I took a job at a company whose values I admire, but the day-to-day work is mind-numbingly boring. How do you balance purpose with engagement?

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

Ask me anything except my company name, or things that can reveal my identity. I may respectfully choose not to respond to your question based on my own judgement. Here’s a brief intro about me: I’ve worked as both software engineering manager & software technical architect over the last 18+ years on various tech stacks managing backend, frontend and a little bit of cloud. I have seen ups and downs in the software industry. Currently I’m working as a senior architect in one of the product based companies in India.

Being someone who gets bored easily, I don't have that urge, or lets say am reluctant to start work everyday (analytics - not a fresher). Keeping switching aside, what's something I could do to find ownership? If not for turning this to something extremely interesting, least I wouldn't want to go through this every morning. I understand there's many out there doing it just for the money. Apne koi turning points he tho share kardo yaar, kuch try kar lete hein. It's Monday tomorrow :(

Lately, seeing many posts on Grapevine around work being transactional. Something where you put in X hours and get paid Y. It can possibly mean a combination of two things: 1. They're not emotionally vested in the work they do everyday. Perhaps, something else interests them more. 2. They're several degrees of connection away from the impact they make. Imagine a Backend Engineer, who corresponds with their EM who in-turn corresponds to the Product team who in turn talk with the users. Essentially, the backend engineer is 2 degrees away from the users. In most large organisations you can be 5+ degrees of connection away from the people you impact. Hence, they feel that the work they do is not purposeful enough. What do you all think about this? Do you find your work purposeful?

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.

I've been in my current role for a few years now, and I'm starting to feel a bit stagnant. I'm craving a new challenge, but I'm not sure if that means changing jobs or just shaking things up in my current position. Have any of you successfully reinvented yourselves within the same company? How did you approach that conversation with your boss? Any advice for breathing new life into a job that's gone stale?

I am working as a Product Manager for a blue collar company within a large company. Although everything is good prima facie - good pay, work hours, people. However I am not intrinsically motivated towards the work. Each day feels like a drag and I feel I am wasting my time here. The only thing which is holding me back is the great pay I do not know what to do. Honestly want to take a break and chill to figure things for couple of months but then the thought of not finding a job or being jobless scares me. The notice period is also 90 days Any thoughts?

When I was job hunting a few months back, I told the head hunter that a couple of companies she proposed was not something I believed in, in the nicest way possible. Maybe a dick move, idk. She told me it’ll be impossible for me to find a job in this market if this was my attitude. After that, a month later, she ghosted me when I asked her if she has any leads. I spoke to a few friends and they said it’s a good thing to want to truly believe in what the company does and few told me it didn’t matter. To me it does, because I have always worked in very early startups and I see my time also as an investment. And not to mention, early stage startups are tedious to work in. You lose your motivation if you don’t feel like you’re contributing to a great extent in multiple areas. What’s your take on it? Is it alright as long as you get the money in your account?

I have been at a company since 2.6 yrs as a founding engineer (joined here as a fresher). I am a graduate from IIT Delhi. I am paid well (50 LPA cash + decent stocks). The work culture of where I am is pretty amazing (5-6 hrs work, 5 days a week), WFH. Since I joined when the company was growing, I am well respected. I would also go in length to say that I don't expect the culture to be this good anywhere else. However it has been pretty boring lately, the work is very monotonous ( I am a backend engineer with pretty decent technical skills). I think I have little opportunity to grow here. What should I do ? PS: I got interview calls from various startups but most of them are just matching my salary but after doing some research I see that they are demanding lots of work (12 hrs, sometimes weekends included)

Hey Viners, how do we tackle Monotony in an Ops role where we have to do the same thing again and again and there is no real work and growth . I feel kinda numb by it and creativity takes a hit . How do we tackle the depression arising from a very boring and montonous work ? Please advise, Job market down so finding other job openings became very hard !! How do we escape from this Mind Numbing Ops work and transition to something better like Engineering, Analytics etc.