Throughout my career I have tried my best to avoid work in industries that I consider as doing harm, e.g. oil & gas, defence and financial services companies like JP Morgan that have a large prescence locally.

In the last few years I have worked for a cloud consultancy with similar values, however, I have still found myself working on projects for clothing companies that I would consider as fast-fashion with questionable supply chains.

I am starting to wonder if I need to take my skillset in another direction to find more meaningful work. I took an interest in C# and microservices in the past and while that has worked out well for me, it seems to have locked me into a very enterprise world with values that rarely align to my own.

Has anyone faced a similar dilemna? Basically, I am struggling to find my Ikigai as I do not feel like the world needs the work that I am doing.

There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    2 years ago

    Lol of course. Being an engineer is like being a lawyer. You can do ethical work for very little money and a massive amount of time and a ton of competition or you can sell your soul for time with your family and a roof over your head

  • boredtortoise@lemm.eeEnglish
    8·
    2 years ago

    My hypothesis is that as long as work is kept as a mandatory thing for humans, most of it will be unethical.

  • Dojan@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 years ago

    I think one has to strike a balance really. I’ve worked with

    • Developed various sales related tools for a Stellantis owned car manufacturer
    • A resource management system for the government of a particular population
    • Planning tools for a mining company
    • CRM related stuff for a “green tech” company
    • Various tools for government sectors

    Like none of it is world changing, and some are a bit more questionable. Mining isn’t exactly environmentally friendly, though the company I did work for is arguably one of the “greenest”, and environmental sustainability is a big thing for them right now. As it should be for everyone.

    I have some hard line stances though. I don’t want to work with the military. I don’t want to work with medical stuff, (out of fear that code I’d written somehow kills someone). I don’t want to work with companies that overtly exploit people (online casinos, mobile apps/games and that kind of BS). I’d say JP Morgan qualifies for that last bit.

    • kugel7c@feddit.deEnglish
      13·
      2 years ago

      Always has been, especially since we have offshore banking and banking secrecy laws. Not that credit was ever particularly ethical. Neither investment banking tbh.