My personal values don't align with those of the industry. Plenty of people feel this way. Lots of them make a career change.

Find what motivates you in life and build your life around that. Capitalistic industry is fundamentally about profit. If not monetary then power and prestige.

The general mood matches yours. Lots of people are feeling apathy. Prioritizing of profit over people creates dehumanizing social institutions and drives mental health issues. It's really simple and obvious.

People who are too caught up in the glitter of shiny coins can't see the writing on the wall. Either we as a whole are headed for a big change or those who feel that way are headed for a big change in how they relate to the overall whole. Likely both.

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