I've been having similar thoughts about my software engineering career. A lot of people who are not in the field might think that it's great being able to work from home, having freedom during the day etc.
In my view though, there's a huge cost to having a job like this. Software engineering jobs tend to be quite alienating, boring to the engineer and uninteresting to other people. My partner (who's in a creative industry) would always have something to say after a day at work. Me? It was pretty much always 'well I was programming most of the day, nothing happened really and I hardly even spoke to anyone'.
I think I'm close to the point of saying fuck it. What I do besides work doesn't change the fact that a day job should be about more than this. It's also quite striking to me that you mentioned careers with impact (climate etc.) as I've been thinking about creating a business around those topics. It's either that or maybe change careers entirely, but I'm sure I won't be a software engineer working like this for much longer.
I've been having similar thoughts about my software engineering career. A lot of people who are not in the field might think that it's great being able to work from home, having freedom during the day etc.
In my view though, there's a huge cost to having a job like this. Software engineering jobs tend to be quite alienating, boring to the engineer and uninteresting to other people. My partner (who's in a creative industry) would always have something to say after a day at work. Me? It was pretty much always 'well I was programming most of the day, nothing happened really and I hardly even spoke to anyone'.
I think I'm close to the point of saying fuck it. What I do besides work doesn't change the fact that a day job should be about more than this. It's also quite striking to me that you mentioned careers with impact (climate etc.) as I've been thinking about creating a business around those topics. It's either that or maybe change careers entirely, but I'm sure I won't be a software engineer working like this for much longer.