Can we please do useful things with software?
If you want to read something that goes from depressing to exciting and back again every other paragraph, read the monthly Who’s Hiring thread on Hacker News.
When I was younger I didn’t think much about what software I was writing: I wanted to work on interesting problems, and get paid for doing it. So at one point I accepted a job at a financial trading platform, a job I would never take today; luckily I ended up walking away from that offer, in the end.
These days technical problems are still just as fun, but they’re no longer sufficient: I want to do something useful, something that makes the world a tiny bit better. And so it’s sad to see some of the software we programmers are spending our time writing, and exciting to see the useful ways in which software is being applied.
Less of this, please
If you need a job, you need a job, and as long as you’re not doing something you consider unethical or immoral you do what you need to to get by. But if you have the opportunity, why not also do something useful, something that makes the world better?
Adtech? I mean, yes, advertising is kinda sorta maybe useful, if you squint, but at this point I find browsing without an ad blocker positively unpleasant. I miss the days when Google ad results were actually helpful.
Do we need to spend more time making it easy for brands to do anything? Can brands do anything? Does Coca-Cola have a giant glowing disembodied Coke avatar, ensconced deep within the bowels of Coca-Cola Worldwide Headquarters, sending out red ectomorphic tentacles to type out text into a SaaS written by programmers passionate about user engagement? I’d love to sit in on some of your customer interviews, if so, or perhaps just watch a recording from a safe distance.
While we’re at it, can we stop being passionate?
Cryptocurrencies? Do you want to be responsible when the bubble bursts and it turns out capital flight from China is not a good basis for a currency? With tulips at least you had flowers at the end, even if they were bad investments; with cryptocurrencies people will be left with some digits on a USB drive. Woo.
Is it actually necessary to take an existing financial product (annuities, let’s say) and call them something else (pensions, just for example)? Annuities and pensions have very different risk profiles; the former has individual company risk that the latter doesn’t. Is this really worthwhile innovation?
Having previously lived in a different country I do realize the American medical system is a total and utter fuckup. But couldn’t we just switch to single-payer like every other developed country, instead of writing software to put bandaids on a chest wound?
And the world probably doesn’t need another startup whose business model involves taking VC money and giving it to poorly payed contractors in order to make the lives of the upper middle-class a miniscule increment more comfortable. How about a business model involving paying good wages to do something more valuable?
Do something useful
My definition of usefulness is personal and idiosyncratic, of course; I expect you will disagree with at least some of the list above. But there are also plenty of companies that sounds like they’re building something almost anyone would find worthwhile.
“Technology to investigate pressure transients and flow instabilities in water supply networks”? May your hiring pipeline always be full.
“Reducing paperwork”? Sign me up (as long as the form is short).
Next time you’re looking for job, spend a little time upfront thinking about what you think makes a company useful. Interesting technical problems are great, getting paid well is pretty damn good, and a short commute is a joy. But working on something that makes the world a better place will make your own job that much better.