IT Devs of of Lemmy, How do You Cope with Being Forced to Contribute to 'Social Media Pornshow of the Web'™ or Die?

(begin rant)

Hi. Do you ever have a feeling that you have technical skills to qualify as a programmer, and there’s a demand for specialists, but, ironically, nobody needs them to design some useful information system or optimize the workflow in the factories, or do real science and push the limitations of human knowledge, but rather, all is just to spread some crappy advertising message as cheap as possible to the broadest audience as possible, usually without giving any respect to consumers, that feels like you’re losing your brain cells when interacting with the app/content you create. Quality level zero, consumerism level over 9k. Tons of boilerplate because ‘everything must be kept proprietary’ and it probably won’t work after 2 years because the framework you were using is down and the very idea of the becomes dated. Also, the more advanced technology, the more it’s used for shit. Like, we have generative neural networks that are used for turdposting conspiracies and generating profit/influence for some party.

I would say this clearly: I am very, very angry when I’m seeing this. I don’t want to participate in something that forces consumers to eat shit. Fuck SEO and e-commerce. Everything’s generative-AI, GANs, LLMs… now, which do not produce any value, at least to the user, or extracting every single bit of data of the user. Everything’s just to bombard people with information nowadays. Even Project Managers get biased (mostly because of naïve hype) and promote this crap.

(end rant)

So, my question is, how do you go through all of it? Of course, devs are better paid, but I don’t care about money. I’m still a student and, although I really like programming, and I’m really good at solving Competitive Programming problems (been at ICPC several times), I’m tired of this junk, besides I have a feeling I’ll be forced to do it. But, if I’m going to do it, somebody’s gonna get hurt. But it seems that it’s the only thing I’m skilled at, and I have no alternatives. So, how do you get through all of it, and what do you see it as relief, what does reward you at the very end?

EDIT: uncensored all swear words at request. I hope now you’re happy.

thelsim,
@thelsim@sh.itjust.works avatar

There’s plenty of work to be found in the public sector, the pay may be a bit less but I’ve always found the work to be satisfying and diverse. And, though this might be a European thing, the job security is usually quite high.
On top of that, the domain knowledge you build with working in these kinds of organizations can be quite valuable.

hardware26,

Web design is not the only option for someone who likes programming. Since you are still a student, there are so many options in front of you. You can be an embedded engineer and work closer to hardware, design firmware, electronic chips themselves or their verification environment. You can be a software engineer and work on business-to-business software which does not include adds and is very useful (e.g. CAD tools, inventory trackers for supermarkets and hospitals etc.). There is so much you can do, pursue something you are enthusiastic about.

PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S,
@PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Not a developer but a recent engineering grad. I get SO MUCH spam from the literal US military and defense contractors looking for people to work on their actual weapons. Surface-to-air missiles, nuclear submarines, air warfare, electronic warfare … these are actual “opportunities” that have landed in my inbox courtesy of my dipshit school career center’s lack of morals. I need a job, but I would literally rather skin myself and eat it then work for those monsters at any salary.

Albbi,

I work in bioinformatics, which is the application of computer science to biological problems. I have set up a genetic sequencing machine and nearly a petabyte of storage and backup for all the data because it’s huge. I really like my field because it is the application of my skills to solving problems real world problems. I’m currently employed by a children’s hospital creating tools to make genetic testing procedures better. Very fulfilling.

The field does have some issues. Many of the tools are research projects, not necessarily written by good programmers. Getting things working is a task in itself, but is becoming easier thanks to containerization technologies. Also, the pay for some reason is lower than IT work, even though it’s an interdisciplinary field requiring knowledge of biology, IT and programming. But I worked as a programmer for a few years, fixing bugs and not really working on making anything new or interesting, and I wouldn’t go back to that even though it paid better.

newtraditionalists,

I do IT for a non profit. Luckily, it’s one that is funded by membership dues so I don’t have to fundraise, which includes a ton of advertising and the like. True, I’m not making bank like a lot of folks in IT. But my peace of mind is intact. I make a good living, and feel good about what I do. Jobs like mine are out there, but when you’re a student all you hear about is the vast amount of money you can make quickly by selling your soul to amazon or whoever. If you keep at it, there is a path in IT that does not include losing sight of your values. Good luck!!

vettnerk,

I simply refuse.

I work in a niche part of the IT world, and I have plenty of niche skills, so if they wanted me to do that kind of stuff they’re paying for the skills for which I was hired, while using me for something they could get someone much cheaper to do.

