I'm sure this article is on point, and the comments here seem to confirm it.
But to me it's just wild that working to bring about a net positive impact to the world isn't mentioned anywhere.
And no: that's not even remotely the same as "cool stuff". Making a rocket taxi for the super rich or tunnel for SOVs is not it. We are on the brink of a global environmental collapse, and a lot of the blame is on the "cool stuff" designed by engineers.
Engineers need to seriously start asking: would the world be better or worse off if this company trying to hire me didn't exist at all?
I think it would be charitable to assume the author meant "fulfilling" by "cool stuff". I am looking for a company right now that fits into either "cool stuff" or "positive impact" but the latter is FAR more difficult to find. There are plenty of "positive impact" SaaS companies around pedalling meaningless Corporate Social Responsibility platforms (what even is a tool that legitimately helps with this?), but nobody using software to make a meaningful impact on the world - possibly because it's rarely a software problem.
The problem is that the more likely a job is to help people the less likely it is to pay well, software engineers are expensive and is helping people going to outweigh things like being able to support a family? Or at least an extra 100k
But to me it's just wild that working to bring about a net positive impact to the world isn't mentioned anywhere.
And no: that's not even remotely the same as "cool stuff". Making a rocket taxi for the super rich or tunnel for SOVs is not it. We are on the brink of a global environmental collapse, and a lot of the blame is on the "cool stuff" designed by engineers.
Engineers need to seriously start asking: would the world be better or worse off if this company trying to hire me didn't exist at all?