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

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.

I’m 46 years old now. I’ve felt as you have since my first corporate job at 21. I have contemplated “offing myself” as you say. But obviously I’m still here!

Seems to me your reaction to the world is appropriate and correct. The world we’ve created for ourselves is devoid of meaning. Most work is performative, and entirely pointless, IME.

So you need to make your own meaning. A significant-other helps. As do pets, and though I don’t have then myself, children provide meaning for a great many people.

For me, the best I can do at work is find a sort of Zen-like contentedness with the work. Working carefully, slowly, deliberately, doing my best with minimal effort; these things bring me to my place of Zen.

When I get tired of a job, I leave and look for something new. I show precisely as much loyalty to my employer as they show me; aka none. As others have said, life is too short. Define your own version of success and pursue that. Chasing someone else’s version of success is a fools errand.

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.

Most 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, but there are lots of private sector jobs that produce useful things even while squeezing out profit.

I work at a public research organization, creating tools to collect, process, and share climate data. All of my co-workers are fairly happy and motivated, because the work we do is useful. I'm currently working on a CRUD app to make it easier for researchers to submit reports to the grant organization. The product is dull, but I'm happy to work on it because it will let our researchers spend less time on administration and more time on climate science.

Assuming you don't need/care about maximizing salary, university research can be a pretty rewarding path. There are a lot of big institutions that need high quality software developers with 'real-world' experience to assist their teams.

Having been a bit burnt out on corporate life, I had decided to try this path out almost a year ago. My lab is in kidney research, and it has been a breath of fresh air to constantly be talking with various doctors and researchers across the US instead of simple businessmen. It has also be extremely heartwarming to hear from patients about the direct impact this research has had on their quality of life. Had someone recently speak to us, their story of struggle, and the love they had for this work legitimately brought a tear to my eye, extremely motivating stuff.

The pay is far from competitive (I have no degree, helps a LOT if you do though!) and as with any job, there are going to be day-to-day stressors. With that said, the plus includes sane working hours, lots of PTO, and typically many of these places offer top-of-the-line health care. I'm sure I'll head back to startup land eventually, the grass is always greener, but for the time being I have been able to get some excellent quality sleep, waking with excitement for what each day ahead holds.

There is a book of philosophy called Ecclesiastes [1] from the Judeo-Christian writings. It's a reflection on the question 'What profits have a man for all his toil, in which he toils under the sun?' and some suggestions on how to find contentment with your life despite that. I think you'll find some camaraderie with the author based on your post. Written sometime between 450-200 BCE, it has nothing to do with computers, but a lot to do with your question.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes

Yes, it is you (and few others). What you are experiencing is best described as depression. Been in a similar situation as you once. Of course the most important step is acknowledging that you need help otherwise that feeling will persist. Sometimes the source of the depression has not so much to do with your work life but has deeper roots.

A meaningful job is only a part of building a meaningful life. The questions your asking may be a sign your placing too much existential weight on a job instead of actively working to have a meaningful life in every aspect.

Are you actively building meaningful relationships, maintaining the old ones and seeking out new ones? Are you involved in communities around shared values? Do you invest in personal goals outside your career (hobbies, music, art, etc)? Are you challenging yourself physically in some sport or activity your passionate about?

Work is a big part of the picture, but if you are focused on growing intellectually, socially, spiritually, and physically (whatever those may look like to you) a job takes a much smaller role.

I would say it's not just you, 99% of jobs are totally pointless or actively harmful to the world, if you ask me. Like you say, squeezing profit out of people and absolutely nothing else. But it's not really relevant to wanting to off yourself.

Even if you get to a job with a point, like doing something meaningful or for the good of society, it's not necessarily going to feel great from day-to-day, and might be even more disillusioning (speaking from experience here). I find that I just care about it less when other things in my life are going well.

> it just seems that almost every job out there is about squeezing more profit out of people

Yes you are right 100%.

Few years ago I tried to raise cash for a devtools startup

I met with lots of VC. It was a fascinating yet horrible experience.

VC were not even interested in discussing about the product itself. They just wanted the growth numbers...

They couldn't care less about the problem I was trying to solve.

Software industry and Startups has evolved a lot from two decades ago.

20 years ago startups were built to be disruptive and bring innovation to the mass.

Today they just apply the YC model on repeat until the founders can make their exit and move to another startup...

Most Founders these days are just in for for the money and the fame , they want to appear on "Forbes" ,"Washington Post" and escape the boredom of Entreprise. In reality they don't care about actually solving problems , R&D nor software at all.

I'm not gonna blame them , why make something actually great when something mediocre will make you rich and famous ?

I was fortunate enough to find a job in banking with remote work , I only work 5-10 hours / week with a very high salary.

My team is full of incredible people super funny who don't commit their personal life on a shitty job to pay their bill , nor try to turn two founders from Berkley from multi-millionaires to billionaires.

I've worked in startups with 300M in the bank , SME , Enterprise , I've done them all ! No one cares about software, trust me after 10 years of experience I can tell you that no one cares about software !

All modern startups care bout is money !

I can only recommend you to find a boring job in a fortune 500 thats lets you have a fulfilling private life , I've done this choice and I'never been much happier in my entire life !

You 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.

I wouldn't say that you have depression. You just opened your eyes to how pointless modern corporate jobs are. There is actually extensive literature to this phenomenon, I can really encourage you to read "Bullshit jobs" by David Graeber. The book tries to explain how the pseudo-feudal, futile and boring corporate Western world came to be.

I personally try to distance my self-image from my job, I see it as a way to pay my bills and save up some money, but I try so that it does not define me, and I definitely do not try to build up friendships there, I guess I have enough friends everywhere else to have the need to socialize with people I barely share things in common.

Moreover, there are so many people destroying themselves mentally and physically with over-work because they believe that they have to love work (as they would a hobby or something similar), but I think that does not have to be the case, I actually believe that there are a lot of activities that CANNOT be monetize which are also quite enjoyable, around which I can center my life, e. g. playing tennis, drawing, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I actually love to code. I love my side projects. I hate to be told what and how to code at "normal" work.

I'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 Amnesty Tech as well [1]. The challenges are surprisingly technical and your adversaries and coworkers are some of the most talented computer scientists in the world [3]. It also surprisingly comes with around a ~25% pay raise from SWE (I make $750k TC as an L6) as there are so few people interested in it. Switching into security engineering was the best decision I made and I now work with an almost completely clean conscious.

[1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/tech/

[2] https://citizenlab.ca/2019/11/whatsapp-attributes-hack-of-14...

[3] https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2021/12/a-deep-dive-i...

