[SpriglyElixir12]

This is going to be unpopular on HN but lots of software jobs are also pointless. So much effort gets put into automating things like finance or improving advertising. These things don't really add a lot of value to society but instead extract value from it. I know I'm hypocritical because I myself work in one of these areas but lately the lack of purpose has been hitting me hard.

[mrweasel]

Absolutely, while I'm sure there are people who find joy in solving hard problems related to fields like ad-tech, it's not a particularly useful job. Finance as well, there are tons of jobs that involve creating these huge convoluted systems which only exist because rules and regulation are pretty much incomprehensible.

For my self, working on stuff like e-commerce sites or deployment automation can be a bit pointless. Many of those jobs only existed because a particular client felt special and wanted something that was a better "fit" for their particular situation... Most of it is non-sense. Fortunately I've also be lucky enough to work on products that truly makes society better, strangely enough those jobs pay way less.