Ask HN: Do you feel fulfilled with your work?

Yes. Very simple formula: Do great work in your day job. Help people. Do small side projects that you enjoy. Make everyday count.

What are examples of jobs that don't align with your moral/ideological compass?

You probably shouldn't get all your fulfillment in life from a job. You need to find fulfillment in things you control. Giving so much power to something you can't control will cause you lots of pain in your life.

I think that's a shock everyone goes through. You either accept it as a fact of life and take the paycheck to survive and feed your family, or you figure out an alternative path.

Personally, I find offices pretty depressing usually, the only way I tolerate it is with self-employment. Fulfillment isn't something I really think about, I just want to make sure I'm maximizing my own potential.

If money doesn't matter as much, I don't see why you wouldn't learn a skilled trade. These types of people are usually happier; if you are responsible, reliable and not drugged out, and master a difficult skill that's in demand, you will always have work. In addition, the path to self-employment is obvious, clear, and potentially lucrative.

No. I'm in product management, and I think that the root cause is that I do not deeply care about the product that I manage. I'm looking for a similar position, but at a company that builds something that I would use intensively myself, in a domain that I consider myself an expert in (which is not the case now, tbh).

Then again, I believe that no matter how much you love doing something, if you're forced to do it 40 hours a week every week, everything becomes a drag sooner or later. So I'd love to work less, maybe 4 full days a week. Sadly this is not acceptable for my employer (an early growth stage startup).

Sometimes. Some days, the feeling of getting things done is enough. Other days, it's argh all day, with the realization that fundamentally the business is directing us in the wrong direction, so it'll never matter.

But, it really depends on what you're looking for. Even if a job is 'bullshit', if it means you get to be a positive influence in others' lives, find others to be positive influences in your own, provide you with funds to aid others and pursue other interests, grows your skills and knowledge, and in general helps you move forward in life, that may just be enough, even if the job isn't, in and of itself, making the world a better place.

Of course, you need to find a job you can stomach morally/ideologically. And ideally, one that leaves you feeling like you accomplished something some days. But your job will never, in and of itself, consistently provide you with purpose, unless you're in charge (so you're not feeling frustrated by the decisions of others), and it's a non-profit (so you feel like you're actually making the world a better place, not just chasing profit).

Maybe I am more old school in this regard, but I don't think it is a requirement to find a fulfilling job just out of college. As you grow in your career, so do your opportunities and your ability to choose the work that suits your desires best. When initially entering the workforce, you have much less leverage to pick and choose.

To answer your question, yes I do find my work fulfilling as it takes advantage of my skill set and expertise, and is an industry in which I've always wanted to work. But it took me over 10 years to get to this point, and my first few years were frustrating.

Power through it. It gets better.

I broker professional liability insurance for design professionals (architects and engineers), which means I don't much fit in on HN, but I enjoy the content anyway.

Most would call what I do boring, and some of it is. I do enjoy working with our clients, most of whom are easy going, like to shoot the shit and talk about the interesting designs and projects they are working on. Some of them have worked on some incredibly large projects in Houston and Dallas. I also enjoy digging into their contracts and offering non-legal advise to help them mitigate their risk.

Is it fulfilling? A little bit, but I realized that if I allow work to be my biggest defining factor, I'd probably be frustrated most of the time. I like my team, and others in my office, and I get paid very well for my market. I'm not overworked and have time to do other things that interest me. I spend a ton of time with my wife, and have a great community of friends.

My life as a whole is fulfilled. My job contributes to that, but I count it a small factor.

Yes.

The thing for me is that is fulfilling, is the talented and genuine people I work with, and from doing the best work I can.

People always talk about how fulfillment coming from "Changing the world," and helping people, but really if you mesh with the people - that's fulfilling enough for me!

No. I sit at a desk all day pushing buttons on a keyboard. I do it because our society demands I have money to pay for food, shelter, etc.

What would be fulfilling? Tons of things. I have tons of hobbies, skills, and interests that are very fulfilling. The problem is that nothing that is fulfilling pays money. Definitely not the kind of money that pays NYC rent. So here I sit.

3 months ago doing AngularJS for Google - absolutely not.

Today doing legal paperwork for my new startup while an ML model trains in the background - absolutely yes.

Personally I've figured out that the two biggest things for me are creative freedom and the quality of the people I work with. I am finally getting to build something cool with my best friend in the whole world, couldn't be happier.

Nope. But I am making a lateral move from a position with no upward progression to one where I can become more of a generalist.

Here's a way to think about it. In Los Angeles every waiter/bartender is an aspiring actor. After you get past the social taboo of asking what people do for a living, you'll find that the answer is always: "I'm an actor". The job is just the job.

