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Sigh... At some point, most healthy adults who are not living in terrible circumstances come to the mature realization and compromise that their job is largely

Sigh... At some point, most healthy adults who are not living in terrible circumstances come to the mature realization and compromise that their job is largely to produce value for someone else, not to be the primary source of personal fulfillment, and they come to understand that there is dignity in being productive, if not creative. Be creative on your own time. Lead a civic group. Be a good parent. Volunteer at a charity. If your main gripe at work is that you're on the value-adding side of a company, which is what feature dev is in software, you have it pretty good in this world. Change jobs if you must, but the realities of companies, especially as they gain traction, rarely means the grass is ever greener. If this is unsatisfactory still, start your own company. I just don't understand the problem here.

lifeisstillgood 7y ago
True. But imagine if you are also a shareholder in such a company - would you not want them to fix it?
draw_down 7y ago
> Change jobs if you must Or if a new job can offer you a better deal. If these jobs are all interchangeable, then you may as well interchange them for what benefits you most.
braindongle 7y ago
Disagree. This is an endorsement of accepting the fact that your work, your professional work, done by most of us at a job, makes you feel like a cog, a unit of production. It is better called a surrender than a compromise. Surely it's often case that life has people in this sort of scenario and there is no realistic way to a new path. In that case, sure, take care of your loved ones and yourself, stay put, and make the most of it. This scenario arises from the messy mix of circumstances and decisions. There is no blame. But! "Change jobs if you must", must, be changed to "Change jobs if you can.", especially for younger people. It's not mature to accept an unfulfilling job. It's a life-scale bummer. Tenaciously go after fulfilling work. Don't write off 1/3 of your remaining life. An approach that worked for me: distance yourself from the profit motive. It's not that hard.
- PragmaticPulp 7y ago
  > This is an endorsement for accepting the fact that your work, your professional work, done by most of us at a job, makes you feel like a cog, a unit of production. It is better called a surrender than a compromise. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. The problem with cog in the machine analogies is that people only think of the plus sides of having more input in decision making processes. What people generally ignore is the added responsibility and liability that comes with being more invested in the decision making process. In my experience, after you start holding people accountable for making the wrong decisions, most people quickly go back to being happy about being a cog in the machine and taking orders from someone else. For the few who enjoy calling the shots and accepting the blame when things go wrong, you can always move up into management.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - _drimzy 7y ago
    > and accepting the blame when things go wrong, you can always move up into management. In most companies, accepting blame is career suicide. Most people who move up in management are good at taking credit for wins and pinning down someone else for failures, or moving on to different projects before their decisions come back to bite them. And that's the kind of management that leads to broken process that the OP mentioned in the article.
    - loopz 7y ago
      Blame will make problems go underreported and responsibilities shunned. A healthy org will invite organic planning and distribute power while providing psychological safe space for real autonomy. The moment of blame or downward finger-pointing, all of this too easily gets lost.
- burntoutfire 7y ago
