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Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
131–140 of 214 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#132I get my meaning and purpose outside of work. My work funds my meaningful activities and family life. It’s not the perfect situation but I’m happy and find working tolerable most days and enjoyable other days. I think it’s a mistake to look for meaning and joy at work.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#133Most jobs - especially in software - produce very little or no value. There are a couple things you can do: - Accept it, do as little work as you can get away with, and find fulfillment outside your job. Maybe get a stand-up desk and do some light exercise while working, to ease the feeling of wasting your time. - Find a useful job. Non-profits, government services, and research organizations are good places to look,…
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Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#134You could always take a job to pay the rent, and do something fulfilling in your own time. Community work can be related to your professional life if you want. Personally, I work with young adults, coaching a sport. I have found nothing more fulfilling, save for watching my children grow and develop.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#135I derive most of my job satisfaction from solving interesting technical challenges. I also have an ability to become interested in whatever industry I work in and I take pride in being a small cog in the system that provides goods and services that people desire a little bit cheaper, faster, easier or with better quality. That's enough for me.
Most of the time when I see those "lets save the world"-organisations it seems to me that they are either moonshot ideas with 1/100 chance of success or they are doing trivial work, duplicating the efforts of already existing organisations or doing things that have no measurable impact at all. I honestly think I would feel less satisfaction working for them. Sometimes I even see them bidding on each others names on Google Ads to capture donations from each other.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#136As 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 happine…
The economy is worth working for. The life you enjoy working towards self fulfillment is only possible because of people who work hard to sell things that you and others want to buy.
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Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#137I'd recommend pivoting into security engineering. Security engineering, even at big tech companies, can be fulfilling as you are often protecting dissidents, journalists, and human rights activists from surveillance. Even at companies like facebook, you can work on protecting dissidents [2] while contributing very little to the company's ad business. There are also opportunities that pay well at non-profits like Amne…
I've been trying to pivot in this direction for a while. Almost finished a masters degree in information security, while working full time on security-related software (though truth be told, I do focus on the fairly low-level aspects of security), and I'm still very much intimidated by security engineer jobs posted online. Still feels like I'd need to be working loads in my spare time just to not be hired in a entry level position in the field. Would you say this is accurate, or am I being paranoid?
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#138Don’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…
> 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.
That's not all we know about OP though.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Basing your happiness from your work life is a recipe for unhappiness. You will always find something to nitpick about
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
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?
#140You might be slightly depressed but that's not everything. The truth is that most software companies are...pointless. They're sales driven body shops talking about "mission". I really like my job - work on innovative product lines with a small close knit team. I got here by just working on ideas/probelms that interested me and selling that company to the current one. Go do something you like. Also go to a therapist.
> The truth is that most software companies are...pointless. They're sales driven body shops talking about "mission".
Most jobs are pointless in the global scheme of things.