Rarely. I studied computer science with dreams of saving the world. My two areas of interests were 1) building medical systems/devices to help decrease overall

Rarely. I studied computer science with dreams of saving the world. My two areas of interests were 1) building medical systems/devices to help decrease overall cost of medicine and 2) building robots to explore and colonize Mars. My first job was at health care facility, but soon I learned our IT departments goal was not to save money for patients but maximize what we can bill them. Since then I had multiple jobs in tech and non-tech industries, sometimes I get to work on interesting projects but most of the time it is really about building another flashy feature so user/customer stay on our site or app. I know there are programmers working on world saving projects at NASA, SpaceX, medical research labs, analyzing data to find good solutions to real problems. But most programmers are simply helping other people sell junks to masses. But this how I feel good about my work. By building technologies for selling crap, we are lowering overall cost for everyone. This should indirectly help non-profits, governments, universities by lowering their cost to use technology.