Ask HN: What does the world need from software engineers now? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What does the world need from software engineers now?

19 pointsbosch_mind38 comments

I’m at big tech making rich people richer. I feel that poverty is one of the biggest problems in America and I don’t really feel anything I do directly, or at least with a large impact, helps resolve of those issues at a macro level. In fact, I’d wager 100% of work all my friends in software do doesn’t directly resolve necessity problems in the world today.

My question is.. are there problems we NEED software engineers for BADLY today? What are they? How to break into the area?

I’m 28 and would like to know if I should spend my time pursuing other fields like law and policy to help improve the world instead of writing software at big tech

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I work with German bureaucracy. There are so many bureaucratic tasks where a little bit of development work would completely change the game. Adding clarity and guidance to bureaucratic processes has a huge impact. I've written some form fillers and I'll write more in the future.

There are lots of tiny problems that affect immigrants, and that can be solved with minimal development work. Right now I'm writing a bank comparison tool specifically for immigrants. Bank requirements can often exclude them and most comparators leave that out. It's a profitable problem to solve, too, since you get a commission for the leads you generate.

So to answer your question: compassion. We need software engineers who care about their users as people.

Can you say more about how commissions for solving problems work?

I think it's a commission for referring someone to a particular bank.

Write software that runs on old hardware - look how much tech goes in the bin because of planned obsolescence

According to my first internship manager and other premed friends who've done volunteer work, a lot of healthcare tech is still lagging behind. It's not sexy problems that need to be solved really, but just a lot of integration of paper records and such into tech.

Software doesn't solve people problems, people need to solve those, software can help with collaboration, communication, and awareness but code alone isn't going to advance a cause. I'm sure there are probably examples where it can but for the majority its likely not the case.

You could volunteer but most computing jobs at agencies/non-profits are IT basics (email, PC management, etc.), not writing software since that typically does very little to further a cause. As an example, I would imagine the Red Cross needs scheduling software for blood drives, they aren't going to write it - they're going to buy it.

If you want to spend time in a different career like law/policy those will definitely help more than writing code. There's a recent special on netflix about "blue zones" - areas on earth with high ratios of 100 year olds. During the special the host talks with some public policy people (one from Singapore) and about changes they made that had positive impacts on the health of people. Looking into what policy makers have as an education background would be a start, I think public policy jobs typically require Masters level of education.

I imagine you're not alone in this, and I really hope you find meaningful work that gives you a sense of purpose.

One I can think of that matters to me is not-for-profit education software that is better and cheaper than the for-profit software I was frustrated with as a teacher and which runs on gnu/linux. This is a much larger bag of worms, though, and my reaction to authoritarian school administrators, poor tech support of the software, and an approach to education that felt subpar compared to what I understand from Make it Stick: the science of successful learning (Brown, Roediger and McDanial, 2014), other books, and my own experience in public & private education.

Another important field is early childhood education, though I'm not sure what software is used at that level.

Climate-change modeling, ecosystem modeling as climate changes, anything to help us adapt faster and decrease the amplitude the effects of what we've done to the planet over the past couple centuries?

https://runforsomething.net/

You’re not going to fix politics and policy with software. You run for office and/or vote.

You also asked the wrong question but it’s not your fault. The world needs people who care, to work on hard problems with little reward (politics of which is one of those problems), not software engineers specifically.

For example, the Inflation Reduction Act is probably one of the most impactful efforts towards climate change mitigation ever. And it didn’t take a single line of code to get enacted (besides a word processor).

You may already be doing this. Make all the money you can with your skills and knowledge. Find a worthwhile charity. Give worthy charities money, to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, provide housing to the homeless, work to end drug addiction. There is so much need in the world.

So sam bankman fried strategy?

I just realized the problem isn't as much about resource constraints but the political will and structural issues and perverse incentives. If OP is really interested in solving problems, he shouldn't be another cog in the wheel in the Charity Industry but attack the problem from first principles, read some literature.

Thanks for your comment. I would say the high level causes you have delineated need to be addressed. There certainly are political & structural issues that can be worked on. I am not sure how I would solve these issues.

What specific actions would you suggest to solve the political, structural issues and to resolve the perverse incentives?

That being said, I think the need of a hungry person is food, a cold person warm clothing and a homeless person shelter.

These are immediate every day needs that an individual can help with now.

A good charity is a vehicle that can help. A direct approach is to go to a mall or shelter or food bank and directly help people in need.