  > It's not mature to accept an unfulfilling job. It's a life-scale bummer. Tenaciously go after fulfilling work. Don't write off 1/3 of your remaining life. For many (probably most) people all jobs available to them will be unfulfilling. For the rest, many of the jobs can be fulfilling, but have unreasonable demands, like concentrating for 40 hours a week and constant stress. Obviously everyone's body and mind are different and if yours can easily deal with stress and 40 hours a week of concentration, then go look for a fulfilling job. If you're like me, on the other hand, you will burn out due to weariness even in what is supposedly your dream job. In such case, the only way to win is to make as much money as possible and retire early. The alternative - working while constantly tired and grumpy till you're 65 - is grim.
pm90 7y ago
> creative. Be creative on your own time. Lead a civic group. Be a good parent. Volunteer at a charity. If your main gripe at work is that you're on the value-adding side of a company, which is what feature dev is in software, you have it pretty good in this world. I don’t think this is a good solution. It is certainly “A” solution, and one that many folks pick. Software Development is ALL about creativity. It’s really hard to make computers work; the best developers make them sing. Time and again I’ve seen fairly mundane teams hire an engineer with the energy and drive to push the boundaries of what’s possible and end up doing great work. I do think that developers can be agents of change this way; it’s not easy but it’s possible. And it can be very fulfilling and inspiring to be both someone who benefits from great work and to be a person that does great work. I do agree that life may decide your priorities for you at times. Kids, spouses, relationships are all very important and compete for time and at some point you have to decide if it’s worth it to put in extra to do great work. It doesn’t mean though that Software Engineering is devoid of creativity. It’s been pointed out that software engineers can be one of the most productive assets of a company, and that productivity isn’t achieved by magic but by creative problem solving.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Until you come to the realization that most developers are “dark matter developers” doing yet another software as a service CRUD app or bespoke app that will never see the light of day outside of the company. At the end of the day, if you got hit by a bus, your company would send flowers to your funeral and have an open req for your position before your body was buried.
  - pm90 7y ago
    > At the end of the day, if you got hit by a bus, your company would send flowers to your funeral and have an open req for your position before your body was buried. Which is exactly what I expect them to do. Its a business and not a family. They compensated me for my work, I don't expect them to cry for me when I'm gone, but to hire someone immediately to continue the business.
    - 7y ago
bob33212 7y ago
Sure. Someone is installing blinkers at the BMW factory which may never be used. There are plenty of jobs where you could say that the work being done isn't fulfilling because it is a waste of time. The problem is that at the BMW factory you know exactly what you signed up for when you became a blinker installer. At some software companies you are told that you are going to be part of a team that is building a successful product, then when you get there you see that everyone is running around trying to make features by certain dates for no good reason.
debt 7y ago
But it’s a career. Work defines a career. If a crappy PM wastes an engineer’s time by having them churn out useless product features, the PM is ruining their own career and the career of the engineers. It’s important to work on meaningful work in order to have a meaningful career. That doesn’t mean everyone needs to heal the sick, but it can mean a PM doesn’t waste my time making me do stupid shit like build a feature no one uses. It’s very difficult to level up if you never build anything worthwhile. PM’s should focus on getting it right the first time or not doing it all, because in the world of software development, adding technical debt for something not worth anything anyway is worth less than doing nothing at all
gfody 7y ago
This is the Nirvana fallacy. It's not some rare exception to be producing value for someone else while achieving personal fulfillment.

