Do you find your job fulfilling? | Hacker News Reader

Do you find your job fulfilling?

21 pointsspm2228 comments

I currently work for an ecommerce company and I feel unfulfilled by my work.

I want to find a new job but when I look at most job postings it is the same type of work that would be exciting to me at first since its new, but once I learn it would become boring. I have only had two jobs one year at an insurance company and 4 years at this current job.

My theory is if I worked in a different business then I might feel that I am positively contributing to the world rather than just helping sell something.

I am not sure if it is the field or that I just wasn't cut out to be a software engineer. I find the most joy in helping others and helping people, plants, etc grow.

Could you share your experience with this? Or if you do find your job satisfying, could you let me know what field you are in?

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Unless one is a complete corporate simp, a fulfilling job is an oxymoron at best.

Job is a job, you are being paid money in exchange for your time, labour and skills, everything else surrounding it is just BS to make you more productive and happy go lucky robot, therefore increasing someone's bottom line.

Sure a new job might be exciting, but there is a t- after which any individual capable of thought will realize what's going on.

Seek fulfilment elsewhere, maybe take the money you make at a job and put it into something that makes you happy, good luck!

I dread corporate kool aid, it's gut wrenching to me to hear how much people are motivated to be productive when you know the real sense of defeat that resides in a lot of companies, especially the largest ones...

Around 30 years old I realized that it was the people I worked with and their personality, sense of humor, real conversations, and dedication to growing and solving problems was the best aspect of going in to work, not the sht written in company manuals and useless words in all hands meetings, or even that our Billionaire CEO went to Harvard.

When I leave a job, I've kept the good friends, even hired some of them. All the company gave me was a t-shirt and a mug full of kool aid that most times I didn't really care to hold onto. They want you to believe a company is a living being or a vibe, it's simply not.... They often change in name and branding just to avoid liability, so you don't need to look to a company for fulfillment, it comes by heavily inserting humanity into every aspect of the work... If the humanity is missing, I recommend saving money and moving to a new place where it does reside.

colleagues are what makes or breaks the job experience, rest of it is just business and if you are not part of c-suite be prepared for short end of the stick

>> When I leave a job, I've kept the good friends, even hired some of them.

This is key for me too. When I was in a stressful people manager role, sorting through conflict and personalities every day, my favorite manager would always say 'people over companies.' Even if you have no intention of leaving your job or being friends with your coworkers, this thought brings everyone to the same level - we are all people who happen to be organized around this fictional thing called a company.

It makes me sad to hear this kind of argument. While i agree with the idea that a job shouldn't define someone, to completely write off 40 hours a week (arguably our most productive hours) as simply selling your time without taking pride and joy in that time sounds like a pretty bad deal to me, but it makes sense that anyone that has that perspective would consider anyone that happily works for others as a "happy go lucky robot". I hope that you either start your own endeavor that others may one day be "happy go lucky robots" for or that you find a job that you find real pride and joy in the part you play.

let's make a thought experiment, if you make X amount of money and you were given this amount every month for rest of your life and could do whatever you wanted, would you still keep going to your current place of employment for 40+hours a week?

and if so, what % of people in the world you think would say the same?

of course I was writing in generalities in my previous post, I'm not commenting on the odd neurosurgeon or astronaut who realized their childhood dreams, let's be real here

and yeah, if I ever have "employees" it will be on partner to partner basis with sharing risk and profit, I don't dream of subjugating other human beings for my benefit while keeping them in the dark and scheming, which to be honest is what most companies do...

That's not a useful thought experiment because it doesn't reflect reality, and on the other side, this isn't about the "odd neurosurgeon or astronaut". I'm either an accidental unicorn that rarely ever tried to find fulfillment or it's quite possible with very little friction to get a job that you'll find fulfilling. I completely agree that many (maybe even most) companies suck, but it feels like you're projecting that on others by using blanket statements rather than recognizing that it just depends on the company, and it's very possible to find opportunities at companies that don't suck and do feel fulfilling. I just want others on this thread to understand that it's very possible to work for other companies and feel very fulfilled and proud of the work they do, and it's not a unicorn, there are a lot of opportunities if you're willing to put forth the effort.

For benefit of others I'm willing to entertain the thought of worthwhile companies existing out there. Its not my goal to discourage anyone seeking fulfillment in their job, just be aware its ok if its just a thing most of us do to put food on the table, there are other more important things in life!

My experience is by fair amount on the opposite spectrum. I worked with a few small to medium sized companies, seen things and know _some_ companies thrive on their employees not understanding how personal income, corporate, dividend tax and write offs work not to mention other gray areas or outright shady practices.

Most people didn't experience what happens during mass layoffs caused by mismanagement, talk about owners and management taking on the business risk, until they don't...

I find myself nodding along to comments like this and coming away with the idea that I should optimize for TC and then GTFO while I'm still young.

From someone nearing 40 and having done tech for 20 years, you’re spot on. Max your comp and GTFO ASAP.

I work fintech, which is one of the more soulless fields. But I love it. We're building financial infrastructure for SE Asia.

