Perhaps not relevant to you. But this reads a lot like where I've been a few years ago. 21y in IT/software engineering/infra. And I've not figured it out yet. M

Perhaps not relevant to you. But this reads a lot like where I've been a few years ago. 21y in IT/software engineering/infra. And I've not figured it out yet. My take: Most of software today feels like it's been figured out. There's no underdog. There's no thrilling horizon, but scale (which in itself starts to face all kinds of limits). IMO, the Web was the last most "unexpected" paradigm change to society (instant interconnexion made available worldwide), which we have not yet fully digested. Mobile was a (nice, large, significant) improvement on it. We are on a plateau: we've known for years that this tech bears huge power and that it keeps growing. Sure. AR, VR, AI, wearable, "big" data, robots, autonomous systems all looks nice and fun and can improve things, and shake some more core considerations about truth/values and the fabric of society, but fundamentally... meh (perhaps something related to the actual/ethical understanding of the brain/mind would be a serious paradigm change - but even that wouldn't fare well for how it would be applied in the end). The tech progress margin is still there (reach, speed, quality, availability). The real progress/impact margin on this part is not in the tech at this point, but in how we decide to influence it/be influenced by it, and it's not going to be in the hands of the tech sector in the coming decades. How do you decide when you have less and less references to know what's real/reality, and what's fabricated, and to what purposes. That's not a modern problem. That's not a tech problem. That's for artistic roles first (to reflect and shape minds) and then philosophers, politics and legislators second (to shape policies and societies). And the problem is that, today's looking like tech is more attracted to realize authoritarian/brutal ambitions/regimes rather than democratic/human ones (easy example: see all those software companies that are happy to reduce/not have a "human factor" in their account management policies; see also those countries that carelessly translate their state services online without taking into account this fundamental human factor they have to provide). Aside from this, what's being focused on for about the past 15 years is concentration, optimization and enlargement of the scope on which software is applied - and it's not over. Being a software engineer today is being in the factory in Modern Times, in service of tools for other factories. Working on consumer app/services is, not always, but often actually being in service of factories before of people (social platforms are all influence/advertising tools disguised as sharing/communication medias). Yep, software improved a lot of things globally, in efficiency. But to what end, really? Perhaps the shorter take is the usual "you can't solve a social problem with technology" + "all solutions once applied become an issue of their own kind". And that I've been accidentally taking the technology road early in my career without realizing it was not my major interest (but rather, what I could do _with it_ rather than _for it_). And that I've reached an age where I question more what I want. Perhaps I didn't meet yet the class of problems I find meaning working on. Perhaps also what I want to contribute to is not in the tech sector. Anyway. Sorry not to provide an answer. But it's always better to reflect on open questions, rather than not considering possibilities. Wish you luck!