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How do you stay grounded when writing software no one wants?

12 points by sweetgiorni ↗ HN
My current employer creates software that helps large communications companies comply with government regulations. While we technically have "users", we almost never think about them - not because we don't care, but because they simply aren't relevant to our bottom line. If we make something that's clunky and hard to use, it doesn't really matter. As long as we get it done on time and at a lower price than our competitors, we're golden. It may be an oversimplification to say that no one wants our software, but I can guarantee you that if a handful of laws were repealed tomorrow, we wouldn't have a single client. They may need what we make, but they certainly don't want it.

I find myself writing open-source software just to feel the rush of making something cool that people actually find useful. Few things feel better than making software people like. The obvious solution here is to find a new job, but for now, this is where I'm at. I assume I'm not the only one in this situation.

All you user-centered engineers out there: what do you do to keep yourself grounded when writing software that nobody really wants?

20 comments

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bunfunton
Find a new job that makes you satisfied and quit.
tsjq
Think of the paycheck
clusmore
It's a rough feeling for sure, I feel for you. I went through a similar phase for a couple of years adding features that weren't really necessary to software that ran in the background at a handful of customers that already did more or less everything it needed to. How big is the engineering department at your company? Can you try to focus more of your efforts on tooling or building out useful libraries for the other devs? In some sense this is even less impactful than the actual software, because your actual customers will care even less about this than new features, but at least you'd have the other devs as your users who might actually appreciate your work. It could be things like improving the build/deploy pipeline, any monitoring systems, developer documentation, writing libraries/frameworks that simplify common internal patterns, etc.
afarrell
Ooof. It can be a _real_ rough situation. Combined with a few other things, a year of it led me into a several-month stretch of suicidal ideation this past summer.

Things that helped me:

1. Books on stoicism and spirituality. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck was helpful to me in learning to be more "in the world but not of the world" -- maintaining a sense of my own values even if it was significantly harder to practice them in my current social context. Find a writer whose style resonates with you.

2. Find 1-3 other user-centered engineers and set up a regular Friday end-of-day chat over tea/beer/whatever so you do not feel so isolated and alienated and so you can support each other.

3. Build tooling to improve the developer experience of your fellow engineers.

4. Read about the legislative history for the laws. Write yourself some user stories for the underlying spirit of the laws.

If your company has a way you can do it without it being a betrayal of your PM, build relationships with people who work in Risk & Compliance and build trust with them so you can listen to their stressors.

sweetgiorni
Hmm, interesting. I can't say spirituality has ever really been my thing, but I suppose that's a good enough reason to read up on it. I'll look into it, thanks.

Regarding #3: That's actually something that has been consistently satisfying. Seeing how my work impacts my coworkers and improves their workflows usually gives me a pretty good hit. Besides, it's low hanging fruit. There's plenty to improve since some of the senior engineers have, uhh... checked out?

Yaa101
Write software that you need yourself.
runawaybottle
When you’re really young and new the front of ‘not giving a shit’ is cool. As you get older, you have to turn that front to reality if you want to be resilient. You must take on the new front of ‘caring’, and deep down inside not give a shit.

Inverse yourself.

sweetgiorni
I'm still working on the whole not caring thing
jimmyvalmer
More than 98% of code written at this hour will be retired or rewritten beyond recognition in five years. Don't sweat it.
tacostakohashi
The book "On Bullshit Jobs" covers your situation in some detail, including the phenomenon of working on open source for free just for something interesting.

You may enjoy reading it, just for a clear understanding of the situation.

sweetgiorni
Funny you bring that up, I read that a couple years ago. Although I did identify with its subject matter more than I'd care to admit, my situation definitely seems to be on the less extreme end of the examples presented. Unless I've deluded myself into thinking my work serves any purpose at all... :)
tra3
I mean no offence by this, but nobody wants to be a janitor or a garbageman (woman?) when they grow up. I hate washing dishes. It's just something that needs to be done and you are adding value to the world by ensuring that faceless corporations adhere to the rules they are bound by.

Not every job is fulfilling but a lot of them have to be done.

afarrell
> Nobody wants to be a janitor

Speak for yourself. I applied to be one at my high school.

askafriend
I would leave and work on things people want and that I'm personally interested in. It's the only thing that's help (as you've pointed out yourself)

I simply can not and would not put up with a situation like the one you describe.

mbrodersen
Recognise that the only software people actually want to use is entertainment/creative software (games, social media etc.) All other software just solves problems and/or makes it cheaper to get work done.
sweetgiorni
I guess it depends on how you look at it. In your first case, I think "enjoy" may be a better word. I enjoy playing The Sims in my underwear, but I want to use, say, Wireshark. Do I enjoy using Wireshark? Yes, because I'm a freak. Still, I think most people would say no. In my field, Wireshark isn't a tool you bust out when everything is working perfectly. Does that mean I don't want it? That I don't like it? That I wouldn't be more than willing to pay for it, were it a commercial product? Of course not! It's more nuanced than that.
fiftyacorn
Its not being able to see the wood for the trees issue with a lot of development. you are largely removed from the users of the software so its hard to see the benefits of the software you produce
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m_j_g
If you want to keep this job, but looking for some motivation: Maybe try to focus on developing good (expert level) craftmanship?

If overall quality of project is poor, it maybe even be possible to find some narrow aspect which is possible to polish. Expertise gained that way may be used later, when you finally start working on something meaningful in the future.