Again, thanks for the feedback.

One way to correct structural problems would be to do data analysis and why allocated money is being wasted or not enough or whatever the case be. That would be your high impact role since you are already proficient in software engineering. Get some publicly available data and do analysis.

I am a big believer in transparency being a key driver for change and innovation. [basically open source philosophy]

The issues that humanity faces have nothing to do with lack of technological solutions, it has to do with the human fallacy of following ideology over logic.

For example, from a logistics/financial standpoint, it would be incredibly easy to take a piece of land in the central west/midwest for the entire homeless population of US, with provided individual shelter, water, security, and drug clinics. But it will never happen because people subscribe to stupid ideologies and will argue agains this on arbitrary moral grounds.

If you want to fix issues, you have to figure out how to effectively and reliably influence people to move towards better ideology. Good luck with that.

> My question is.. are there problems we NEED software engineers for BADLY today?

Step back further. And answer 2 questions.

1. What do you really need software engineers for? Odds are most people doing this work now are replaceable.

2. What is the primary goal of a software engineer. If you say something other than retain your job or advance your career you are either lying to yourself or will eventually be replaced.

Those are problems that define software engineering as a career. If you can provide a more meaningful solution to those two things you will redefine how software engineers perceive writing software and the business problems you seek will reveal themselves more directly.

> What is the primary goal of a software engineer

To scale and/or replace humans with automation and to create revenue streams (hopefully by providing value to customers).

I agree that should be the goal.

I would argue that government could desperately use improved software, but on the other hand I’m not sure how much developers could influence things there.

Anecdotally, dev is viewed as an Oompa Loompa job in government. Tools to execute the vision of others.

at 28 the most you'll make at big tech is $500k right now. there are people who are raking in $10M+ per year in their 20s, and they ain't thinking about charity or retiring.

the best way to improve the world is to create new businesses that innovate in niche areas or pioneer brand-new industries, thereby employing thousands of people in the process and raising GDP per capita more than you could have as an employee.

then when you get rich and "make it", you can create your own philanthropy and donate if you so choose.

We need a widely deployed operating system based on capability based security. Without this, we're forced to try to band-aid on things like virus scanners, trying to secure the "software supply chain" and the like.

The electrical grid doesn't make all of the power in the grid available to all outlets, everything has circuit breakers and other protections, which make it easier to just plug in a lamp without having to make sure its from a secure source, or have a qualified electrician review it before plugging it in.

Surely, we can make the world safe for people to just run code, can't we?

> I feel that poverty is one of the biggest problems in America and I don’t really feel anything I do directly, or at least with a large impact, helps resolve of those issues at a macro level.

This is one thing a software developer has done that will impact those issues at a macro level: https://branch.vote/

As a few others have said, donate to charity. There are charities that can make way more of an impact with that money than you building some software. Look at Bill Gates!

However on a local level you can do a lot, by being kind, helping people in your community where you can. Maybe working with local charities to help then with their technical issues.

Continuous, if intermittent, long-term effort at open-source software from every engineer who is not already deply involved.

The world will always need software engineers. If it is your passion, you can make it your career and improve the world that way. If law is your passion, you can do much the same in that field. They are both important fields and respectable careers to have.

Besides technical skills, adaptability and the ability to work collaboratively across diverse teams are essential. In addition, ethical considerations in technology development are gaining prominence, emphasizing the importance of responsible coding and data privacy.

Can we use software and in particular LLMs to bring more transparency on how government works? Government outputs tons of reports and documents and most of it is not scrutinized because it is overwhelming to the average person.

Probably donate your excessive salary to something worthy.

Software is just software, it exists in the abstract realm. Only huge projects that leverage many types of "real world" engineers etc can also use software engineers to make an impact.

Teach someone how to be a software developer, mentor them and encourage them - someone who would otherwise not been able to get there.

If you want to leverage your ability, start a company and build it to sustainably offer professional opportunities to such people.

You could have a look at https://80000hours.org and figure out how you could plan your career to solve bigger issues.

I asked myself the exact same question few years back, and I came up with an open creative library.

Https://datapond.earth

Software without bugs ?

Love, sweet love

Join a party.

Ethics

Do yourself a favor kiddo

Tell your friends that USA is run by CFR and Chatham House. All presidents are just puppets.

They are creating a global socialist state where everyone is a slave except the ruling class

Who?

Chatham House and CFR and other think thanks Trilateral Commission

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