(begin rant)
Hi. Do you ever have a feeling that you have technical skills to qualify as a programmer, and there's a demand for specialists, but, ironically, nobody needs them to design some useful information system or optimize the workflow in the factories, or do real science and push the limitations of human knowledge, but rather, all is just to spread some crappy advertising message as cheap as possible to the broadest audience as possible, usually without giving any respect to consumers, that feels like you're losing your brain cells when interacting with the app/content you create. Quality level zero, consumerism level over 9k. Tons of boilerplate because 'everything must be kept proprietary' and it probably won't work after 2 years because the framework you were using is down and the very idea of the becomes dated. Also, the more advanced technology, the more it's used for shit. Like, we have generative neural networks that are used for turdposting conspiracies and generating profit/influence for some party.
I would say this clearly: I am very, very angry when I'm seeing this. I don't want to participate in something that forces consumers to eat shit. Fuck SEO and e-commerce. Everything's generative-AI, GANs, LLMs.. now, which do not produce any value, at least to the user, or extracting every single bit of data of the user. Everything's just to bombard people with information nowadays. Even Project Managers get biased (mostly because of naïve hype) and promote this crap.
(end rant)
So, my question is, how do you go through all of it? Of course, devs are better paid, but I don't care about money. I'm still a student and, although I really like programming, and I'm really good at solving Competitive Programming problems (been at ICPC several times), I'm tired of this junk, besides I have a feeling I'll be forced to do it. But, if I'm going to do it, somebody's gonna get hurt. But it seems that it's the only thing I'm skilled at, and I have no alternatives. So, how do you get through all of it, and what do you see it as relief, what does reward you at the very end?
EDIT: uncensored all swear words at request. I hope now you're happy.
I’ll be honest, I do research companies and aim for ethical employers and all that, but
the job market is fucked, techies come a dime a dozen nowadays - anything you apply to the competition is fucking fierce so you can’t really afford to be picky
I care about how ethical my employer is, but not enough to be chocked in debt or live paycheck to paycheck without affording a single luxury in my life. I’m talking “eating out once per week” here, not yachts.