I read Cal Newport's "So Good They Can't Ignore You" (https://www.calnewport.com/books/so-good/) when I was around the college age, which helped me solidify a belief I always had in the back of my mind: Work isn't about finding something you enjoy, it's about finding something you're good at.

I think there's a whole sub-conversation to be had about how work is perceived in different cultures. It seems to me like Americans are much to focused on what you're describing, which is that work has to be pleasurable. In my eastern European family, there was never any doubt: Work is about making sure you have food on the table, and a roof over your head.

That's not to say I'd take any job, if I was morally opposed to the work (See: Working at F̶a̶c̶e̶b̶o̶o̶k̶ Meta) I'd go elsewhere. But not being in love with my work is fine. I don't hate it, I'm just indifferent to it, and it funds my actual life outside of work.

As for not wanting to off myself? I think that comes back to that cultural aspect. I could never imagine wanting to end my life just because my job isn't amazing, because I never had a preconception that it could be. I don't feel like I'm "missing" anything by not loving my job, because I love my life.

My perspective is that work is no less pointless or purposeful than anything else you do with your life. Everything is from a certain lens meaningless. Yet we still live and do things and so on.

So I spend my time on what I enjoy doing. Which up to a point is my day job. Overall I find my job as enjoyable as any hobby I've had plus I get paid for it. I get to solve problems and watch the outcome of my solutions play out. My employer isn't aiming to save the world but they also doesn't destroy it.

It sounds like you want to work on something important to you. This will be different for everyone.

What matters to you?

For myself, I've had some great jobs, and some that just pay the bills. There are things I won't work on (gambling, weapons).

Even the jobs that pay the bills have been mostly OK, in that I've learned new things and met some lovely people. Sometimes they have led to better jobs indirectly. A very few jobs, with micro managers and bullies, I've resigned from.

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

I have a very boring job and there are two ways I handle it.

1. While the work is boring, taking pride in doing a good job is enjoyable. I’m happier the days I go home and feel I have done a good job than those days I do nothing.

2. Realize it is just a job. Tomorrow I am going hiking, on Monday climbing and on Tuesday I have a date. Filling my weekends and evenings with things I love makes going through a boring workday easier. My job exists to pay for my life and let me do things I enjoy. Do not seek happiness in work.

> Maybe I'm naive, but it just seems that almost every job out there is about squeezing more profit out of people, and absolutely nothing else, and it doesn't really make me want to work.

You may be naive, but this is right. Try not to see it as such a bad thing.

It sounds like you're looking for a job that does some good for the world and isn't concerned with efficiency.

All the jobs that promise this are lying to naive people to exploit them for profit.

The reality is that even the non-profit world is concerned with the cost of labor. As a SWE, you're essentially a high paid laborer.

"I'm kind of looking for a job" sounds like you're thinking about making a religious conversion to join "the employed". Jobs aren't where your identity should come from. Rethink your position as "I need to trade some of my time for money" and the labor market will make a lot more sense.

> People who work 8 hours a day, mostly for a paycheck, how do you cope without wanting to off yourself?

I'm betting that I'll be able to do the time<->money trade efficiently enough that I'll be able to stop working eventually.

As you're working and acquire capital, you need to invest as much of the capital that you earn as possible.

By investing, you're employing laborers (usually by proxy of a company) to produce capital for you.

Once your capital can produce more than your labor, you have achieved "financial independence" and no longer need to be concerned with finding work.

Given that anyone with basic coding skills can get a job paying $150k+/yr without too much effort, and all work is remote, you should be able to invest about $100k/yr without too much trouble. Without having other financial obligations, you should be able to hit financial independence in about 5-10 years.

Perhaps you are choosing shitty companies and are being approached by shitty companies as well. Work satisfaction is an important component of happiness, because we spend a large percentage of our waking hours at work.

Here are some suggestions for transitioning to a better job in software development:

1. Look for a workplace with smart colleagues, even if the product is a bit workaday. You will become a better engineer by working with people who are better than you.

2. Software development is done in many domains. If you are bored, it may be because you are bored of the domain. Change it up and go to someplace that's very different. For example, if you work in banking, you could move to a bio company.

3. Spend time on your own learning skills, whether they be programming languages, databases, web dev frameworks, or cloud native stacks. Doing small projects or even just reading and playing around with small examples while reading books can be a thing that you do every day or week to add some variety to your work.

4. Interview and change jobs more often. Always having options lined up is useful because you can move to another job. Nowadays the average tenure is barely more than two years. If you take 6 months to make the move and 6 months to settle into a job, you will be spending perhaps a year in productive, sometimes boring mode. It's terrible for the quality of the software that's produced, but you will solve your problem.

If you move away to another line of work, chances are you will be compensated way less. As you grow older and accrue responsibilities such as kids, you will care more about providing for them, and being in software development is still a great way to provide for your family while securing your retirement etc. I'd think a lot before moving away from software dev, because it pays quite well. Even doing part-time work in a different area while doing software development (e.g., as a consultant) is better than moving away completely from software development.

It’s not only you. I worked in a non profit research organisation for a few years and it was great, but I switched to a for profit health care company to change environment and have experience outside the research world. It was not challenging but stressful, and I couldn’t care less about the talks about profitability and shareholders. I looked at the job market for a year and everything was the same or worse than my company. So I got in contact with my non profit research organisation again and they hired me a second time. Work is fun again.

Research is not for everyone but you could consider it.

Go work at McDonalds flipping burgers for a few months then realize how lucky you are to have the skills to do SW development jobs. Then reevaluate those jobs you were unmotivated about. It sounds like you might be suffering depression or need a culture shock that most people have awful jobs and we're damn lucky.

You are not wrong. After 20 years of work I agree that being a drone to squeeze out more profit for the shareholders is unfulfilling. At best you could argue that working with a good group of people at a company with a good workplace culture makes it OK in some ways. But not everyone works that way.

It sounds like you’d be happier doing solo work. Maybe make a good library, piece of software, saas application etc. working for yourself and having time to do what you want to do is great for many people.

Find something that you are comfortable doing to make money. Who knows, maybe you will enjoy it.

I saw a comment here a bit farther down about how drawing your happiness from your work life was a recipe for unhappiness. While that's true (barring the exceptional job that one genuinely loves in all respects), there's a valuable distinction between drawing your happiness from your work life and letting your work life consistently make you unhappy.

