Thanks. I wasn't thinking of a total reskill, just starting to move in the right direction like you suggest. I'm just a bit concerned that the specific world of C#/Azure/Microservices limits my options.
Thanks for sharing. I understand your hesistancy to post this, however, I feel that a lot of people share your position, so it's very useful to add it to the discussion. I certainly won't downvote you.
The reason I don't personally agree with this is that it's unrealistic at this point to expect legislation to help with the glaring issues in the world. Legislators are bought and paid for by the industries that are causing harm.
I also disagree with your assumption that if you're not doing it then someone else will. There are a lot of great people in our industry but the number is not infinite. If enough people individually say no to something then there's less chance it will happen.
I worry that your view point seems rational to many people and allows them to dodge any responsibility that they may have.
This is great answer, thanks. I'm also in the UK and I'll take a look. I agree that the services that can be built for the government can be apolitical.
I know that during the pandemic there was a lot of interesting work going on in the NHS. I think they created teams that were outside of the normal archaic structure of the service and allowed them a lot more freedom.
Edit: Looks like the government is pretty focused on the Java stack :'(
Java is still popular around UK Departments but is by no means universal.
The UK Government Digital Service runs services in Ruby, Python, JavaScript / TypeScript and Java [1].
Other departments with strong programming teams would include:
- Department for Education (DfE)
- Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
- Ministry of Justice (MoJ)
- Home Office
Amongst others. They'll each have a tendency towards their own tech stack.
This is a useful resource [2] (unofficial but run by folks who love this stuff) for finding out what services are out there, and where possible who runs them and links to open source code.
Have a look around, see what you like the look of, then set some alerts or reach out to a department to ask if anyone there could tell you more about what it's like to work there... would be my advice.
There are even some local authorities with pretty respectable tech operations. Hackney used to get kudos for building good things, as did Surrey.
Outside of Gov, Citizens advice run off ruby last I heard, there are wonderful places like MySociety, the ODI as well as the privacy folks like EFF and Open Rights group.
I agree with your core point, finding work that is meaningful to you can be hard. Even harder if you want to get paid commercial rates for it.
But take heart, there's an ecosystem of folks working their socks off to make things better out there. Hopefully this links you into their networks.
Oil & gas industries have been aware of our path towards climite change for decades and have actively worked to suppress and discredit the science.
They use their wealth to lobby against the transition to renewable energy. Only in recent years have they started to green-wash now that public opinion is more unified on the topic.
The list of their crimes against the environment is endless. They make billions of dollars in profit and yet insist in cutting corners that lead to disasterous oil spills.
Read about what Chevron did to Steven Donziger, who had the audacity to stand up to them.
I won't comment on Ukraine specifically, however, the military industrial complexes of Western countries aggressively lobby for forever wars so that they can profit endlessly.
I have been trying to avoid this as it would have a negative impact on the work-life balance that I have fought for, however, it could end up being the only way!
Yes, I often think of a lot of the enterprise work that I have been doing as just greasing the wheels of capitalism. More and more people must be becoming aware that the economy is unsustainable.
I would argue that those are not the goals of every industry. For example, the majority of the clothing industry pushes fast-fashion rather than trying to sell high-quality goods that will last and that are manufactured fairly. I could continue to give examples for other industries but in short, their main goal is to extract profit.
At this point I would settle for work that is not actively causing harm to people or the environment.
I've tried to find b-corps or co-operatives to work for, however, there haven't been many options out there.