I had a ecommerce startup 5 years ago and we couldn't take credit cards, because payment gateways sucked, and the chain of effort around legally doing it was too much for a startup. So 40% of the work was just validating payment, and the other 40% was logistics, which left us very little room to grow.

I think it's satisfying to do B2B stuff so the B2C folk can just focus on being creative and doing what they're good at. I mean as FE I end up doing mostly B2C, but there's a lot of wiring under the hood, and we do things that the competitors have trouble with.

Even when I did e-commerce, it was very satisfying. We sold health ingredients. This stuff was easily accessible in urban places, but we got it into more rural areas. One notable testimonial was a woman whose husband cheated on her because she was fat, and the app helped her take control of that and start eating healthy. But the community ended up a little cult like (people were dieting to the point of passing out), and we realized we created a monster and sold the company.

I think the field doesn't really matter, as much as the company you're working in caring about the people they serve.

I agree with your last sentence. I spent years in adtech (equally soulless hahahaha). Honestly the people were great, management was happy, employees were happy. We had an office a 5 minute walk away from venice beach in los angeles.

Daily work was gluing together questionably written at best ad libraries. There weren't many promotion opportunities because the business grew horizontally by acquiring other websites. I ended up moving to Taiwan because I wanted to get better at Chinese and wanted to escape COVID in California, but otherwise working in a soulless field with great people was a good experience.

>I think the field doesn't really matter, as much as the company you're working in caring about the people they serve.

100% Agree.

While i respect the other commenters in fintech and adtech and such (to each their own), just to give you an alternate perspective, i've been working in the health care and then the renewable energy sector my entire working life (~20 years), aside from a quick jaunt into insurance for a couple months, and i have to say that, at least to me, the industry definitely matters (hence why i was only in insurance for a couple months before i bailed). It matters very much to me to know that i'm working towards a cause that i feel is helping the world rather than something that is, for lack of a better phrase, sucking off its tit.

Yes, you absolutely should try to define your life more by what you do when you're NOT working for someone else, but the reality is our work life takes the majority of our productive energy. If you're feeling dead inside because you're putting all your energy into something you don't believe in, you should start applying for companies you can really see yourself feeling proud to be a part of. That said, the industry isn't the only factor, i would say even more important is the company culture and the people you work with (further supporting the arguments of the commenters in fintech and adtech). I have worked at a company in renewables that had a terrible culture that forced me to move on, even though i loved what we were providing.

At the end of the day, whatever it takes for you to feel satisfied with the work you've done is no less than you should settle for. I wish you the best in your quest for happiness.

>Or if you do find your job satisfying...

I work for a Healthcare company (not insurance). I don't find my job satisfying or meaningful. But I feel like what I do in my job is useful to users and stakeholders. My management layer does a good job of pushing back on pointless work.

To look at this more broadly, I've worked in a bunch of different industries in consulting roles. Oil & Gas, Consumer Goods (e.g. laundry detergent),Pharmaceutical, Manufacturing, Medical Devices etc.

Arguably the most morally questionable of those was Oil & Gas. However, the most and least satisfying work I did was in Oil & Gas. When the project was useful to the users and stakeholders, I felt motivated and useful. When the projects were pointless and the users didn't care I felt useless and felt like every day was a waste of my life. The whole "Oil and Gas Industry is Evil" was always there in the air, but it never really changed my sense of fulfillment or meaning in my work.

I imagine every industry is the same way. Let's take a social media company. Some people are optimizing ads to better target new parents who feel lost and unsure. Some people are optimizing the data centers to reduce power consumption. I imagine some people would find a job doing the latter useful and a job doing the former as not only not useful, but harmful.

I don't think I can find fulfillment or meaning in any job. But I can chose a job where I feel like what I'm doing in useful, even if it's only useful in the tiny microcosm of the context of my job.

I think it's important to define fulfilment in the job. Don't try to get fulfilled by only the impact / outcome of the job.

For example my fulfilment relies on the fulfilment of the needs of the family material, emotional and prosperity. To make that happen i choose a job that i will love the best and help me fulfil my needs. Does this work ? Yes it does. Surely does.

I did CS diploma, post diploma, engineering, overall 8 years of academics. After that i am working in the IT industry for past 16 years. I never regretted my job. Before marriage, i was supporting my parents, friends with what i earned. After marriage i also started supporting spouse, kids, in-laws. And they all are supporting me as well. At job i do things for my peers, my product manager, my manager. They in-turn support me. Technically we created solutions that last time by design, that make people / customers happy.

But none of this stem from how much money our product made, or how much impact we created inside the product. We sure created impact in and around the product. Not just the product but the people who used it / built it. Always work for your goals or goals of someone (a person) not a product. Work for a vision, yours or someone else's and do it sincerely. I always loved what i did, not because it was easy ot we made money, but because it made someone happy.

Personally, I’ve felt the most fulfilled when I’m pushing the limits of my knowledge and building something that matters. And after 10 years, I’m finally comfortable in saying that I know a lot about web development.

I’ll never know everything, but my core skills seem to carrying me through the ever-changing complexities of the web. It’s honestly a great feeling.

