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What you are experiencing is the symptom of working in a large company where no matter how well you perform, you can not significantly move the needle yourself.

What you are experiencing is the symptom of working in a large company where no matter how well you perform, you can not significantly move the needle yourself. Coupled with the fact that, as you yourself pointed out, there is a literal endless amount of work to do, forever. This is also due to the nature of the company being so big. All companies always has work to do, and no one is ever «done», but in a giga-enterprise all meaningful deadlines and deliveries sort of tangentially rounds down to zero in terms of impact. I almost burned out from this myself working in Microsoft. I was succeeding in my work by most metrics, but I am motivated more by my work being MEANINGFUL and having impact more than anything. That is almost impossible to achieve in any large enough company. Jumped off to be a startup CTO and life started smiling again instantly. Take time away from work, but not too much time. Comments such as «it takes years» can be true if you have ground yourself down to a nub, but trying (and being ok with failing) to do some work that lets you feel like you mean something and contribute back to society is an understated and important part of the healing process. Good luck!

keiferski 2y ago
Yeah this is why I sometimes miss the jobs I had in my early 20s, working at bakeries/ice cream shops/etc. Obviously the pay wasn’t great and the working conditions subpar, but there is a genuine psychological benefit to making a simple thing, giving it to people, then finishing work at the end of the day and being done, without an ongoing to-do list, sprints, daily meetings, and all the other requirements of contemporary white collar jobs. It’s led me to wonder how one could structure a knowledge work job in a similar way. The tough part conceptually is how to make progress long-term while still only keeping your focus on a day at a time, max.
- foota 2y ago
  I couldn't find it after searching, but I remember reading about a company where they just relaxed and got done what they got done. To me, this would be the ideal workplace.
  - sharkweek 2y ago
    With any form of investor expecting a return I dunno how possible this is, but I’ve worked for one family owned business (non-tech industry but had a small tech team) and it was super relaxed like you mention. No investors, no board of directors, just a woman and her son who owned the business. They wanted to grow it but were very reasonable about it. That being said the salary was probably 20-30% below market. At the time I wanted to make more money so I chased that for a while instead.
    - AbstractH24 2y ago
      20-30% lower on a hourly basis or total compensation?
    - whstl 2y ago
      I often find that even investors can be reasonable. Most of the problems in tech are of the employees own creation. Unreasonable requirements and unreasonable timelines, often coming out of thin air for no reason other than some middle manager's political interests. It is super hard to fight against it, and it's even harder to demonstrate how forcing tech to work more than necessary is bad for business. Small businesses deal with it by being small. Big companies are just chaotic complex systems where you don't have much of a choice.
  - duggan 2y ago
    I’ve heard similar stories, but I think they tend to have some runaway hit cash cow in their rearview enabling it. Companies that can kind of do anything and it’s fine. Like Google with AdWords. Whatever they do, AdWords goes to work every day and pays the bills. Other companies get high on their own supply and invent things like “Holocracy” and claim it is responsible for their success.
- varispeed 2y ago
  > finishing work at the end of the day and being done You can try to find your own thing that you'll focus on after work. After 5 I would switch off any company equipment, phone etc. Make sure that there is never an expectation that you could be available outside of your work hours. Feel free to forget anything you worked on after 5, you'll catch up next morning. Some workplaces will be against that and make fuss. Find another job then and if it is not possible, just deliver as little as you can without being sacked. If manager is unhappy, but not unhappy enough to let you go, then you are doing great.
  - keiferski 2y ago
    That's definitely possible, but in my experience it's not the same thing as actually being done when you're working at a bakery or wherever. Then you don't need to turn off your phone, avoid company messages, think about what project you have to do tomorrow. You don't need to care about the job at all until your next shift starts.
    - vladvasiliu 2y ago
      I work in IT and I don't need to think about that project that's running late or whatever. Yeah, I have to turn off my work laptop, but that's more akin to taking off my apron if I worked in a bakery. Sure, it sometimes happens that I'm working on some interesting project, and I may find myself thinking about it after my workday is done. But it's because I generally love what I do. It wouldn't surprise me that, say, a pastry chef would possibly think about combining ingredients in some different way, too. I think the only job where you absolutely wouldn't have to think about it is if you don't have any kind of agency and only do what you're told. I'm not sure that I would enjoy that kind of job.
  - vladvasiliu 2y ago
    Indeed. And I think this is both a case of managing expectations (if you're always available, people will learn to expect it) and also of realizing what is and isn't expected of you. Where I work, a normal workday is 9 AM to 6 PM with an hour lunch. There's some flexibility as to the actual hours, I usually do 8-5, others do 10-7. Yet, some people always put in very long hours for some reason, complete with gulping down a sandwich in front of their computer for lunch. I'm not sure what gives them the impression they have to do it, since it's clearly not expected from our common higher-ups.
- AbstractH24 2y ago