It's also valuable to be open to "boring" jobs -- that is, jobs that don't sound on paper like they'd be exciting -- as they might turn out to actually be jobs that do make you happy for reasons beyond the specifics of the position: a good "work culture" counts for a lot of happiness, even if what you're doing isn't something that's going to wow people at parties. My favorite jobs have ended up being at companies that probably don't sound particularly exciting -- a database company, a group making an underrated virtual assistant. Conversely, some jobs that I've had at ostensibly more exciting places, like an early virtual world company and an aerospace company, were kind of train wrecks. (The latter was at least as much my fault, as I was sufficiently enamored with the idea of working for them that I didn't admit I was absolutely not right for the job even though I picked up on it early.)

>how do you cope without wanting to off yourself?

it's simple really-- make no attempt to pretend you have freedom! acknowledge that, unless ww3 comes and the entire system that runs our world is upended in a likely radioactive manner, we are but hamsters running in wheels.

why do the hamsters run? some enjoy running, some only for food and water, others because they feel compelled to fit in with the other hamsters.

but if you are looking for a way to exist in this system without having money, be prepared for quite the journey!

A pointless job can still be a good time if the people are good. If you hone a skill, it's rewarding to put it to professional use

Sometimes I want to off myself too, but work isn't why. I have the unhealthy habit to overwork when I'm feeling that mood tho, so it's different for everyone. I'd suggest you try isolate the feelings you're having to understand whether working for a paycheck is really their source

You can probably buy a more fulfilling job with a lower salary.

My first job out of college was working as a programmer in a university research lab. It paid a lot less than working in industry, but was incredibly fun and fulfilling.

The things I got in exchange for the low salary were a ton of autonomy, interesting work to do, the knowledge that my work had value, direct contact with my users, and a relaxed environment surrounded by smart people doing interesting work. A grad school environment, without the stress of publish-or-perish.

We did publish a paper on our software, and asked anyone who used the software to cite the paper in their publications. That paper has thousands of citations now.

This was in the 1990s and I'm sure the compensation penalty for this kind of work is even greater now. The caveat here is that I was young and single, with no family to support, in a city with a low cost of living, and I was very happy living a low-rent, quasi-bohemian lifestyle. But I wouldn't trade that experience for more money now, even considering the compounded investment returns I've missed out on.

It's not just you. I don't know what the solution is, since I'm also looking for it, but what may help is taking more time to think. I've opted for working part-time (80% load) to have more time to spend on writing and taking my mind off of things.

Think about what are the problems that are actually worth fixing in the world and make your way up from there. Give it time, don't force it. It might also be worth checking out techniques that can help generate ideas: https://medium.com/ideas-into-action/ikigai-the-perfect-care...

And even in situations where the job itself is not that meaningful, there are lots of other areas you may be able to focus on. Building relationships, learning about how software is built...

It is a choice. Maybe you are naive and hear me out. Most jobs exist because it is for profit for an organization. That is the truth. Good companies of course try and create a better work environment so it hopefully is a win win.

You sound either too idealistic or you are a bird that needs to fly on their own (as in try your own thing). There is no point complaining about SWE jobs because frankly, it is a privilege to get paid anywhere from average 80K to 400K in SWE when tons of people struggle to make ends meet. Look outside of HN echo chamber and talk to people who are not SWEs and see what they say.

You are asking for advice from "people who have great jobs". Why would that matter because the definition of "great job" comes from YOU not us. So find that definition and you will have your answers.

Here’s my heuristic:

1) Filter down to companies that don’t actively harm people/society (this narrows things quite a bit!)

2) Take pleasure/pride in the purely technical aspects of things: making a good system, a good UX, making things performant and elegant and robust, even if the end purpose feels very boring and/or pointless

Sometimes you can do a bit better than that- I’ve had a job whose product felt interesting but pointless, and I’ve had one whose product felt boring but arguably made some people’s lives better. But you have to go pretty far off the beaten path to find one that’s truly fulfilling on all axes. For me, my job is about the paycheck and some base satisfaction from technical execution. For everything else, there’s my free time (and to that end: work life balance is important too!)

It is just you. Those jobs that you deem "pointless" make the economy work. To find great jobs: 1. Be clear about what "great" means to you. What do you value? 2. Research the company to determine if what you value is the same as what they value. Every company goes after profit. This is a good thing. Profit = you're providing value to someone. If you don't believe that, work for a non-profit. That's cool too. 3. Realize that everything meaningful was built by teams. No one can build something that stands the test of time by themselves. When you zoom in, things may seem pointless, but when you zoom out to look at the timeframe of decades, you'll see meaningful change derived from many of today's companies.

Not a software engineer, but have gone through this.

Siva7 is partially correct that coming to this realization is depressing af and can lead to a feedback loop of negativity that's hard to break.

It isn't you though. Really, there are tons of useless roles and companies. See the book Bullshit Jobs.

Also, 40 hour work weeks are just ridiculous unbalanced. It's more like 50+ hours when factoring in commuting and lunch etc.

I'd offer a few solutions.

1. If you focus on what your life goals are, or what fun things you can do with the money that a full time job brings it can make it more bearable. 2. Find a gig that you can work 32 hours a week—makes all the difference. 3. Build or buy a small business and work your own hours on something you care about. www.empireflippers.com; www.bizbuysell.com

A lot of exercise helps too.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that all SWE positions are high-paying soulless FAANG jobs - those jobs get a lot of attention and are very appealing to a lot of people.

But there are tons of other kinds of SWE jobs out there that aren't about squeezing another fraction of a percent of profit out of some process - positions with non-profits, development jobs in medical research of all kinds, or even early stage startups where you get to play a bigger role in the product development. You probably won't make FAANG money, but you can do just fine for yourself in a position where you feel like you're doing something more meaningful.

You say you’re unmotivated by 99% of the job offers you see. I would encourage you to flip the question around and ask yourself: What would you actually be motivated to spend your time on?

Once you figure out what you would want to do, you can actively search for a job doing exactly that instead of passively evaluating job offers that you come across. Or, if such a job doesn’t exist, you can look for a job that pays well enough to enable you to do what you want.

It’s great that you’re thinking about what would make your life more fulfilling. The flexibility to choose what to work on is a great stepping stone in that direction.

Most entry level jobs suck. Assuming there’s something you like about software development, find opportunities where you’ll grow and learn new ways of doing things. Learn to figure out how to spot good software development ideas that make you more productive and which seem more fad-driven or driven by business needs unrelated to development. My initial experience was random fourth month internships through university. Once I found a rough environment where I thought I could fit in with lots of opportunities around if it fell through in any way (at the time that was SV). Even the worst job I found, I always ended up finding a way to do something that met requirements in a way that interested me (usually by taking initiative and proposing to work on something that had business value but hadn’t been tackled in any way yet by anyone).

