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My compensation is beyond what I ever imagined making 10 years ago. I work remotely, my job is not demanding, I have time during my day to do other things. Stress is also low.
I just feel like it's kind of a waste of my existence though. I can contribute to things, I can help society, etc - but I kind of feel like I have these golden handcuffs. Why leave when my situation is so good, despite doing basically nothing useful?
Recently listened to this podcast called "13 minutes to the moon". A really interesting dive in to the lives and efforts of the engineers that made the Apollo missions possible. They really did something with their engineering skills. Programmers were a huge part in the mission success.
I however, don't really feel like the mission I'm helping currently is meaningful. And it seems like most programming jobs are the same.
Not really sure what I'm asking. I guess a simple TLDR would be -
Are there any coding jobs with actual meaning out there? Is it possible to take those on without sacrificing my income to <200k?
I had a large interest in aerospace contracting. It just seems like the paycut will be >50%, and I will not be able to work remotely anymore.
/endrant
In my org of 100, the rough breakdown is like this:
70: IC under age of 40 25: Managers, mostly over 40 5: IC over 40 (all are principal)
I know people say that as you age, you move to management or principal. But the math doesn't check out.
In my scenario, if we broke it down like this - 30 openings for traditionally "over 40" roles - 70 people that will eventually be "over 40"
70 people - 30 openings = 40 people without jobs
Where do they go?