> Eking out a few percentage points off of a website's bounce rate or cutting a few milliseconds off of somebody's program runtime just seems so utterly pointle

> Eking out a few percentage points off of a website's bounce rate or cutting a few milliseconds off of somebody's program runtime just seems so utterly pointless to me now. Exactly! It seems utterly pointless indeed. > I don't know... I just feel like I am wasting my talents doing what I am currently doing is all. Take any software corporation today, and see what kind of work they do - talk to insiders! You will inevitably notice a pattern. Its all about these kinds of things - shaving a few seconds off here, optimizing there. We are like a cog in a machine. Maybe the engineers who got to work on iphone would have had that feeling of accomplishment of having contributed to something big - but the subsequent iterations would have been incremental at best! Now take the example of a carpenter , the instructions are the same for him, but every project is new though the underlying skillset is the same! And he can take what he learns from his previous project and apply it to his next project and improve his craft. Like someone in the comments said, what you did 10 years ago is pointless now. And if you are interested, check this out : https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pakxby/silicon-valley-is-inserting-its-biases-into-nearly-every-technology-we-use https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pakxby/silicon-va... The tech industry may be doing more harm than good. I too love learning new stuff, they are just different for me these days from tech. How about learning art or music ? they will be new, and they will keep you engaged. What i was referring to was that, for example - if you play music your feedback loop is almost immediate to work with. Your senses are engaged and its easier to get into a flow! Now imagine the way software construction is structured in big corporations - your feedback loop is way into the future, with no way to assess your contributions' impact. And even if you did have an impact, for whom ? As you said, for some capitalist wanting to fill their pockets with profits who in turn want to uphold shareholder supremacy! I think i got verbose there ;) but i do understand what you are going through, and i hope you come up with something that adds value to people and make you a happy person! My good wishes!