A few years ago, I was offered a job in fintech, a company whose whole business model was basically to sit on a pile of money and make it bigger. The company had a good reputation among developers and used interesting tech. Plus, I knew someone who worked there, and he had nothing but good things to say about the experience. During the final interview with the hiring manager, however, I asked a question about how they made their money. It was intended to be a mechanical question, getting a better understanding of exactly how the business functioned, where I would stand, and how I'd be contributing to the core business model. He seemed to take it as a philosophical question, however, and an answer that made me think either he deeply drank the Kool-aid or was justifying it to himself. It made me stop and think about the business's impact on the world and if I wanted to be a part of it.

I ended up taking a job developing software for medical clinics instead, which paid around $30k less. It was the worst, most demoralizing job I've ever had, and I'm counting Wendy's. A year later, they cut 50% of their development staff, including me, and I was let loose into the 2023 developer job market (0/10 do not recommend). At the time I really, really wished I took the fintech job.

Just when I was starting to feel desperate and cornered, literally the same day I got offered a job working on some legacy .NET software for an airline, where the manager gave me really bad vides, and was feeling cornered like I didn't have room to say no, I got offered a job in public transit, working with interesting technology. I'm a contractor, making around $100k less than what the fintech job offered. People are frequently mad at our agency, and it gets a lot of bad press. In other words, they care. They rely on it to get where they need to go and live their day-to-day lives, and our mistakes are visible and painful. My first production issue (a dumb mistake where I failed to account for a null value) was discovered in 15 minutes due to rider complaints. It may sound weird, but I love that. Sure, they were mad about it, and not necessarily very nice, but the fact they were upset? It meant they gave a shit about what I was doing.

Am I happier than if I had just followed the money and taken the fintech job? I can't see down that path. But this is the first software development job I've had in my 15-year career where I'm confident my work is a net positive for the world.