Ask HN: Does/did your job matter in the grand scheme of things?

If so, I'd love to hear more about it and more about you.

To be clear, I'd love to hear from people working on genuinely significant things in the modern/IT history of homo sapiens. Things that made or will make history books, things that STEM students learn at the uni, things that literally reach billions of people daily, things that initiated new areas of research, etc.

What do you do? How did you get there? Was it on purpose or not? Describe the significance of your work. Did you stop doing it? Is so, why?