I have been in both sides of the fence, and I've struggled with what you are talking about. Currently I work on a mid-size corporation (when I joined it was a

I have been in both sides of the fence, and I've struggled with what you are talking about. Currently I work on a mid-size corporation (when I joined it was a small startup). At the end of the day, the main outcome of the time I invest at work is making some already-rich investor potentially richer. I don't find that part particularly motivating. I have also worked on the public sector. I encountered resistance to change, and outdated technology. It helped a little bit when someone I really disliked was voted and took power. I understood better what they were up against :) . But yes, during my time at the public sector I was really motivated. It took a lot of effort and it didn't always pan out, but sometimes I would really feel that my work was benefitting society as a whole. I'm not going to lie, I often miss that. The problem with that public sector job I got: there was no project manager. Politicians with very little project management experience were directing the developers. It was ... intense. The project sort of worked at the end, but it almost costed me my sanity. I got an offer in the private sector and I quit before the term was done. My current job has project managers. And product owners. Things are planned. The world sends us curveballs. We reprioritize. There is little drama. My team is international, so I get to interact with lots of interesting people from all around the world. And we do open source work, which helps the world a little bit. And yes, the pay is better. I wouldn't say that I have "found purpose" on this work, but I have found other things that the other job didn't offer. (By the way, if someone is looking for work, I currently work at Kong. I am personally looking for people in Europe with experience in Nginx/Openresty in particular. If that's you, I really want to talk to you! If not, we have many open positions[1] all around the world, remote, with several technologies) [1] https://konghq.com/careers/ https://konghq.com/careers/