  I’ve had a chance recently to moonlight doing the work I did the first half of my 20s almost a decade after I left it for tech. Despite its dead end nature, I’m seriously thinking about returning to it. The work amounts to super overpaid (thanks unions) retail using antiquated software that it modernized could eliminate at least half the jobs, but since there are union staffing minimums and salaries the employer has no incentive. There’s something nice about helping customers for a couple hours, doing some other mindless work which could be done in half the time if automated, and then going home. And the group of folks in the industry are mostly great to be around. Particularly after nearly 5 years of working from home in roles that are increasingly more isolated and less collaborative.
cobertos 2y ago
> motivated more by my work being MEANINGFUL Do you have any guiding star for what work gives you meaning? I thought getting closer to the users/customers would help me. After all, software is for humans. But I found the social aspects of that, handling bugs, setting expectations for features, was tiresome and not meaningful. The only happiness I did find was when I saw my client/users flourish without me with the software I made tailored as best as it could be for the money. But that doesn't make a business unfortunately...
- nicbou 2y ago
  I would say that anything that is opposed to Marx’s concept of alienation would fit the bill. Work should feel impactful and your decisions should lead to some tangible output. It helps to be close to your users, or to build software that has a clear purpose. It’s good to work on a small team where your input has a clear influence on the quality pf the product.
- anal_reactor 2y ago
  Work satisfaction is a meme. Yes, there are people satisfied with their work, but realistically, this is not going to happen to you. Stop giving a fuck about your work, slack off as much as possible, and look for coworkers with whom you can build real human connection, instead of corporate NPCs.
  - 9dev 2y ago
    I don’t know if that’s sustainable. We’re all stuck with this work-thing being one third of our life for the foreseeable time, so spending 33% of like, everything I’ll ever experience on something I don’t give a fuck about seems like both a lot of dull time and a bad decision overall.
    - immibis 2y ago
      Well, your choices are that or death - no matter whether you give it bare minimum effort or a lot of effort.
DeathArrow 2y ago
>What you are experiencing is the symptom of working in a large company where no matter how well you perform, you can not significantly move the needle yourself. You can't move the needle unless you are part of management and learn how to do politics. Large companies mean lots of politics being done. And you want to position yourself on the part of the winning team. Also, people skills always trumps technical skills. Being aware of that helped me immensely on my career, much more than anything else I could have done.
- Agingcoder 2y ago
  This is an extremely important piece of advice. To drive change in a large org, you will need support, which will either come from management, or people on the ground - this is purely people skills. Just writing amazing code and shipping it isn’t enough.
  - Imustaskforhelp 2y ago
    hmm surprising because I had mentioned how to win friends and influence people book by dale carnegie in some other comment on this post and one of the most sticky / remembered lines of this book is that even in a highly technical post , much of the success (approx 70% IIRC) can be because of having people skills. People skills matter , But I suppose in large organisations. I don't think people skills matter "that much" in open source (other than documentation and hey not messing up like attomatic and being a little bit nicer in general) Hell we should all try to be a little nicer in general , not just in open source.
    - Agingcoder 2y ago
      Well, I’m not sure that the Linux kernel would have been that successful without Linus’ people skills - granted some it is slightly subpar, but his ability to organize a large number of people and have them follow his lead ( that’s the tricky bit ) is actually quite striking. Now, you might say that the Linux kernel is a large project, and you’d be right
- Aeolun 2y ago
lifeisstillgood 2y ago
It’s taking me a long time to learn these lessons - thanks for the tip
hinkley 2y ago
Or sometimes the needles you can move seem unimportant to the org, even if they have objective value. You get a few pats like OP but no real recognition. Though maybe that’s why you can move those needles; nobody is guarding them jealously.
varispeed 2y ago
People have wrong priorities when working in big corporations. If you want to make an impact you should work towards creating your own business and working in big corporation is just a mean to achieve that. Focus on growing your bank account, good credit history, live lean and in your free time nurture the idea you have, make steps to make it happen. In some jurisdictions you need to check your employment contract as company may feel entitled to your idea you are developing outside of work hours. Ensure you don't have any such stipulations in the contract.
zeroonetwothree 2y ago
I work at a much larger company than Stripe and I’ve definitely “moved the needle” myself. It’s all about finding high leverage projects to work on.
- teaearlgraycold 2y ago
  There are absolutely a lucky few at even the biggest mega-corps that are seeing their work make huge impacts. But most people won't find those projects or there won't be space in them.
- wavemode 2y ago
  "Just find high-leverage projects to work on" is a truism. Of course everyone would love to work on high-leverage projects - finding them is precisely the challenge that we're discussing.
jondlm 2y ago
Thank you for the kind words! Thankfully I'm not ground down to a nub. I've found a lot of support over the last few years outside of work.
yokoprime 2y ago
As someone who has been on a journey from a 6 man startup to a larger company going through a merger I’m really feeling the pull of creating/joining a new startup. If nothing else for the joy of being a small team on a mission and work with people who are really invested.

