I've worked for a large tech company at an intermediate level for a couple years.<p>As far as jobs go no complaints! Great pay, great benefits, smart coworkers, but at the end of the day I'm finding myself demotivated to the point where it's starting to effect my work.<p>It's difficult to find the meaning in building the important piece of infra we work on. We have lots of users within the company and it relies on our software for doing some important back office stuff.<p>It really sucks, because I've been lucky so far with avoiding layoffs, paycuts and other big problems the industry has rn. I grew up lower middle class, missing housing payments/food during the Great Recession so it's hard for me to give up on a job that's objectively a sweet deal to go chase something else down knowing how bad things can get.<p>I'm curious what the HN crowd thinks, or what coping mechanisms you use if you've been through a period like this before?<p>I take time off to avoid burnout + side projects/hobbies, and have a therapist. Doing all of that is really helpful, but hasn't fixed the problem for me.
I work in nonprofit tech. I’d guess we pay less than half for an equivalent big tech role. If you want meaning in your work, be prepared to pay for it.<p>My best recommendation is to look to the rest of your life. And if you’re feeling really bad about it, you can give up to half your salary to charity, still be ahead financially and help pay my bills.
> <i>It's difficult to find the meaning in building the important piece of infra we work on.</i><p>Don't look for meaning at work; look for meaning outside.
Wait until all the infrastructure you've built gets torn down and replaced by whatever is fashionable in a few years, and it'll really hit you. As far as meaning, I don't know; I'm thinking about building ecosystem aquariums now because that looks interesting. Maybe doing something in medicine in the future, but starting over is pretty difficult to contemplate, especially when you need your health insurance.