Ask HN: Jobs with Meaning?

You might feel like you're really impacting the world if you directly helped 25 members of your local community. Your job improving reports in some division your company could be just as impactful, if not more, but you're so many layers separated from the impact of your work that you don't feel it or maybe even understand it at all.

I feel like we end up in a position as software developers where we don't feel impact unless we're having some part in massive global change impacting millions of people or advancing the technology frontier, but that's just not realistic for everyone to do.

I don't have an answer, but I do think about how your organization might be impacting lots of people's lives, so your seemingly small contribution might actually be significant.

Problem with programmer recruitment is, imho, that Programmers have been sold this ideal that they are "Rockstars" that swoop in like super heros to save companies. Which is just not what programmers are today. Programmers, are the new industrial workers.

Better paid in most cases though.

I think if you have a lot of downtime, you should see if your company has a philanthropic department, and then volunteer to do help out thought it.

Salesforce where I work, has a pro bono projects portal for any NGO's that have Salesforce and need volunteers to help out. Sure you will not find complicated large projects, but the impact of just making a custom dashboard, report, or help create a mail campaign has actual real world impact.

Sounds like you're actually contributing to progress?

Also, the Apollo missions were actually just a part of a dick-measuring contest between the two leading empires at the time. Putting a man on the moon contributed nothing to nobody. Your job probably has much more meaning.

If you like your job, another option is to donate money instead of switching jobs.

Maybe the some time to contemplate your values, and then see where there might be a need for your skills (or money).

Even a small increase in efficiency in a large company can be worth a lot of money, and that money will be spread across employees, customers, and shareholders. So your work benefits people, even if it does so indirectly. In a simple economy where everyone is a farmer or produces goods for farmers, it's easy to understand what people are contributing. In an advanced economy this is more difficult to understand, but the specialization of an advanced economy creates much higher living standards.

It can be tricky to find meaningful jobs but with open source it flips the other way around and it's actually hard to ship open source at scale without people using it to help others (though seldom the only use).

Bonus points if you spend time thinking about what would be the most helpful as well as what would be the most interesting to work on (to keep your interest through the boring days).

I am in a similar situation with a few life long proposes.

Be a great father, husband, and always available to help my neighbors.

Fixing a fence for a neighbor on ten minutes notice was a highlight last month. I was gone for an hour with my tools. Wife didn't mind even though I bailed on lunch. Kid understood. Daddy has to be a hero.

My job situation allowed all of the above. I'm not excited that I build CI pipelines but a great means to an end.

What can I say. At least I moved from net-bad jobs (lotteries) to net-neutral ones (networking). That's the best I managed.

Is yours a bullshit job as per the definition in the famous article? Can't tell. Maybe it's more a case of alienation from the end product.

Corporate jobs don't often have the capacity to provide a meaningful role. I hazard the suggestion, an internal sense of meaning can better cultivated from other sources.

What worked for me internally was a lot of literature and imaginative study that resulted in a view that fits boring and exciting tasks alike in a larger, structured meaning.

Nobody can really answer or help properly, unless someone close to you, can see the real 'me' and meaning in you and what you might explore next.

Also practically speaking meaningful jobs arent always the best places to work. Meaning often (not always) is an end in itself that does not naturally create profitable business models.

IMO, the "meaningful", tangible problems in the world today are social problems. Most programming jobs _are_ the same from this point of view because as engineers, we make tools. We can hope that these tools are used for "good", but at the end of the day, they are existentially and morally neutral.

That being said, I think cybersecurity is a safe bet. Or sacrifice the 200k and go the teaching route.

To suggest: Go and pivot your career into aerospace, contracting or full time. No better time than now as the resurgence of aerospace, SpaceX, and related startups is a good sign. You could always go back to your job/industry (don't burn your bridges if you want to play it safe and have a plan b). Good luck

> https://www.biography.com/scientists/buzz-aldrin-alcoholism-...

That's my experience, anyway.

* paid much worse

* less technically challenging

* considered less important

Really short answer: ones where you get to own the fruits of your labor at the end of the day.

How could you possibly know that?