Ask HN: How could I align a Tech Career with my values and life goals?

5 points by _davebennett 5 years ago | 2 comments

I've been pretty underwhelmed and kinda unhappy with my career (and it's slipping into my personal life a bit) and looking for suggestions. I know it's still early (graduated 3 years ago) and been working as a Software Dev at standard B2B company.

After a couple of assessments and personal growth exercises I found out that my core values in life are:

- Curiosity

- Intimacy (cultivating one-to-one relationships, and allows others to confide in me)

- Connection (Being present with others, fully engaged. Like going to a concert or protesting with people)

- Adventure

- Contribution (helping others, making a positive difference to myself or others)

- Self-development

Another exercise was asking what problems I would work on if I had the opportunity and no limits. The most important problems (in my opinion) that I would work on if possible would be:

* Promoting Unions and Worker Rights

* Wealth Inequality

* Allowing equal access to voting

* Reducing the cost of college

* Promoting Equal access to Education

* Finding a Cure for Dementia/Alzheimers

* Lowering Violent Crime

* Allowing more ISP options

* Making VR more accessible

* Pushing for EV vehicles.

* Push for building modern infrastructure (bridges, mono-rails, etc).

And just some random things I would currently do in life if I didn't have the fear and all the money or the right ideas:

* Learn to Fly Planes

* Be a radio host/commentator

* Race car driving

* Battle Bot fighting

* Play more sports

* Start a business

So how do I find a career in Tech that will tackle some of the things I want above? Because I think one of my main issues at the moment is that what I do touches on none of that (or does so very little and not often enough).

themodelplumber 5 years ago |

Good on you for asking. I'm a coach and I see a lot of successful people with your interests doing "all of the above," rather than thinking of a career in singular terms, or attempting to define all of their interests with a single role in their career like they've got an identity paintbrush but only one color.

Quite often this means using one or two roles as a stable income base while working on the other things. A lot of consultants and business owners work this way.

Some things that stood out to me:

- You didn't mention wanting a high income anywhere, which means you may be able to work this out by identifying a minimum income level. If you can do this, IMO you get major bonus points for being able to be more measured, flexible, and open with your schedule, especially in values-oriented work.

- Values and interests point at strengths. One can sometimes change a job in place, creatively organizing options at work and negotiating with an employer to bring those strengths to bear. This could involve everything from pitching a new project that overlaps with VR interests to starting a podcast for employees where you work.

- You have some big-picture expressions like "push for" in there. In my experience you'll probably need to develop your own frameworks for logging and measuring your progress in these efforts. Otherwise it's too easy to lose traction fast, and maybe even feel like a failure when it could be more helpful to look at it as first moves or first experiments.

Hope that helps! Nice job here and good luck.

_davebennett 5 years ago | |

Thanks for the wisdom! It's encouraging to know that other people have the same thought process but are still able to achieve what they want. It also goes against the whole "one career your whole life" mantra that I hear a lot.