lifeisstillgood 7y ago

True. But imagine if you are also a shareholder in such a company - would you not want them to fix it?

draw_down 7y ago

> Change jobs if you must Or if a new job can offer you a better deal. If these jobs are all interchangeable, then you may as well interchange them for what benefits you most.

braindongle 7y ago

Disagree. This is an endorsement of accepting the fact that your work, your professional work, done by most of us at a job, makes you feel like a cog, a unit of production. It is better called a surrender than a compromise. Surely it's often case that life has people in this sort of scenario and there is no realistic way to a new path. In that case, sure, take care of your loved ones and yourself, stay put, and make the most of it. This scenario arises from the messy mix of circumstances and decisions. There is no blame. But! "Change jobs if you must", must, be changed to "Change jobs if you can.", especially for younger people. It's not mature to accept an unfulfilling job. It's a life-scale bummer. Tenaciously go after fulfilling work. Don't write off 1/3 of your remaining life. An approach that worked for me: distance yourself from the profit motive. It's not that hard.

PragmaticPulp 7y ago
> This is an endorsement for accepting the fact that your work, your professional work, done by most of us at a job, makes you feel like a cog, a unit of production. It is better called a surrender than a compromise. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. The problem with cog in the machine analogies is that people only think of the plus sides of having more input in decision making processes. What people generally ignore is the added responsibility and liability that comes with being more invested in the decision making process. In my experience, after you start holding people accountable for making the wrong decisions, most people quickly go back to being happy about being a cog in the machine and taking orders from someone else. For the few who enjoy calling the shots and accepting the blame when things go wrong, you can always move up into management.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- _drimzy 7y ago
  > and accepting the blame when things go wrong, you can always move up into management. In most companies, accepting blame is career suicide. Most people who move up in management are good at taking credit for wins and pinning down someone else for failures, or moving on to different projects before their decisions come back to bite them. And that's the kind of management that leads to broken process that the OP mentioned in the article.
  - loopz 7y ago
    Blame will make problems go underreported and responsibilities shunned. A healthy org will invite organic planning and distribute power while providing psychological safe space for real autonomy. The moment of blame or downward finger-pointing, all of this too easily gets lost.
burntoutfire 7y ago
> It's not mature to accept an unfulfilling job. It's a life-scale bummer. Tenaciously go after fulfilling work. Don't write off 1/3 of your remaining life. For many (probably most) people all jobs available to them will be unfulfilling. For the rest, many of the jobs can be fulfilling, but have unreasonable demands, like concentrating for 40 hours a week and constant stress. Obviously everyone's body and mind are different and if yours can easily deal with stress and 40 hours a week of concentration, then go look for a fulfilling job. If you're like me, on the other hand, you will burn out due to weariness even in what is supposedly your dream job. In such case, the only way to win is to make as much money as possible and retire early. The alternative - working while constantly tired and grumpy till you're 65 - is grim.

pm90 7y ago

> creative. Be creative on your own time. Lead a civic group. Be a good parent. Volunteer at a charity. If your main gripe at work is that you're on the value-adding side of a company, which is what feature dev is in software, you have it pretty good in this world. I don’t think this is a good solution. It is certainly “A” solution, and one that many folks pick. Software Development is ALL about creativity. It’s really hard to make computers work; the best developers make them sing. Time and again I’ve seen fairly mundane teams hire an engineer with the energy and drive to push the boundaries of what’s possible and end up doing great work. I do think that developers can be agents of change this way; it’s not easy but it’s possible. And it can be very fulfilling and inspiring to be both someone who benefits from great work and to be a person that does great work. I do agree that life may decide your priorities for you at times. Kids, spouses, relationships are all very important and compete for time and at some point you have to decide if it’s worth it to put in extra to do great work. It doesn’t mean though that Software Engineering is devoid of creativity. It’s been pointed out that software engineers can be one of the most productive assets of a company, and that productivity isn’t achieved by magic but by creative problem solving.

scarface74 7y ago
Until you come to the realization that most developers are “dark matter developers” doing yet another software as a service CRUD app or bespoke app that will never see the light of day outside of the company. At the end of the day, if you got hit by a bus, your company would send flowers to your funeral and have an open req for your position before your body was buried.
- pm90 7y ago
  > At the end of the day, if you got hit by a bus, your company would send flowers to your funeral and have an open req for your position before your body was buried. Which is exactly what I expect them to do. Its a business and not a family. They compensated me for my work, I don't expect them to cry for me when I'm gone, but to hire someone immediately to continue the business.
  - 7y ago

bob33212 7y ago

Sure. Someone is installing blinkers at the BMW factory which may never be used. There are plenty of jobs where you could say that the work being done isn't fulfilling because it is a waste of time. The problem is that at the BMW factory you know exactly what you signed up for when you became a blinker installer. At some software companies you are told that you are going to be part of a team that is building a successful product, then when you get there you see that everyone is running around trying to make features by certain dates for no good reason.

debt 7y ago

But it’s a career. Work defines a career. If a crappy PM wastes an engineer’s time by having them churn out useless product features, the PM is ruining their own career and the career of the engineers. It’s important to work on meaningful work in order to have a meaningful career. That doesn’t mean everyone needs to heal the sick, but it can mean a PM doesn’t waste my time making me do stupid shit like build a feature no one uses. It’s very difficult to level up if you never build anything worthwhile. PM’s should focus on getting it right the first time or not doing it all, because in the world of software development, adding technical debt for something not worth anything anyway is worth less than doing nothing at all

gfody 7y ago

This is the Nirvana fallacy. It's not some rare exception to be producing value for someone else while achieving personal fulfillment.