
Ask HN: How can I help make a difference? - ta83728247
Hi HN<p>I’ve been a software engineer for over 15 years. I spent some time in academia and then moved into the tech industry. I’ve worked on a few things in the consumer electronics or internet-related services. I’ve worked at startups and I’ve spent the last 8 years at a FAANG company. I’ve spent a little time in a few different countries and cultures so I have accumulated a few different perspectives .<p>The current world situation has me feeling like my entire career has been a bit... pointless.<p>The world’s challenges seem to be around climate change and public health and equitable growth and space travel and stuff like that. And while I’m quite happy with the stuff I’ve built I’m looking for something more meaningful. I got paid well to do what I did, and I “innovated”, but I can’t help but feel like my work has all gone towards creating more expensive toys and ways for the world to entertain and distract itself.<p>I guess I’m at a stage in my career where I’m looking for something more meaningful.<p>How do I go about doing this? I’m not really able to start something on my own right now. Are there companies hiring for “meaningful” work? Are you doing something that you think is solving an important problem and you’d like to share? Has anyone else felt like this and done something about it?
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op03
When you feel pointless - find simple problems you already know how to fix,
that you can solve with skills you already have. Github issue trackers are a
good place to find them. Just pick projects you feel are doing something good.

here are two lists to find projects - [https://github.com/humanetech-
community/awesome-humane-tech](https://github.com/humanetech-
community/awesome-humane-tech)

[https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/organizations/](https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/organizations/)

Don't go chasing the hardest ones, until you have reduced that feeling of
pointlessness and have built back up some confidence.

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toto444
Back in March someone asked a very similar question. One comment that I found
very clever was advising to work on Open Source Projects. They may not be
directly related to 'public health and equitable growth and space travel' but
it will indirectly help.

The impact on the world of, say, a Rails contributor is massive.

Another stuff I would recommend is to add something the public domain.
Anything that someone else can reuse for free. That makes everyone richer.