Also be very clear. Every single job will have a component that feels like a slog. The question is ultimately if the trade off is worth what you are looking for/ what interests you.

Also, not to play armchair therapist, but I’d you’re seriously thinking about harming yourself because of whatever work environment you’re in, it may be worth talking to someone. Even when I had to work at places for a paycheck, the alternative wasn’t suicide. Find things elsewhere that fulfill you. Friends, family, and general human connection seem to be pretty standard for maintaining some level of happiness, but ultimately your life’s journey is your own.

In my (biased) opinion, there is good software work in academia. Getting to work alongside researchers and writing code that will truly make a difference. Solving problems that help people in making the world a better place and expanding knowledge is something I find highly fulfilling.

Try looking at job postings by universities, you may be able to find software jobs working with a lab, teams of labs, or some department. There may also be opportunity in the private sector as well for similar work.

Many of the comments here are pointing out the pluses in a SWE job. But for the most part it's as they say "Putting lipstick on a pig" If you don't like the job there is very little anyone can point out to make it better. My suggestion is to start looking for a new career to get into. The advantage of being a software guy is that you can get paid well. Which gives you the opportunity to work for a bit earn enough money to then try other careers.

Plan to move but start now.

>People who work 8 hours a day, mostly for a paycheck, how do you cope without wanting to off yourself?

Knowing that work is just the means to fund my life, rather than being my life.

Living super frugally and saving most of the paycheck (I save 81% of my pre-tax salary, 96% post-tax) will allow me to retire very quickly. Otherwise, I don't think I'd be able to do it, I'd rather do something radical like becoming a pirate, than spend 30+ years in the software engineering industry. I'm on my 9th company and I haven't yet had a job that I didn't want to quit after 6 months (and usually, much sooner).

I watched Good Will Hunting recently and was struck by this scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKQBHkzOYvw), particularly these lines:

              WILL
  What do you mean "cop out?" I mean, w-w-what's
  wrong with layin' brick?
  
              SEAN
  Nothing.
  
              WILL
  There's nothing wrong---That's some-- That's
  somebody's home I'm building.
  
              SEAN
  Right. My dad laid brick. Okay? Busted his ass so I
  could have an education.
  
              WILL
  Exactly. That's an honorable profession. What's wrong
  with..with fixing somebody's car. Someone can get to
  work the next day because of me. There's honor in that.

I don't think you're naive. I think it's hard to find "honor" in a lot of software jobs. If you find a job building a booking app for dog-washers, for example, you might be solving a real problem that someone has. But you're not building someone's house; you're not getting someone to work.

It’s better to work full time for 10 years than half time for 20, just because of how compound interest works. Getting the energy to do that is another matter.

This isn't the a direct answer to your question, but maybe you should consider being an entrepreneur if you find SWE work pointless or unfulfilling? Maybe you're just looking for bigger, more inter-disciplinary challenges. Figuring out how to convince people to give you money by giving them something they want is pretty hard and therefore a rewarding problem to work on.

IMHO, you're starting from a false dichotomy that insinuates work is inherently a bad thing. Consider that hobbies are generally not things that have some great positive impact on humanity, but they are fun nonetheless.

Work can be the same: people often enjoy the process itself, imperfect and full of ups and downs as it may be. This can be especially true for SWEs because the role has creative and/or intellectually stimulating aspects to it.

The idea of deriving happiness from your actions has been explored at length by disciplines like Buddhism, and it boils down to being aware of where your attachments lie.

You might, for example, think happiness is lying on a beach sipping on Pina coladas or whatever. But fulfillment generally requires achievements of some sort, and on an ongoing basis. You can't really achieve fulfillment without effort/work, pretty much by definition. So a more productive/pragmatic way of thinking is to align your need for subsistence to the pursuit of fulfillment.

You should explore what you're excited about. Could it be self driving cars, robotics, logistics, health care tech? Do you think space travel is epic? The benefit of being a SWE is that you're needed in every industry. While I certainly fall prey to this emotion from time to time, there is good reason to be optimistic in our choice of vocation.

Some people find meaning in building a family. Work is modern day hunting.

>People who work 8 hours a day, mostly for a paycheck, how do you cope without wanting to off yourself?

By remembering that we are some of the luckiest people on earth. We get paid obscene amounts of money to sit around in our underwear at home tapping out letters on a keyboard. The sweat, toil, and hard work of an entire family in some third world country generates only a tiny fraction of my compensation as a fat, entitled first world bourgeois that was born into the lottery ticket of a first world life and education. Never forget that.

>Maybe I'm naive, but it just seems that almost every job out there is about squeezing more profit out of people, and absolutely nothing else, and it doesn't really make me want to work.

Companies exist to make profit. You can play the game and win the prize, or you can call foul, take your ball, and go home. The choice is yours.

> I've been working the bare minimum (or less)to live, 3 months there, 6 months there, 2 months there

Call yourself a contractor or consultant and embrace that. Do not try to look for meaning in a 'job' someplace. As nice and as enticing as some of those may seem at time, that is probably not where you should look to draw identity and meaning from (at least not primarily).

Going from project to project every 3-6-9-12 months or so - you'll be able to focus more on yourself, your skills, etc, and have less ties to 'company X'. This will force you to realize that your identity isn't tied to company X.

Disclosure - I've never worked full time for any one company for more than 22 months. I don't really quite 'get' how other people do it long term either. I mean... I understand how it happens, but have not felt compelled.

I 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.

Some people are "mission driven", as it were. You might be just such a person. There are lots of people like this. If you look at many leaders in the medical device open source & startup communities you'll find a lot of these kinds of people. Often they have a loved one afflicted with or themselves are afflicted with a medical malady which they can apply their technical acumen toward a solution or an improvement, so they take significantly less pay and/or position than they might otherwise be able to achieve just to work on a problem that means something to them.

Not everybody has an entirely transactional relationship to their work and that's okay. Where you get yourself into trouble is if you let highly transactional people exploit the fact that you might be mission driven.

It's not just you. What you're talking about—an unclear or uncompelling mission and a lack of agency—is a big source of dissatisfaction in our industry. It leads to burnout and turnover. As far as I'm concerned, it's specifically a manager's job to address these problems. As much as anything else, manager is tasked with organizing the work of a team so that teammates all feel like their work has purpose and that they have agency over what they do.

There are a two big reasons for this. In some companies, a lack of profitability, or a desire for short term speed above all else, means that managers aren't given the space and resources to do their job well. A good manager will not stay in places like this for long. Even in companies where managers have resources and room to succeed, I think that companies very rarely train managers to do their job well. Often management is a promotion from IC to person in charge of making sure ICs ship products on time. But how to do this is not taught at any point in an IC's career. The trade offs involved in shipping products on time are counterintuitive: the things that work best over a 1 month time scale will kill your productivity over a year time scale.

