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I think all the jobs I have had in the past (over a decade) as a software engineer were BS. - I have worked for a bank. You tell me why do we need yet another
by danwee 3y ago
I think all the jobs I have had in the past (over a decade) as a software engineer were BS.
- I have worked for a bank. You tell me why do we need yet another bank nowadays, and why on earth do we need to make a fancy SPA with effects and all? Anyway, they paid good money and I gained experience
- I have worked for an e-commerce platform. Again, if it disappeared from the internet no one would complain. We were into "let's build more microservices" mindset. A waste of talent (the engineers I worked with were intelligent people) and time. But hey, I was a Staff engineer, and so I got a bunch of money in exchange for my wisdom in distributed systems (but I still wonder why do we need distributed systems when a one big machine or a couple of them would have done the job)
- I have worked for a SAAS company. The classic pay per customer per month. Totally useless as well (there dozens SAAS companies like us out there). In this one we were more worried about using "boring technology" (PHP, nginx, Postgres) instead of asking ourselves why do we even exist as a company
- And a long etc.
In every company I have been I never felt we were doing something meaningful for the society. I don't feel bad, whenever I see around I see useless companies (not only in IT). I just take as granted, in the capitalist society we live in, that people just want to make money, send their kids to good schools, enjoy vacations in a sunny place, and then retire in peace... so useless jobs/companies are needed.
What makes me a little sad from time to time is to see us, the human race, spending brains, time and billions in Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, while we don't put the same amount of resources to solve a real problem like what's going in Israel/Palestine/Russia/Ukraine where people are dying.
- danielmarkbruce 3y agoCompetition is meaningful. If you weren't there putting on the pressure, we'd have a bunch of fat lazy companies with expensive, crappy products.
- malcolmgreaves 3y agoCompetition isn’t sufficient: there already are fat, lazy companies with expensive, crappy products today. Multiple players in an arena don’t necessarily lead to a better product emerging either. It can, for instance, create an oversaturated market that leads to unsustainable prices or costs and no one wins.
- robertlagrant 3y agoIt's the best mechanism on average. It doesn't work where e.g. it's too difficult to create a competitor.
- pixl97 3y agoSo you're now going to create some group that regulates how much competition can exist?
- MightyBuzzard 3y ago[dead]
- JohnFen 3y ago> we'd have a bunch of fat lazy companies with expensive, crappy products. But we do have a bunch of fat lazy companies with expensive, crappy products.
- danielmarkbruce 3y agoNot as many as we would without competition. An enormous amount of US industry is very competitive. Think of cars, clothes, electronics, agriculture, energy and so on.
- robertlagrant 3y ago> What makes me a little sad from time to time is to see us, the human race, spending brains, time and billions in Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok We don't spend billions on those things.
- jzb 3y agoWe don't? Twitter sold for tens of billions, and it apparently costs hundreds of millions a year to run (or more). Those platforms also generate billions in ad revenues which means we're spending billions on that.
- willi59549879 3y agoThat's a pretty bleak way to see your job. how are you still able to do it? Banks pay a lot and are needed for functioning of society, I guess that could be seen as useful, mindset matters