My Recurring Existential Crisis as a Software Engineer

I find myself having an existential crisis at work about every six months.

What am I doing with my life?

Am I wasting my time?

Does what Im doing right now matter?

These questions have continually resurfaced for me over the last decade regardless of what company Im working for, what project Im working on, or what my job title is. And my answers to these questions have fluctuated from month to month and year to year.

What Ive found is that my motivations at work have changed over time. Im not sure if they are evolving toward a higher purpose or simply changing without an obvious end goal, but they are in fact changing.

Sometimes Im motivated by the work itself. Is the work technically challenging? Does it push me to learn and grow? Am I interested in the tools and programming languages that I get to work with? Am I solving complex problems? Sometimes just having work that you can get lost in is enough. Learning for the sake of learning can be fun.

Maybe its all just a distraction.

Other times Ive focused more on the companys mission. As a company, are we working toward a goal that contributes to the world in some meaningful way beyond making money for our shareholders? Do I believe in what the company is doing? Am I excited about the impact were having and the product were building?

Nietzsche once said, He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.

Most recently Ive become more interested in people. Do I have opportunities to impact other peoples lives in a positive way? This could be through management or leadership opportunities, or it could be a mentoring relationship, either formal or informal.

Or am I impacting our customers lives in a positive way? Maybe the companys mission or product isnt world-changing, but does it at least help make someones life better or their job easier in some small way?

Im undecided if any of these purposes are better than the others or if theyre simply different. Maybe they dont follow a natural progression and its normal to cycle through them.

Many people dont find meaning at work at all and instead find purpose in other pursuits in life. Thats ok too. Family, friends, hobbies, religion, sports, and volunteer work all give meaning to our lives.

Your job shouldnt define who you are. As software engineers though we should count ourselves lucky that were even in a position to consider our work meaningful.