People define themselves by a job instead of identifying with a career. Some people say career, others say calling. On this path there are many jobs.

As a web designer for the media, something for which if you asked me 5 or 10 years ago if I'd be doing this, I wouldn't have ever dreamed of it, but I love do it, and I am grateful. I get along with nearly everyone at work and there is rarely any backstabbing, though I sometimes have to deal with a boss that occasionally feels he needs to micromanage every so often which can be annoying, but a full-time micromanager is much worse.

I might not be saving the world with my job, but I do work in media, marketing, and advertising developing landing pages. An example of my work is something like this:

http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7893651-ges-avatar-di...

http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7847351-star-wars-the...

It is fulfilling because I get to design something new everyday that I go into work. It is a new client, a new company, and a new design -- with a new set of instructions. Sometimes I'll design something and the client will come back a few months later and want that same exact design but with a different product or message they are putting out. It's nice to know that the work is very well liked. Very satisfying.

On our slower days, I might get 0-1 jobs but on busier days, I could get up to 2-3. I don't mind the downtime, but so long as I get 1-2 jobs a day, I'm happy about that -- I know what its like to be sitting at a company not getting any work... and that soon leads to problems.

Of course, there are those days, although more rare, in which I'll design something, come in the next day, and it will be completely different, meaning the client didn't care for it. It doesn't affect my pay or anything like that, but it is upsetting to know that they didn't care for my vision. Usually, my ideas come from scanning their website and getting the "concept of the theme" and then turning that into a landing page.

To get to this point in my life, I freelanced quite a bit, although it is much less now. I worked for a tyrant boss as a programmer (if you care to read about that experience: http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/the-opportunity/ ), and then I worked for a solar panel company designing graphics for the kiosks (the machines that sit in lobbies or the front of stores and display or input information) in Flash, before the technology went obsolete and they just preferred to lay off nearly everyone instead of updating their technology -- I was the first to go, but I did get a nice 3-week severance package.

Anyways, you never know where you are going to end up... hell, I studied psychology! I had no idea it would lead me into the field of web design. And while I'm not making anywhere near 6 figures, I am quite comfortable to do what I do. There is downtime so I tend to work on some side projects at work and out of work that bring in a little extra income. Definitely aiming to get those side projects to the point where it will make up for what I am lacking.. and help give me that push to a six figure salary, but I'm not there yet.

Experience, ambition, perseverance, patience, and friendliness (customer support & service) are going to be your best friends in any field you decide is for you.

Yes. I'm very fortunate that work that I love to do is valued by society right now.

If I could choose to do whatever I want, I would be doing exactly what I'm doing right now (but perhaps in another town -- SF weather sucks).

I wrote down my story here awhile back: https://www.quora.com/How-did-you-realize-that-programming-w...

Getting started is usually the roughest part. A bunch of crap that you don't care about, suddenly you have to care about. It gets better once you start gaining ownership of things. You can start to make a personal stamp on things, enough to keep you going.

That's not to say the job itself doesn't matter. Some jobs just never become fulfilling, for whatever reason. But it's not a black/white thing; there aren't discrete classes of "fulfilling jobs" and "unfulfilling jobs". In my experience I'd say any particular job will max out somewhere between 0% and 65% fulfilling, after you've been there a while. There's always work though, even at the best jobs; otherwise it wouldn't be called "work".

No. But I don't rely on my job to provide me with fulfilment.

Your job isn't there to fulfil you. It's there to make you money so you can do all the things you find fulfilling.

Develop a good work / life balance. (This can be hard in the tech industry but it can be done, just find a good company)

Work on your own stuff. Travel (If that's your thing! - not everybody has to like it, but I think you should try it at least once).

Many companies allow you to work remotely. One of my colleagues for instance bought a boat and sails round the med, he goes in to port on work days and connects with a 4G dongle.

Most importantly - Create your own meaning in life, don't rely on others (E.G employers) to provide it for you.

Lately, yes. I remember some of the same feelings from 20 years ago when I dropped out of university to join my first startup. But it took leaving the whole industry behind to get here, it's sick and getting worse every day. These days I'm writing the software I want to write, the software that I feel needs to be written; the way I feel it should be written; and giving away everything for free (https://github.com/andreas-gone-wild/snackis). And as an added bonus I get a lot more quality time with my family then I ever could after having life squeezed out of me to generate awesome profits. Money can't buy that experience and comfortable is relative.

I make certain demands from the jobs that I take. No porn jobs. No advertising. No abusive industries. No distribution of non-free software.