keiferski 2y ago

Yeah this is why I sometimes miss the jobs I had in my early 20s, working at bakeries/ice cream shops/etc. Obviously the pay wasn’t great and the working conditions subpar, but there is a genuine psychological benefit to making a simple thing, giving it to people, then finishing work at the end of the day and being done, without an ongoing to-do list, sprints, daily meetings, and all the other requirements of contemporary white collar jobs. It’s led me to wonder how one could structure a knowledge work job in a similar way. The tough part conceptually is how to make progress long-term while still only keeping your focus on a day at a time, max.

foota 2y ago
I couldn't find it after searching, but I remember reading about a company where they just relaxed and got done what they got done. To me, this would be the ideal workplace.
- sharkweek 2y ago
  With any form of investor expecting a return I dunno how possible this is, but I’ve worked for one family owned business (non-tech industry but had a small tech team) and it was super relaxed like you mention. No investors, no board of directors, just a woman and her son who owned the business. They wanted to grow it but were very reasonable about it. That being said the salary was probably 20-30% below market. At the time I wanted to make more money so I chased that for a while instead.
  - AbstractH24 2y ago
    20-30% lower on a hourly basis or total compensation?
  - whstl 2y ago
    I often find that even investors can be reasonable. Most of the problems in tech are of the employees own creation. Unreasonable requirements and unreasonable timelines, often coming out of thin air for no reason other than some middle manager's political interests. It is super hard to fight against it, and it's even harder to demonstrate how forcing tech to work more than necessary is bad for business. Small businesses deal with it by being small. Big companies are just chaotic complex systems where you don't have much of a choice.
- duggan 2y ago
  I’ve heard similar stories, but I think they tend to have some runaway hit cash cow in their rearview enabling it. Companies that can kind of do anything and it’s fine. Like Google with AdWords. Whatever they do, AdWords goes to work every day and pays the bills. Other companies get high on their own supply and invent things like “Holocracy” and claim it is responsible for their success.
varispeed 2y ago
> finishing work at the end of the day and being done You can try to find your own thing that you'll focus on after work. After 5 I would switch off any company equipment, phone etc. Make sure that there is never an expectation that you could be available outside of your work hours. Feel free to forget anything you worked on after 5, you'll catch up next morning. Some workplaces will be against that and make fuss. Find another job then and if it is not possible, just deliver as little as you can without being sacked. If manager is unhappy, but not unhappy enough to let you go, then you are doing great.
- keiferski 2y ago
  That's definitely possible, but in my experience it's not the same thing as actually being done when you're working at a bakery or wherever. Then you don't need to turn off your phone, avoid company messages, think about what project you have to do tomorrow. You don't need to care about the job at all until your next shift starts.
  - vladvasiliu 2y ago
    I work in IT and I don't need to think about that project that's running late or whatever. Yeah, I have to turn off my work laptop, but that's more akin to taking off my apron if I worked in a bakery. Sure, it sometimes happens that I'm working on some interesting project, and I may find myself thinking about it after my workday is done. But it's because I generally love what I do. It wouldn't surprise me that, say, a pastry chef would possibly think about combining ingredients in some different way, too. I think the only job where you absolutely wouldn't have to think about it is if you don't have any kind of agency and only do what you're told. I'm not sure that I would enjoy that kind of job.
- vladvasiliu 2y ago
  Indeed. And I think this is both a case of managing expectations (if you're always available, people will learn to expect it) and also of realizing what is and isn't expected of you. Where I work, a normal workday is 9 AM to 6 PM with an hour lunch. There's some flexibility as to the actual hours, I usually do 8-5, others do 10-7. Yet, some people always put in very long hours for some reason, complete with gulping down a sandwich in front of their computer for lunch. I'm not sure what gives them the impression they have to do it, since it's clearly not expected from our common higher-ups.
AbstractH24 2y ago
I’ve had a chance recently to moonlight doing the work I did the first half of my 20s almost a decade after I left it for tech. Despite its dead end nature, I’m seriously thinking about returning to it. The work amounts to super overpaid (thanks unions) retail using antiquated software that it modernized could eliminate at least half the jobs, but since there are union staffing minimums and salaries the employer has no incentive. There’s something nice about helping customers for a couple hours, doing some other mindless work which could be done in half the time if automated, and then going home. And the group of folks in the industry are mostly great to be around. Particularly after nearly 5 years of working from home in roles that are increasingly more isolated and less collaborative.