A tendency I’ve noticed in myself is becoming discouraged when my job neither recognizes my growing skills, or even has a technical need for them. I’ve got no delusions that I’m some coding legend. I just want to be one…someday.

All that to say, finding satisfaction from a job you dislike is tough, and possibly a road to burnout. Personally, I would rather look for positions that seem technically interesting and have nice people. Companies are usually too invested in their business model than being good for the world.

Do what you can.

Why does work have to be fulfilling?

It doesn't. Having it be fulfilling is just meaning we ascribe to it.

There's other things that are generally more associated with "being fulfilling" (e.g. having a family, volunteering at a charity, organizing a meetup to help mentor new software engineers). Those are worth trying out if you're looking for fulfillment.

I'm more of a service oriented person too, I did a career shift into management and now starting a job as a Solutions Engineer (similar titled jobs are Solutions Architect, sometimes Sales Engineer, sometimes Customer Success Engineer). Gig is basically going to be directly helping customers solve their problems for a B2B company. That career path might be worth looking into too for you!

Why wouldn't you try to make all 24 hours a day fulfilling? What is the downside? It's less realistic, sure, but it isn't impossible. That's the answer to "why does work have to be fulfilling?".

>Do you find your job fulfilling?

Well, yes.

I'm a science dude and I work days in a laboratory with the 24/7 people and instruments to keep them operating most reliably and profitably while continuously improving the fulfillment of clients' needs.

Even though it's somewhat toxic with the chemicals and I often work a 12 hour day.

I'm on my feet almost all days anyway, wearing the lab coat like everyone else.

It's a lot of responsibility, been doing it for decades as an employee, entrepreneur, and now employee again before I retire from the employer and be a trainer and consultant.

Will still be wearing the lab coat a lot while visiting other companies' labs too.

That's what it takes, that's what I do.

Could go full remote and just interpret readings as a service, but nah.

See everything about this sounds fine to except 12 hours. That’s literally half your day gone.

I currently work in marketing. Before I started I had absolutely no idea how marketing worked, and had you asked me ten years ago I probably would have balked at the idea. The one thing I do enjoy, though, is learning. And this job has certainly been a learning experience. That's what I'm trying to get out of my work - lessons I can apply wherever I find myself.

Given that you enjoy helping others and helping people grow, have you considered a management position? I've been very lucky to have good managers who care about their reports and want to help them. That sort of attitude in a manager is really valuable.

I find it "overarchingly" meaningful. Day-to-day, I mostly do customer support for a data scraping company. I believe I keep the core ideas and values of the original web alive (before it started getting silo'ed anyway).

You want to make a Venn diagram of all the activities that you're driven to do, all the activities you can get paid for, and all the activities you're exceptionally talented at. The intersection is where you'll find the most joy. Look up Richard Shell at Wharton. He has a bunch of material about this very topic.

Best of luck!

I've worked at 50% of the FANG companies and some of their direct competitors. My co-workers are usually smart and interesting. That's the good part. I like[d] computers for the sake of it but I don't find anything the slightest bit fulfilling about helping corporations hit their objectives. I do my best to stay out of the way of too much responsibility (it's not working sadly, I keep getting promotions) so that I can at least come up with my own projects that involve at least a little abstract thinking. Infrastructure as code projects make me want to kms for example. Great, I can trigger a bunch of api calls by filling out a yaml file. Great, we can templatize the yaml file so that more people can use it. Cool cool, I want to die now it's so boring.

> My theory is if I worked in a different business then I might feel that I am positively contributing to the world rather than just helping sell something.

Meh, you say that. I worked on an open source project that did a lot of public good but it just caused me to burn out even faster. Back then I was dating for example and going on dates ate a lot of my time and energy and having a job that I felt morally obliged to do got in the way of me feeling good about spending that time and energy advancing my own personal goals (I wanted to get married and have kids). I left that job and took a boring corporate job where I didn't mind slacking and met my partner within a year lmao. It was 1000% worth it to make that trade. Being overly invested in your work just makes you more exploitable. You'll work your butt off on some open source library and make below market salary while people will work less hard making use of your code and make a lot more money than you.

In the end, boring commerce related stuff is what gets me paid. I approach it as: if I'm working harder than I need to in order to not get fired I'm working too hard. Some people will call this cynical or whatever, but to heck with that. Our whole economy is a race to the bottom in terms of price/performance so why would I not behave accordingly?

It might sound like whining but I also love the fact that spending my teenage years and early 20's obsessed with all things computer science set me up to make a very good living with relatively low stress. It's boring and unfulfilling but oh well. We're all smart people here, we can figure out ways to survive and feel good despite the fact that the economy disproportionately rewards things that suck to do.

My job destroyed my mental health, my ability to enjoy hobbies, my read capacity and ironically my productivity. I used to do all kind of stuff outside my job (programming, making music, designing analog amplifiers...) all gone just to make some ppl richer and no benefit for this society, maybe harming it. So I guess no, I don't find it fulfilling.

It certainly fulfills my wallet.

No. I am currently a product manager. The only thing I found interesting in tech is building own projects.

Nope. I actually laugh at it sometimes. All just to get my paycheck.

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