So far, I have been able to get jobs that fulfill that. My last two jobs have been somewhat important, medical imaging for one (make humans healthier), and greenhouse gas assessments/environmental mapping for the other (make the planet less sick). I sometimes am tempted by bigger salaries, but I do not want to work at a company that produces bad or useless things. Sometimes when I browse the monthly Who Is Hiring threads, I think wow, there's a lot of money being poured into bullshit that ranges from useless to harmful for society.

So, yes. We do exist, those of us mostly happy with our jobs, doing good things. Keep looking and you won't have to sell your soul. :-)

“You want to play house, you got to have a job. You want to play very nice house, very sweet house, then you got to have a job you don't like. Great. This is the way ninety-eight-point-nine per cent of the people work things out, so believe me, buddy, you've got nothing to apologize for.”

— Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

Though mind that there's a bit more nuance to that scene, and the character saying that mostly seems put out that the novel's lead character isn't enlightened enough to realize he's complaining about/apologizing for choices that he made, his (the lead character's) fundamental struggle being with choices having necessary trade-offs, i.e. you can't have everything, and also with failing to work towards or make the necessary sacrifices to achieve the things he agonizes over not having/being. Basically he's talented enough to easily live a good, ordinary life, but is constantly frustrated that he's not living the life of his dreams (while also being afraid to actually try) and sees his current situation as both temporary and contemptible.

No. I have to be an adult and deal with a lot of people, some of whose personalities will get on my very last nerve, and do a lot of reactive (as opposed to proactive) things. A lot of investigation and fixing as opposed to greenfielding. Sometimes this isn't the case, but it never lasts.

But 'fulfilling' is a pretty tall order. Sometimes people just pay your price and you shut up about it.

I haven't commuted in 14 years, not that I'd mind because the German luxury car they gave me is amazing and comfortable, but I'd miss the extra time with the wife and furry children. Eventually I'll retire on some island and crank out vintage computer software between naps. That will be plenty fulfilling.

Like I've said before. At the end of the day only $$$ matters. Fulfilment doesn't pay rent or buy food unfortunately.

When I was young, yes. Now that I'm in my 30s... not as much.

Absolutely yes, my work is fulfilling. My experience is that this is not the case for most people. For most people, it's like the TV show 'the Office'.

Dont settle until you find work that you find fulfilling. Note that it might take a while. If something seems interesting, date it for a while, like it, or not, and know that it may take time to fall in love with it (as true for work as for other things). Things can get more interesting the more you get into it, and the deeper your knowledge.

I work in science - I get paid to think about interesting problems and try to figure out novel and (hopefully) clever ways to solve them. I also get a lot pleasure out (hopefully) contributing to the advancement of knowledge, playing a minor role in the greater understanding of the universe. So, there is that in the big picture, but the day to day is really fun. It's play time - but for adults - more than half the time, building interesting things, learning and coding. There are stressful days, and some drudge work, but those are the minority.

I've seen a lot of comments recently advocating the goal of having 25x annual expenses in savings. This is such a great idea, for at least this reason: Savings like that would give you security and freedom, insulation from a boring job and a boring life. Freedom to pursue interests and careers, or start a business, or improve the world with sustained action. I wish I had that idea 20 yrs ago.

Yes. But I think this is different for different people. Since the first time I touched a computer begin 80s when I was a kid (and before reading every article and book my father brought home) I wanted to 'create stuff' on it. I had the same with electronics but a computer seemed 'more efficient electronics' for creating; no soldering, buying parts, no expensive failures etc.

I have been programming since that time and it has not disappointed; I never get enough of it. I remember the first time that I wrote something in Basic (which was shortly after the above) and the amazement when it finally worked, then the same feeling with ASM, Pascal, C and later others. I still have that when I manage to get something I thought up in my head and see working after pulling an all-nighter. I am 42 so I believe that constitutes as a good longterm fullfilment level. Money is required but secondary; one should still drive a hard bargain of course (some people seem to not do that, especially when younger).

I also get fullfilment many other aspects of working with colleagues, partners, but the drive to create new things from 'nothing' with code is the main thread through all the years/companies. And keeps me absorbing new (for me) things all the time which is another fullfilment (learning/reading I find fullfilling); because of the current hypes I got back into NNs (last used in the AI winter when I was at uni) and also blockchain (dev), and combined (working on a trading bot in Tensorflow for fun).

It's reasonably fulfilling. I build stuff, which is always good. I build stuff that people see and use and hopefully need and like. I occasionally solve interesting problems. And today I delivered my first pure Web Component after years of Angular.

It's not perfect, of course. I'd love to build games instead of banking websites. Or robots that do all the work so people don't have to work anymore. But compared to what most people do, my work is pretty good.