cobertos 2y ago

> motivated more by my work being MEANINGFUL Do you have any guiding star for what work gives you meaning? I thought getting closer to the users/customers would help me. After all, software is for humans. But I found the social aspects of that, handling bugs, setting expectations for features, was tiresome and not meaningful. The only happiness I did find was when I saw my client/users flourish without me with the software I made tailored as best as it could be for the money. But that doesn't make a business unfortunately...

nicbou 2y ago
I would say that anything that is opposed to Marx’s concept of alienation would fit the bill. Work should feel impactful and your decisions should lead to some tangible output. It helps to be close to your users, or to build software that has a clear purpose. It’s good to work on a small team where your input has a clear influence on the quality pf the product.
anal_reactor 2y ago
Work satisfaction is a meme. Yes, there are people satisfied with their work, but realistically, this is not going to happen to you. Stop giving a fuck about your work, slack off as much as possible, and look for coworkers with whom you can build real human connection, instead of corporate NPCs.
- 9dev 2y ago
  I don’t know if that’s sustainable. We’re all stuck with this work-thing being one third of our life for the foreseeable time, so spending 33% of like, everything I’ll ever experience on something I don’t give a fuck about seems like both a lot of dull time and a bad decision overall.
  - immibis 2y ago
    Well, your choices are that or death - no matter whether you give it bare minimum effort or a lot of effort.

DeathArrow 2y ago

>What you are experiencing is the symptom of working in a large company where no matter how well you perform, you can not significantly move the needle yourself. You can't move the needle unless you are part of management and learn how to do politics. Large companies mean lots of politics being done. And you want to position yourself on the part of the winning team. Also, people skills always trumps technical skills. Being aware of that helped me immensely on my career, much more than anything else I could have done.

Agingcoder 2y ago
This is an extremely important piece of advice. To drive change in a large org, you will need support, which will either come from management, or people on the ground - this is purely people skills. Just writing amazing code and shipping it isn’t enough.
- Imustaskforhelp 2y ago
  hmm surprising because I had mentioned how to win friends and influence people book by dale carnegie in some other comment on this post and one of the most sticky / remembered lines of this book is that even in a highly technical post , much of the success (approx 70% IIRC) can be because of having people skills. People skills matter , But I suppose in large organisations. I don't think people skills matter "that much" in open source (other than documentation and hey not messing up like attomatic and being a little bit nicer in general) Hell we should all try to be a little nicer in general , not just in open source.
  - Agingcoder 2y ago
    Well, I’m not sure that the Linux kernel would have been that successful without Linus’ people skills - granted some it is slightly subpar, but his ability to organize a large number of people and have them follow his lead ( that’s the tricky bit ) is actually quite striking. Now, you might say that the Linux kernel is a large project, and you’d be right
Aeolun 2y ago

lifeisstillgood 2y ago

It’s taking me a long time to learn these lessons - thanks for the tip

hinkley 2y ago

Or sometimes the needles you can move seem unimportant to the org, even if they have objective value. You get a few pats like OP but no real recognition. Though maybe that’s why you can move those needles; nobody is guarding them jealously.

varispeed 2y ago

People have wrong priorities when working in big corporations. If you want to make an impact you should work towards creating your own business and working in big corporation is just a mean to achieve that. Focus on growing your bank account, good credit history, live lean and in your free time nurture the idea you have, make steps to make it happen. In some jurisdictions you need to check your employment contract as company may feel entitled to your idea you are developing outside of work hours. Ensure you don't have any such stipulations in the contract.

zeroonetwothree 2y ago

I work at a much larger company than Stripe and I’ve definitely “moved the needle” myself. It’s all about finding high leverage projects to work on.

teaearlgraycold 2y ago
There are absolutely a lucky few at even the biggest mega-corps that are seeing their work make huge impacts. But most people won't find those projects or there won't be space in them.
wavemode 2y ago
"Just find high-leverage projects to work on" is a truism. Of course everyone would love to work on high-leverage projects - finding them is precisely the challenge that we're discussing.

jondlm 2y ago

Thank you for the kind words! Thankfully I'm not ground down to a nub. I've found a lot of support over the last few years outside of work.

yokoprime 2y ago

As someone who has been on a journey from a 6 man startup to a larger company going through a merger I’m really feeling the pull of creating/joining a new startup. If nothing else for the joy of being a small team on a mission and work with people who are really invested.