I’ll stick to my clustered storage racks and make things work in harsh environments. I like it, I’m good at it, it pays well, and I don’t have to deal with the awful shit that often falls under IT.

cerevant,

Go into embedded software. You can’t do ads if there is no UI taps head.

mobyduck648,
@mobyduck648@beehaw.org avatar

I’m currently working in medtech, I don’t want to dox myself because the company is quite niche but it involves using machine learning to diagnose a particular disease much earlier when it’s more treatable. I’m managed by an experienced senior engineer who’s probably forgotten more about about the profession than I know and the workload is reasonable and well compensated. Yeah it’s a startup so you temper your expectations in terms of long-term job security but there’s definitely good companies out there, don’t get me wrong there’s a lot about the industry and the broader socioeconomic context it exists in that’s awful but there’s a lot of good opportunities too. I could bitch about the ecosystem for hours but at the end of the day I’m a bit of a drama queen, I’m well paid for interesting work and you can’t say fairer than that.

There’s certainly much more than adtech, you could actually exclude business to consumer industries entirely if you wanted and make an excellent living in the business to business sector where there’s lots of interesting problems to solve. If you’re thinking of training as a software engineer or similar and entering the industry I’d still very much recommend it if it’s something you enjoy and are good at. Give frontend a wide berth if you’re worried about framework churn too, the vast majority of my work is backend where the churn isn’t as bad and there’s always plenty of work for you if you’re decent at SQL and a couple of common languages used for that purpose.

We’re not all patent-shagging tech bros, if you want proof of this you can look at how most of the industry runs on freely shared code that’s written in enormous volumes for no other reason making the lives of programmers easier and therefore improving their productivity. If this almost anarchistic process stopped even for a month the whole thing would fall over and never get up again!

sunbeam60,

I moved to EdTech from gaming - mobile gaming felt so damn focussed on value extraction.

chunkystyles,

While I do work for a giant, soulless corporation that definitely exploits people, the product I work on is actually useful to don’t marginalized people.

So I’m not contributing to the enshittification of the Internet.

fmstrat,

This is one reason devs sometimes spend free time contributing to open source. It feels good to know your skills are going towards a passion, and builds a resume around what you love.

gerryflap,
@gerryflap@feddit.nl avatar

This is my biggest problem with working as a programmer. I enjoy solving complex programming problems, learning about new algorithms, exploring new technologies. Instead every job seems to be “add new button with questionable requirements” or “add thing to the backend that nobody thought about for more than 3 seconds”. All for questionable goals like advertisement, surveillance, big oil, fintech, or defense of course. It’s kind of a bummer, but at least it pays well and it beats most other jobs.

java,

Why don’t you go developing video games engines, aerospace soft, etc.? I’d assume this is where tasks go beyond “provide a CRUD REST API interface” or “add a button”.

sping,

Aerospace is largely making killing machines and also some of the most soul destroying tedious fragmented work because the high safety stakes. Games industry is famously toxic. There are a few fun and rewarding good jobs out there but I don’t think you’re hitting examples.

awooo,
@awooo@pawb.social avatar

Not sure myself, I’m trying to get into some IT jobs (not necessarily programming) that aren’t anywhere near social media and are more focused on internet infrastructure, but getting any job is hard when you’re starting out and I would like to avoid the evil ones at all cost.

But just as there is no ethical consumption in capitalism, there’s no consensual work, so the values of wherever you end up working won’t align with yourself or the other workers fully, it’s just a question of degree.

shasta,

imo you gotta take whatever you can as a first job to get started. If you hate it, make a goal to find a better job after the first year. Just try to learn whatever you can an remember to write down notable things you do on the job to make your resume sound better. Beggars can’t be choosers. You can focus on finding something fun and ethical after you have the experience and luxury to do so.

saigot,

Also I don’t think you can really appreciate what ethical and unethical behaviour looks like until you experience it first hand. Besides you aren’t really contributing anything truly unique early in your career. Companies that can only hire desperate, under-performing or new engineers tend not to do so well (take a look at just about any bank for instance) and with how much of an arms race most of the unethical stuff is the effect can be very pronounced.

I strongly believe that the vulnerability google is starting to show is a direct result of them losing prestige as a good place to work.

tias,

Surely there are other programming jobs you can get? I work on IT service management software for mostly the public sector. We can’t even use Google Analytics. How about embedded systems? Automation for factories? Medical software? I once worked on AI for detecting lesions in eye-fundus photographs, to screen for diabetes. There’s plenty of specialized software for nice niche sectors, for example I did cost estimation and planning software for the construction industry. Or you can go work for some indie developer to make games. Put away some money and you can eventually start your own company to make the kind of software you enjoy making.

xilliah,

Oh man I know how you feel. You need to find a balance. You don’t have to work 5-7 days a week to live. As a skilled worker you can survive from 4 days or less. Especially if you can remote and live in a cheap place. You can spend your other work days on whatever you find to be valuable. I dunno works for me.

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