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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3795 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 2, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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There's so much work to do that we need smart people for and so few smart people

If you're a smart person, how do you find this work that needs doing? I consider myself a smart person. I inevitably find myself working for companies where I do tons of work that only a really smart person could do, but that work is ultimately pretty meaningless and has little impact on society.

I drive down the costs of software systems, I improve operational maintainability of these systems, etc. I do this for products that you yourself know and have used. But still, it doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things, as I find it really unlikely that these products will change the course of human civilization, and I find it unlikely that my work to make it more maintainable or cost less is going to even matter much for these products. I'm a cog on a team inside of an organization inside of several much larger organizations, and everything that gets done is just so operational that it basically feels completely meaningless.

Give me something meaningful to do, where I really can make an impact. I'd love to do it. But everyone tells you they're working on meaningful stuff, and it always ends up being the same operational crap.

If you're a smart person, how do you find this work that needs doing? I consider myself a smart person. I inevitably find myself working for companies where I do tons of work that it only a really smart person could do, but that work is ultimately pretty meaningless and has little impact on society.

...

Give me something meaningful to do, where I really can make an impact. I'd love to do it. But everyone tells you they're working on meaningful stuff, and it always ends up being the same operational crap.

Your first instinct is probably to run screaming from these meaningful environments because, besides the principal investigators or chief scientist being big swinging dicks and fairly competent most of the team is mid, the bureaucracy is soul crushing, or both.

Aside from academic labs or pharma departments doing meaningful work, there are many startups out there that have the same form. Started by a few scientists writing Python, they got funded, and now they're trying to scale their operation and it's a fucking nightmare between bad platforms and bad dependency management and spaghetti code bases and otherwise mid dev teams. Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to come in and shine it up while also fighting intense resistance to change. Also they're paying low six figures at best and there's 10+ meetings a week.

A few more OOMs of smart people would help a lot.

Well, my current job has most of the things you describe as being a part of the meaningful startups: the seniors with egos, the bureaucracy, the poorly thought out code bases and dependencies. The main differences are the fact that my job doesn't feel as impactful, but it pays triple to quadruple the salary you're citing for startups.

they're paying low six figures at best and there's 10+ meetings a week

I've had this job. The 'meaningfulness' wears off. Now I look for meaning in myself and family, not my work.

At work I trade my time for money to fund the meaningful part of my life.

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