> Does "career development" just mean "more money"? If so, why not just say "there are opportunities to make more money"? If not, what is "career development" that is not just becoming more deeply buried in an organization with the various dysfunctions described in the rest of the post?

In life, everyone that thinks a lot is eventually confronted with the reality that we're all just minor players within much bigger systems. When you follow this thread, pretty deep questions start to fall out like "how can I be just in an unjust society?". Or "what's the best way that I, as an individual, can have a positive impact on my community?". Or "Is there any point in trying to change systems given my small role within them?".

To these types of questions there's various different responses and consequences. Some people dive in feet first and engage heavily with the mechanisms they have to enact change (such as local politics, grass roots political movements, activism etc). Some people, overwhelmed by the weight of the system, disengage entirely.

Now to answer your question, I believe in the work that we're doing (or else I probably wouldn't have joined). Career development at the company isn't just more money (though that's obviously a component), it's being given more responsibilities alongside the capacity to enact more and more change.

Faced with a dysfunctional organisation that you're a part of, what do you do? The options as I see it are roughly:

- Change companies, and acknowledge that the dysfunction is insurmountable.

- Do your job and stay at the position you're in.

- Embed deeper into the dysfunctional organisation, with the view that you can be an agent for positive change.

>Is it still satisfying if that software is bad, or harms many of those people?

To some people, yes. There are people out there that take satisfaction in doing harm. Not me, nor do I believe the work I do is harmful. I didn't think I had to be so granular as to say "It's satisfying to write software I believe is a net positive to society used by millions".

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I see what you're saying, although with the way the world is going, I'm increasingly doubtful of the potential of that approach, because it seems that companies are becoming more brazen about explicitly selecting for their narrow and immediate self-interest. In other words, the more you use your responsibility and influence to enact change, the more likely you'll just lose that responsibility and influence (i.e., get fired, demoted, or just shunted away to places where you can make less of a difference). However, that's not entirely the case everywhere yet, and it sounds like maybe you've found a place that's big but still not entirely evil, which sounds promising. :-)

In any case, I didn't mean to imply that what you're doing is any more objectionable than anything I or a zillion other people do when we make the same tradeoffs you allude to. What I was mostly reacting to was that you mentioned those things in the section on things you viewed positively, whereas they seem to me like they still incorporate a tradeoff involving a significant amount of badness. Perhaps though you simply meant they were tipped at least slightly toward the positive side on balance, which makes sense.

Sure, "It's satisfying to write software I believe is a net positive to society used by millions". But, if there was no increase in compensation, you would try to move up the corporate ladder?

I'm not trying to invalidate your post; I think your essay is great. I think it just does have enough cynicism. These $ENTERPRISE companies basically set up their employees some kinda game. There are certain rules (some written, some unwritten) for how you get a good performance review and how you get promoted. Just like there were dumb rules for you had to write code on a whiteboard to get the job despite the fact that you have never written algorithms ever, much less on a white board. So you have to balance how much you are doing something actually useful with jumping through whatever hoops that are downstream of whatever idea your VP has come up with this week. In the ideal case you move yourself to a part of the company that aligns with your values and interests so that the promotion comes easily, but sometimes it is easier to stay where you are and just grind through whatever absurdity it takes to stay employed.