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

> want to make an actual impact on the world

So in your view, there's this mass of people who accomplish nothing useful and then a few who change the world?

> Will becoming a software engineer be a step in the right direction?

You need to realize that every single one of us who works, regardless of profession, changes the world. Even the guy flipping burgers at McDonalds.

If the guy wasn't flipping burgers, you'd be hungry and you wouldn't be able to do your super duper important job. Every single person in the economy contributes and shares in the accomplishment of everyone else. It's a large machine and every piece is important. Every piece, every person, makes a contribution and has an actual impact on the world.

Don't choose your profession based on some pre-conceived notion of how important a job is. That's just a cover for where on the social ladder a job falls. Yes, if you're a lawyer or a doctor, you'll be more respected than a burger flipper. Better paid too. But that's all it is, social perception and its consequences.

Choose a profession based on your ability and your capacity to engulf yourself in the work. If you have the capacity to be a software engineer, you enjoy the work, and you can make beautiful things with your skill-set ... by all means. But leave the pretentious bullshit of "making a difference" behind. We all make a difference, regardless of the profession.

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 difficult-to-admit thing is that software is only good at solving problems where analyzing information and manipulating data are the solution. Mobile banking apps are doing tremendous good in developing countries -- but the benefits of things like mosquito nets, water purification, and vaccination are not software problems. I'm pretty doubtful that apps will do much to alleviate poverty, although I'm excited and encouraging of the people who are trying.

No, problem solvers that can implement solutions can change the world.

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?

Wrong. Plenty of engineers can strategize and implement. Both skills utilized in harmony are required to change the world. If you manage nothing you gain nothing, just like if you direct your work randomly without any strategic planning, you also gain nothing. This does not mean you need one person for each role.

Just note two things:

Strategizing is usually easier then implementation. It is by far easier to Imagine something then it is to make that imagination real.

The people who strategize will usually, unjustly get more credit then the people who implement. This applies both to failure and success.