[Thread] Do you find purpose in your work?

Sometimes I feel that the work I am doing in the office is worthless. It is providing no value to the client nor does it help me. I am able to answer the technical questions of the client which help in their business decisions and I think that's what keeps me employed. But I still feel I am wasting my time and I really don't know what I should do. Does anyone else face a similar issue or is it only with me? Also have someone come out of this and would like to share their experiences.

Do you feel like your work as a frontend engineer is meaningful and impactful enough towards the product you are building? I feel like in most companies BE work is treated as more important. Most of your performance bottlenecks and production issues would also be related to Backend and hence those who work on it get more visibility. I feel as an FE all my work is being limited till the feature is being developed and after that you just move to the next one. Kinda feeling bad about it.

Have always been curious and want to know what people here think. Which side do you lie on? Personally have always felt I work to eventually build something meaningful, to help people at scale. But also it’s made up stuff that humans do at the end of the day… How do you folks reason? Do you work for the basic needs, or to solve a higher calling?

I believed in the mission so much that I overlooked the actual job description. Now I'm stuck doing tedious work for a cause I care about. Has anyone found a way to inject excitement into a dull role?

Hey Grapeviners, I need some serious help. Bit about myself - just graduated this month and working as an APM at a seed stage startup. I have 1.5 years of product experience and 3 years of overall experience. Lately, not sure why but I am loving what engineers do. Closely working with them, and I guess it's nostalgic for myself. Because I did coding for 6 months and moved on for some reason. So, I understand how tech actually works. Have got good feedback regarding this. At the same time, I am not really finding the true value of what I am doing everyday. Feels a void inside. Also, I am not able to discuss all these things in person with someone, because I fear that they will judge me after doing internships for 3 years, I still haven't figured out my career. Such a loser I am. I have been thinking about starting coding again and maybe switching to a coding job in the next 6 months maybe. But again it would be tough for me as I only got weekends for me to learn all this stuff. What do you all experienced folks suggest? What should I do? Please comment if you can help🙏

Hey Grapeviners, I need some serious help. Bit about myself - just graduated this month and working as an APM at a seed stage startup. I have 1.5 years of product experience and 3 years of overall experience as an intern. Lately, not sure why but I am loving what engineers do. Closely working with them, and I guess it's nostalgic for myself. Because I did coding for 6 months and moved on for some reason. So, I understand how tech actually works. Have got good feedback regarding this. At the same time, I am not really finding the true value of what I am doing everyday. Feels a void inside. Also, I am not able to discuss all these things in person with someone, because I fear that they will judge me after doing internships for 3 years, I still haven't figured out my career. Such a loser I am. I have been thinking about starting coding again and maybe switching to a coding job in the next 6 months maybe. But again it would be tough for me as I only got weekends for me to learn all this stuff. What do you all experienced folks suggest? What should I do? Please comment if you can help 🙏

I know it’s a very common question, and impossible to know or answer. But curious how you folks here rationalize the meaning of life. Add your age if that’s okay, for good measure For me: I’m 27, my life’s purpose (or so I think) is to build something that helps a whole lot of people have a better life. And it is to make the people around me - family, friends, strangers happier (the scale of which depends on how successfully I pull this off). Whats yours? Would love to engage on this :)

So I am working at a startup for around a year now. Everyday I see, it feels, what am I really doing? Where is the life headed? Doing bare minimum or doing your tasks and fucking off isn't enough. It's expected that we outgrow constantly, as if it's this work that we can always think about and nothing else. At the end, am wondering if it's still worth it? 1 day it feels that let's just quit it! Next day I feel, okay, I do want the money. I ain't looking for suggestions here, just wanted to see if anyone else felt this way

Hey All, I am writing this to express how I am feeling since last 1 year now. This post will be a bit lengthy but I would be grateful if anyone could help me even a bit. I moved into a new company 1year back and due to bad work environment I left. I took a months break and joined a new company now. I have a total 5 years of work experience, my salary is extremely good. ( I don’t worry about this at all for now) My problem is I don’t know what to do in my life. I guess I have quarter life crisis. Earlier I wanted to do music and act , I took professional classes and left because I felt bored idk why. I felt like I need someone to guide me and handhold me since I know no one in this industry. Talking about my job I have always moved into roles I loved every bit of work and I m very sincere and hardworking. I stopped working out , I stopped cycling, I stopped painting. I stopped liking everything literally. Idk how to get back at things. I feel I am gonna die anyway why I need to do this , or that or etc etc. I even took counselling but it did not seem yo help me. Idk what to do. Please share your experiences too and what I need to do.

Just sharing a random thought that I feel is very important, would love to get your thoughts on it as well. I've been in startups for ~5 years now, and my big realization is that the best people know when to go all-in into an idea and close the loop: in terms of making sure resources are put behind the project, founders' approval exists, and people are championed behind it's execution It's super easy to come up with 3-4 ideas every month, share it, move on to the next ones. Most commonly, some execution also happens, but then people eventually lose interest... they are too stuck on being an idea generator, and often times there is a missing culture of seeing things to fruition. But the joy of having thought of something, seeing it succeed/fail, get to a logical conclusion is unparalleled. It's the most beautiful way to learn how 0 to 1 actually works, and makes sure you learn to execute, not just think. The happiness lies in seeing the early signs of success, and then some mid-stage and late-stage signs of success. This culture within early team members makes a startup successful. It makes you successful, if you're the person behind it. So to everyone who's still early within startups (especially early stage), try to close the loop on those ideas you find to be wonderful. You'll never again have to think about what to write on your CV or what to say in an interview. TLDR: Execute your ideas with as much excitement as you had when you first thought of them, don't lose track. From other operators, would love to get your thoughts on this. What have you seen? Do you feel differently?