If you feel like you have the raw materials to be good at what you do (you have the skills, you're interested, you have the time and can be dedicated) but you feel like your job isn't fulfilling, my advice is to start thinking about who you want to work under (or what kind of person) and include that as a top criteria in your future career moves.

I work at a major tech company and, yes, ultimately my team's goal is to increase company (and shareholder) profits. But my goal as a manager is to translate my teams directives into work that actually adds value to our customers, improves the work of our stakeholders, and uses the skills of my team in new and interesting ways. Yes, some work we have to do isn't the most fun, but everyone understands why and we're all bought into minimizing the work that sucks so we can get to the parts that are exciting.

I haven't reached there yet, but I believe that it is possible to do meaningful work, and to have a meaningful life away from work, both at the same time. And looking at most HN comments, I see people who consider "work is work" so I get a bit demotivated since I am just starting out in my career.

I think that one doesn't have to choose between being a nerd, and being a normie. I realized this when I met people who were really nerdy and did meaningful work at small tech companies, and at the same time they were really social people who were fun to be around and did all the normie stuff afk.

I hope to find meaningful work, rather than stop working all together. And I don't think that doing meaningful work is going to affect other aspects of my life negatively as long as I keep boundaries.

I got lucky and stumbled upon a company that sells an inovative and effective service that has potential to improve humanity. The fact that the companies success is aligned with human success is a huge motivator to get up and work 8 hours each day. However even with the money being decent, and the HR policies and benefits being amazing, i still struggle with the 40 hour grind. I can't imagine finding a better company to work for; I can only concluded that a fulltime job work will never "feel right". I think 20 or 30 hours would be much more ideal, as it would afford me more time to focus on life/family/nature/body/community/learning/creativity

That does not matter much if most businesses make no sense, since at the end of the day you work for only one.

I maintain a (short) list of companies that I find interesting, either because I had a good contact with one of their employee or because I'm interested in that particular field they happen to be in. When I look for a job I contact them directly (regardless of any job ad they might have posted or not).

I believe the worse companies are the ones hunting harder for employees (that's probably true on the other way round too), which might biases perception towards "all jobs are dull". Hunt for them instead of being hunted.

If nothing else works then maybe what you really want inside is to build your own business?

I love this entire podcast episode, but the first few minutes of this clip seem particularly relevant here: https://youtu.be/8mixT5_U0hk

This isn’t a retort, it’s an actual question that might be worth exploring in your mind: What do you expect? You’ve arrived at a conclusion that’s a bit of an outlier, so you may find that some of your expectations are different than most. Obviously that doesn’t mean they are right or wrong, but they could be the source of your frustration and might be the key for you either finding something that works for you or challenging your expectation to see if it really holds up.

I changed every few months a job after graduation. At the end I stayed in the one with best salary and okayish product. Workload is really low 9 months a year with some meetings and really relaxed deadlines. 3 months I do 50-60 hours weeks. Working topics and scope are a bit boring, but I have exciting private development as my side project what I intend to commercialize. That’s also my career path, there are enough potential candidates for better paid management roles at my day job. I goes without these stressful times I would feel bored and depressed. Salary wise only single company would be better in town, so my options are limited here.

Now measure how many non-SWE jobs are pointless. And keep in mind Price's law potentially applying, where half the work is done by the square root of the number of people. Then measure human activities of any kind, not just jobs.

You can conclude that it's all or almost all pointless, but really points and meaning are made by individuals. They exist, just not "out there" like electricity, only within brains. So for yourself it's mostly just a perspective issue. Even among people who 'cope', the same job and work can feel one way or the other at different times, when it feels one way there's really no coping involved.

Maybe try taking something that gives you a close feedback loop with paying customers -- that is, you yourself talk to them, there's a direct connection between your work and its effects on them, even if you're not the Decider or whatever for overall business goals. When you see how happy they can be about paying for your stuff (even stuff you think is kinda meh), it's less about "squeezing" them, and more about keeping them happy, seeing them happier when their additional needs are listened to, and continuing to deliver value in mutual exchange. This isn't a sure thing to change your perspective and your gigs may have been that close anyway, but I find it helpful to have that context rather than something super far removed. (Though even then if you trace some lines out you can find meaning in your own cog -- try doing it in reverse, too, consider some brass on some trivial object near you like a doorknob or a pencil wrapping below the eraser. Where was that brass made? Where was the iron and zinc mined from? What were the miners' tools made out of, how were they made? How was it transported to its present location? There were lots of people with jobs small or large involved in every thing around you.)

Job length has a quality of its own, too. 6 months is often not enough time to really see the fruits of your labor. It's an interesting feeling to build something collaboratively and incrementally over longer periods (one year, three years...) with early adoption at first and lots of limitations or problems and broader adoption later with more flexibility and fewer problems.

Each of the below "traditional" industries provide a net benefit to humanity, some are more stodgy than others, but all will adopt new technologies to improve over time, including making moves towards greater sustainability:

--Engineering - infrastructure, public works, buildings and facilities --Healthcare - hospitals, medical devices, pharma --Energy - solar, wind, natural gas --Public utilities - water, electricity, gas --Food and beverage --All kinds of manufacturing

There could be various opportunities at companies from the above to create a small impact at relatively low stress for a place that does something useful.

Your attitude might improve if you adjust your perspective. You're in a field with such opportunities that you can go almost anywhere in the world and find work. You don't have to work outside. You're not toiling at physical labor. You're probably not punching a time clock. Consider what work is like for most all other people, and you might recognize how good things are for SWEs.

Maybe take a sabbatical and get an entry level construction job -- you might find a whole new appreciation for what you have. Or, you might discover that 'real' physical work is more enjoyable and meaningful.

You are right a lot of jobs out there are meaningless crap that build some pathetic e-commerce just for profit and people working there, are in for it just to pay bills. On the other hand you can be a poor scientist and do meaningful work which contributes to science, society and people's life.

In both cases you won't be very happy. The trick is finding a balance between sort of meaningful and interesting work that also pays well enough. If you are lucky you can get that in something like a FAANG.

Also happiness is relative to the person you need to find what it means to you.

Seems like this thread has highlighted at least two type of relationships people have with their job. Those who’ve accepted the seemingly Faustian bargain of working at something they accept is meaningless. These people treat work as just that and don’t attempt to derive much value from it other than the sustenance it provides. In the other camp are those who have found work they find deeply meaningful, often at the expense of their own financial interest. For those in the latter camp, can you share what you are working on? Curious to learn.

