> I've found out even seasoned (but more often junior) devs and other folks have trouble accepting that their job is just another cog in some corporate machine

> I've found out even seasoned (but more often junior) devs and other folks have trouble accepting that their job is just another cog in some corporate machine where their added value or morality of job is often sorta grey area, without clarity even on the shade of it. This was/is very difficult for me. I am about a decade into my career and 15 years into when I first started seriously messing around with tech - in those days, ~2010, tech was seen as the future to the planet and that message very much was pitched all around silicon valley and trickled into my coursework. The massive disillusionment I felt right out of school was a really hard hit and caused a bit of depression. I wasn't changing the world, I wasn't even doing anything remotely useful for a company that also wasn't doing anything remotely useful and I think that's been the case for most of my career, outside of the occasional instances where I do consulting (which I find rewarding actually). But such is life, outside of tech as well. I take pride now in my work, not whatever I think I am contributing to society. If my work is doing something ultimately pointless or supporting something that is morally or ethically gray, I take pride in ignoring that (because I have no control over it) and doing it as best as I can and that has helped a lot. Some may judge me harshly for that, but I don't care, it is really one of the only sane ways to cope - rather than conjuring insane justifications for why things are the way they are (which suck).