What to do apart from tech?
SWE here. Sometime it’s difficult to motivate myself to work. How do people motivate themselves on delivering some XY services which would bring revenue or solve some issues! I mean why should I care? Even If it solves anything, I mean why should I as an individual care about it! I meet managers who are super excited (or they make me feel?) about a project! And it solved some user problems! How do I motivate myself? And maybe work few more years in this? If not tech then what? Which can pay me this much! Is this what people call mid life crisis? Yoe: 7 years Tc: 80lpa
Let’s face the music, most of tech isn’t that exciting anymore. Sure there’s a few cutting edge areas but 90% of tech jobs are quite mundane with many being boring, uninspiring KTLO jobs. With higher interest rates and most of the infrastructure already built most tech companies aren’t doing a ton of noteworthy things anymore. Which means our jobs are pretty boring. They still pay decent but they aren’t fun like there were in the 2010s. Even many managers prolly know this, but the reason they sell you on their “let’s build innovative shit” narrative is cus they want you motivated to build them the service that they will get credit for. Remember there’s a reason why they left engineering and became a manager in the first place. As far as what else to do in life, develop hobbies, tech can’t be an end all be all thing like maybe we feel in college. The reality is it’s just a job (and boring at times too). I hike, make home brewed beer, travel when I can, workout 3 days a week, and ski in the winter, plus I’m learning French. These things make life fun and interesting to compensate for the fact that my job is just a job.
Usually, an individual will not care about anything that doesn't bring them immediate gains. If the company were to reward you directly for starting XY services that bring revenue, you'd feel very motivated by it. But they don't. So you don't need to care. That said, a strong exception to this is, if you work in an area that you are passionate about - aka - you care about the users personally. This kind of intrinsic motivation is very hard to find. E.g. of this could be a person who likes devops tools so much that they find genuine pleasure in making it better. It's an art form for them at that point.