Please check out SWE jobs at non-profits, such as Khan academy, Kiva. You can do job search for non-profits at LinkedIn. These are companies with a mission that are doing great things for humanity.

Congratulations! You've not yet been duped into the assumption that you have work 8 hours a day for a paycheck to live.

Go find something to do that you find meaningful. It may not be in computers. Maybe you'll enjoy making art, crafts, music. Maybe you'll enjoy helping people directly, like teaching or social work. Maybe you'll work with nature. Maybe you'll develop a new beer brand.

You will be working harder and struggling more initially, but you'll be enjoying what you do more. Good luck to you!

What a dream to be seeking personal fulfillment from a job rather than the means to survive. Not knocking your sentiment, I've been there, but this a great time to be alive.

I think you’re defining “meaningful” too narrowly as “the business does something meaningful/important (to you)”, it may well do that but suck your soul out doing it, or harm people/things in the process, SpaceX might be a good example of that, or Theranos. The inverse of what you say you’re looking for is finding meaning in a job at an uninteresting company, there are still interesting people and interesting sub-problems at otherwise uninteresting places.

Maybe the private sector just isn't for you. Look at the public sector. It's a lower salary but it seems like you would rather work on something that matters than get paid a lot of money. You may end up doing something that isn't software engineering as public sector software engineering jobs are hard to come by but public sector jobs overall aren't.

Think about what you want to do, who you want to help, and look for charities or NGOs that do that.

I hate my job. I stick with it because it seems that nothing better exists. All the other job postings seem terrible. One thing I will do is post to other positions internally. Sometimes just being on a new team will give you a very brief period of hope that the work or tech is interesting, or that the political environment is more friendly. Sadly, this fades quickly. Every team I've been on violates company performance management policies.

This resonates with me bc I've been feeling down lately, although I'm on the other side of the fence; coasting along in a boring + pointless but well paying job.

> People who work 8 hours a day, mostly for a paycheck, how do you cope without wanting to off yourself?

1. Living isn't free. Unless you own and operate your own farm, someone right now is doing work to make it possible for you and I to live. Cavemen since the dawn of time had to forage and fight to survive. (I regard millionaires and the like as exceptions to the rule, most of us don't have access to the factors that enable someone to become a millionaire.)

2. Work will set you free. Or rather, freedom is an illusion. You're constrained by society, nature, etc. no matter what you do. Not having the responsibility to work every day doesn't make you more free or your life more meaningful. Alternatively, money gives you a lot more options and choices.

3. You should want to live your best possible life, and working towards that requires effort. Nobody really wants to work for someone other than themselves, but building your own revenue streams is hard so trading labor is a decent compromise. Money is a means to an end.

4. Work is an outlet for you to feel useful. You may regard a given job as pointless, but someone is paying for it. Someone values you and your labor. It's nice to be payed and praised for it.

5. It's not all about work. It's possible to earn and still have a life you enjoy outside of that. Cultivating that balance takes effort.

6. We have it _really_ good compared to the other 99% of the labor market. My GF works in corporate law, which is a particularly nasty counter example. She earns about 10% more than me, but puts in about 60% more hours than I do. In fact, she's on her computer working right now.

7. Some amount of suffering in life is unavoidable. Working is hard, but so is being unemployed. Pain avoidance is a tough bias to overcome. Making peace with the inevitable gives some strength in facing it.

> People who have really great jobs(not talking about money ofc), how did you find them?

I said how I consider my current job boring + pointless.. but it's a hell of a lot better than my last job, and the job before that.

Big things start small.

I’m late to the party and the thread is nigh endless, so perhaps I repeat what others have said… perhaps consider a physical labour job in construction, at least for a while. It is practical, meaningful work, building someone a home. There’s tangible proof of having accomplished something and you know that people will appreciate the end result. Plus, it’s healthy, both physically and mentally. I think you might find it rewarding.

I work at a music software company. I’ve been playing music my whole life, my work feels like an extension of that.

An observation: a lot of programmers get into it because they are interested in programming itself. Entering the industry can be frustrating because it is no longer about programming, it’s a means to an end.

Nothing wrong with being interested in programming (it’s what makes you good at it) but it helps to have an end you care about as well.

Work out what is meaningful to you.

Go do that.

If it doesn't pay enough to live on then get a job that brings in the money to allow you to do it in your spare time.

Here is what I'm doing:

- All work is meaningless, so I started seeking the ones that pay the most (banks, hedges, FAANGs).

- By making a lot of money early, I plan to soft retire in five years (with 35) - I will take a loooong vacation, then work as a freelancer / consultant as I please.

- Without the fear of starving or being old without cash, I will pursue stuff I like.

PM me in five years and I will tell you whether I succeeded.

As a recent poster to "ask HN" who can't get hired for anything in SWE due to my age, to me it seems you should count your blessings if employment is so abundant in your life that you can turn down jobs based on their motivation. Some day things may change and jobs may not be easy to find. Be happy that you are needed anywhere for any job!

I don’t work in SWE, but I can very well say that it is about the value that you associate with the work you do. When you try to equate meaning and direct impact, you might not always end up being satisfied. But when you start to understand that every cog in the wheel matters - replaceable or not- you do see a value to what you do.

I have found satisfaction, even in companies not doing something particularly useful, by being able to take on entry-level developers and feel that I am helping to launch their careers. That is a very humanly rewarding thing.

And who knows, maybe one of them will one day start a company that will really change the world for the good.

I think a lot of people feel like that - at least from time to time. It's not easy to find meaning in modern society and the corporate world.

I just shut it down while working and think what I want to achieve and do outside of work. Alternatives, are not really that much more meaningful. Even traveling gets boring after a while.

You 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.

Find a university research project that needs some help. Pay will be low but there will be many opportunities to get ideas that will help them. And all the grad students will go on to greater things and pretty soon you'll have a pretty high powered network of people who know your value.

I cope by having interests and hobbies that are not related to SWE. I have thought about what it would be like to work in one of those areas, and I always conclude that making money in tech is much easier, more comfortable, and requires less effort. So I use it to find my other interests.

100% true. I am blessed to have a relatively stable position but I am not nearly doing all I could with my abilities.

The saddest part isn’t that I think my abilities are useless. Rather, it seems that the people above me who control where the money flows seem very short-sighted with their investments.

I found great jobs by only working at seed and pre-seed startups (you have to be experienced/able enough to market yourself as a CTO). At this stage, there is no drudge, there's just adventures. Mostly failed adventures, but if you can get over that it's great!

I 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.

The culture, or what is sometimes called the hegemony, is directly or indirectly controlled by corporations. This website included. They present a false view that you are free. You are not, you are a wage slave.

Hunter-gatherers deep in the Amazon have a lot of control over their lives but you do not. Work in your context is alienating and for someone else's benefit. The main "benefit" for you is taking away enough of the wealth you're creating to survive until the next day so that you can continue to enrich the heirs who collect the profits and dividends of your labor.

My advice is to become more aware of this and then go to work full time. Realize your boss is your enemy. Realize your coworkers for the most part are in the same boat as you and are generally allies. Expecting your company is your family, and that your boss is looking out for you, that your work is not alienating and fulfilling will lead to depression.

There are things you can do to make your life more tolerable as time goes by. There are things you can do to join with workers all over the world to end capitalist exploitation, which can at times be very fulfilling. A lot of it is contained in this thread. One common thread is deal with the company like any other unpleasant thing - clock in, don't expect anything back from it but misery and a percentage of the wealth you create. Anything positive you feel or do will be on your own, or with other workers. Company are mechanisms to expropriate surplus labor time from workers to benefit heirs. How can you expect fulfillment giving so much of the time of your life to such an enterprise?

This post reminds me of a job description I saw on LinkedIn, an excerpt of which went something like:

"We will not be engaging in discussions around architecture and design. You will be expected to complete the assignments given to you on the schedule dictated."

> Maybe I'm naive, but it just seems that almost every job out there is about squeezing more profit out of people, and absolutely nothing else, and it doesn't really make me want to work.

It's called a business. Maximizing profit is their entire point.

> but it just seems that almost every job out there is about squeezing more profit out of people

That is by definition the relationship of an employee and and employer. If they didn't make money off of you they wouldn't hire you (exceptions exist as always).

Edit: making sure i didn't missinterpret this sentence - if by people you meant customers then it's also what companies do.

> People who have really great jobs(not talking about money ofc), how did you find them

Try to abstract away the company. Raise your own bar, strive to be a great professional for your own sake, because you love your field of work. Progress your knowledge and skills for your own joy, not for your employers. Now, if you get into that mindset, even the worst company is a training ground to help you become better. It's a new level in a game. See how well you can manage in the worst possible conditions, making sure it is not taxing your mental health though.

As a single with no children I don’t need to work much, so I don’t. This lifestyle isn’t for everyone, but I’m pretty sure it’s for me. There’s a looong list of things I like to do with my time other than paid work.

I worked pointless jobs doing mind numbing work so I’d have the experience to be interesting when a worthwhile job came along.

I now build comment sections for news sites that help improve conversation and foster positive community. We’re open source and we share our learnings with the world.

The pay is great and the culture is chill and supportive.

You often have to do the crap work to get to the good work. Life is like that, to get the gold inside the temple, you have to wade through the swamp.

That being said, I had my doubts all along the way. At one point I considered just joining the army because “what is even the point?” I felt very disillusioned.

I stuck with it and a decade later I’m here doing good work that I care about.

This is why you hear so much about discipline, commitment, and drive in all the motivation speeches. Persistence is almost everything.

For me, I run my own business so I'm in control of my time. I would feel the same as you do about working an 8-hour day in the office (or even an 8 hour remote job with pointless meetings, etc).

At your next job offer, yes evaluate the work itself, but after you've qualified it, spend more effort seeing if you can connect with the people. Come for the money, stay for the friends.

I do have your issue, OP, that most jobs I see advertised I am not interested in.

Maybe you need to think hard about what you DO want to be accomplishing. Energy? Education? What problems do you believe in.

Nearly everyone with great jobs didn’t find them, they built them. They built the network and opportunities that enabled them to make progress towards the change they want to see.

Work for the government. I used to work on software that uses AI to catch financial crimes. Super satisfying, but pays a lot less than private sector (which is why I left).

I get my satisfaction out of feeling useful to people whom I care about. I can find that in almost any job.

When I don’t find it I have to stop.

This is why I love being independent and working short gigs.

Strangely as it is, but I tend to agree with your observations.

Even though i have nothing against “squeazing more profits”.

Its just somehow doesn’t motivate me to work on someone else’s profits.

...And software developer job is still in the top 1% (also salary is not bad), probably only dog trainers love their job more (just a guess).

“ People who have really great jobs(not talking about money ofc), how did you find them?”

Sticking with it for more than 5 years… the jobs ended up being great

Seems no one has posted this so far, might be worth checking:

https://80000hours.org

I personally enjoy the puzzle (combo of code and features) and successfully solving the puzzle.

Don't really care what the puzzle is a picture of.

Maybe try the Peace Corps and see if you can apply your skills there for a year or two. Might give some ideas or perspective.

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/

Try a non-profit organization?

oh noooooooooooooooooooooooo i'm writing closed source software for a megacorp for hundreds of thousands of dollars from the comfort of my home :'(

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.

”web3 solves this”

for real tho, it might

404krel at gmail dot com if you want some guidance

Maybe other engineering disciplines are for you then.

Consider, you don’t have to be a software engineer.

In my opinion, If you ask too many ‘why’ almost every business will start to sound useless. There is no immediate need for most of the products where the majority of the funding goes. But it is the capitalistic vehicle on which the economy booms, and a booming economy funds a lot of useful projects and elevates the living standard for everyone.

Since, by this definition all businesses are useless, corresponding jobs will sound pointless too. But you can always find something interesting to work on while on a job. Don’t forget you are in-charge of your career and there is plenty of time to shape it the way you want.

What kind of job would you consider rewarding?

> that almost every job out there is about squeezing more profit out of people, and absolutely nothing else

dude, where do you imagine the salaries come from?

The Stoic philosophers considered this, though they of course were not software engineers or even in a capitalist world. You can only pursue "arete" (excellence) under your own criteria. As the Stoics remind us, you don't control the social conditions you live in. You can only do the role you have as best as possible, and that you do control. The job itself may be pointless. You can still try to do it well, and that is the reward.

Worked for a really cool nonprofit

This isn’t /r/antiwork.

It’s not just you. Under capitalism every business’ chief interest is to make profit - anything more meaningful than that is a useful side effect.

I would suggest you spend time doing other things, find work that is truly meaningful to you.

In this world people will look at you strange if you pursue meaning over money, but I think that’s better than a life of burnout and economic exploitation

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.

As a software engineer I've been paid to build a map of the world, improve how the peace corps recruits volunteers, built the systems the Census uses to count every person in the US, ingest terabytes of data an hour to improve surgical equipment, protect the United States from biiterror, respond to the covid crisis, and now build the "world's computer" at Azure.

To do that, I spent weeks comparing one map to another to find minor issues, wrote 100s of pages of documentation I'm sure only the project lead and a lawyer read; spent a week reformatting it from bullets to tables at the managers request and then putting it back to bullets for the lawyer; spent 6 months dragging and dropping in a GUI work flow tool on a product I know exactly 2 people used; had to fly 12 hours on 3 different plans to a tiny Midwest city every other week, missing my wife and new born son every moment; write nothing but data entry forms for a year on a terrible back end and then spend another year converting those forms to a slightly different backend; have 90% of the work I did thrown out without reaching operation because two bureaucrats got into a fight; and spent an enormous part of my time trying to figure out how to configure networks when I hate networking.

Every single one of my "good" jobs that I found meaning in is because I choose to find meaning in it. I may have been doing something pointless or icky, but I actively choose to have faith that it was going to advance the larger project I'd signed up for.

Some jobs suck because of a toxic culture or individuals. I've had that happen and removing ones self from the environment is the right way to progress.

Most often though jobs, including software engineering jobs, aren't toxic, just boring some/most of the time. Often the realities of making money feel icky too. That's normal. For me though, so long as I find value in the overall thrust of what my project / company is doing I find myself relying on faith that whatever menial task I'm working on probably moves us closer to the big goals. Although I still try to make sure to eliminate pointless tasks once they've been demonstrated to be pointless.

I think you are likely depressed, but I think I read downthread you are seeing someone for that. I suspect also you need to work on identifying what you value and create priorities. It sounds like money is not a major motivator/priority right now for you. What are you motivated by? What is important to you?

It's quite possibly not in software engineering right now. My wife's team had a mechanical engineer decide they were burnt out and go work an assembly line for 4 years. They took a 30-40% paycut but we're happier. Then they got bored of that and came back to engineering. I've have college friends who decided not to use thier (expensive) degrees because they decided they wanted to do something else more and none seem to regret it, even if they could have made more money in their degree area.

Also consider working in the public sector. The work isn't necessarily any more interesting and the pay can be lower but "squeezing out profit" isn't generally what you are doing.

There is also the answer that work is just work- many people find thier fulfillment outside of paid work and just accept that they'd rather do mental drudgery in an office then physical drudgery in a warehouse, truck, or field. Even though I generally enjoy work I enjoy my family and non work passions more and have regretted everytime I choose to prioritize work over them for more than a couple days at a time.

In sum, figure out what you about, try to view work differently, and maybe try something different for work.

I understand where you're at, and I honestly have no idea what I could recommend you to do to find, BUT I can answer your question:

> People who have really great jobs(not talking about money ofc), how did you find them?

It's been a whole construction of myself really, and I feel like it's still going on.

- When I was younger, I used to see only the flaws in things, and I was never happy with anything. Later on, I managed to discover that nothing's perfect, but most things have good aspects, and it's all about a balance. And even that sometimes, good things need bad things to be good.

- My first job was at a smartphone OEM, where we released new models at stupidly fast pace, with very little quality. I felt I was very helpful, because the devices would ship anyway, whether I was there or not, and I helped improved the quality of the device. I had direct contact with users and RMA, and I felt useful for each individual I managed to help. However, as I said, the devices we released were pretty bad (but dirt cheap, pretty much stealing money from shareholders to give it to customers), and I witnessed how those decisions were made, and why. Really, that was putting in real-world my economy lessons. If there is some way to make more money, this path will be taken, no matter how benevolent the involved people are. Business incentives are everything. For that company, the aim was to sell to supermarkets, which only care about specs over price ratio, and nothing else. So it optimized specs over price, and made device that were unusable in 3 months.

Once, I understood that business incentive are everything, I went to a sector without the business incentive to output models as fast as possible, but the exact opposite. In France, ISPs provide the home gateway and the tvbox, as part of the subscription. So ISP wants to provide the best service, without replacing the user's hardware every year, because it costs the ISP money, so they keep software upgraded and optimized as long as possible.

- So I went to a new job (not gonna lie, I didn't exactly choose that one), for the biggest french ISP. I initially was afraid of the very big corp (Bigger than Google), but I still did go. I still learnt many things technically, and felt that what I was doing could be useful. Well I was right being afraid of big corp, because well, what I did never became actually used. But still, I learnt a lot again on how companies work, and while I initially have a bad opinion of big corps, I didn't have actual reasons to have those bad opinions, now I do! I even realized how and why big corps are not necessarily a bad thing for the world. But definitely not a good match for me at my age. I can't really sum up those things I learned, but there has been one metaphor that convey parts of it. A big corp is a galley. It's pretty slow by modern standards, but it can pretty reliably go anywhere. There is a captain, but if everyone paddle backwards, the ship doesn't go where the captain wants it to go. Really, the ship, simply goes to the mean of where the people paddling want the ship to go. This means that there is no real decision ever made by one person, but that decisions emerge from flock behavior. (Not sure that metaphor works really well, but anyway)

So I left that job. I still wanted that business incentive to do "good" things. I turned to a company that I liked when I was younger, even though back then I didn't even envision going there, which is a much smaller ISP. So I erased the ecological cost, and the horrible UX of my first job, and went to a company-style that suits me more.

I'm definitely happier with my job than before. I still see dark dots here and there, and I still dream of what I could do next (An Android-based OS for any smartphones, with real competitive market for all apps and services, with business incentives to keep upgrading Android on smartphones for as long as possible), so it's not all white, and I think it's still likely I'll move to another job later, but I'll know what I'm trading.

So, I initially said I don't know what to recommend you, I'll try anyway: - Never regret taking any job, but instead, focus on what you learned from that experience. I tried that job, because of XXX, turns out XXX was actually a bad idea for me, but that job had YYY that I didn't expect, and YYY was good, so maybe I should focus on looking for YYY. - Focus on things you want from a company, rather on things you won't to evade - You could try looking for companies based on things you think should be done. Like for instance "it would be nice to help musicians sell their music without fighting labels". Well, based on that you should go work for bandcamp! - Don't hesitate to go "off-road": If based on previous item you think things unrelated to SWE, like if you think saving whales is important, well it's likely there is a whales-saving organization who would welcome a web maintainer, even if they are not actively looking for it, so go ask them.

Anyway, I wish you a good luck finding your path

People who work 8 hours a day ... how do you cope without wanting to off yourself?

I only work 8 hours a day. That leaves plenty of time for the boozing and buggering that a 40-hour work-week can buy.

Any headline that starts with a question can be answered with a "yes" :)