Changing Careers

Every Sunday, my entire day is consumed with dread.

The dread of knowing that I am about to go back to work as a data engineer - serving nothing of any value.

I make data timely, craft intricate data quality platforms, and design systems. The work is clean, the outcome is empty.

It is existentially and spiritually hollow.

At the micro level, I can treat my work with a radical direction towards justice. Putting in extreme care for quality, long-term judgement, and maintainability.

Sometimes, this is rewarding.

But at the macro level, I pour my soul into working with justice for what? To make data timely available for some reporting?

I am considering leaving the corporate sector and becoming a teacher.

The incentive structures of working as a software developer are inherently extractive.

Corporations are bound to hire someone who can deliver the most value (read: the most skilled individual) for the least amount of pay possible.

In turn, as a worker I am incentivized to put in the least amount of work possible for the most pay I can get.

This cyclical extraction disturbs me.

Likewise, I am disgusted with patterns in the use of language at different corporations I've worked with. I recently left this feedback on an anonymous feedback form that asked for feedback on meetings with higher-level executives:

Right now, there is a lot of uncertainty and fear regarding workers and job security. This is across all industries, but especially SaaS companies. For example, there was a concern raised at the recent executive chat where the question was something along the lines of “how do you expect AI to impact our jobs?”. This was raised with personification – details about mortgages, families, etc.

Something that incredibly helps me as a worker to maintain sustained engagement, interest, and hope is radical honesty from COMPANY_NAME leaders.

Whenever Jessica speaks at events, I feel the weight of fear about job security mostly soften. You can tell that she speaks with true honesty, empathy, and compassion. She will say difficult truths from a commitment towards clarity. To put it plainly, I feel that I can trust her because her thoughts and actions are aligned.

There have been times where other leaders are asked a difficult question, and their response feels synthetically constructed. It feels like they are constructing an acceptable response rather than dutifully engaging with the question itself.

At times, this can make it difficult to understand if I should trust what I am hearing. And other times, it raises more questions.

For example, when someone asked the differentiation between a “hard” and “easy” grader (for performance reviews), the answer felt forcefully constructed as “everyone should be a hard grader.”

At the surface level, this makes sense. The premise is strong: if we hold ourselves to strong standards, then we can create a culture of excellence. But the phrasing left me uneasy. It made me wonder: is this truly about excellence, or are we being primed for stack ranking?

I understand that our leaders are people too – no one is perfect. I also understand that the expectations and responsibility is massive. I can only imagine the stress.

But one of the most effective ways to build a high-performance culture is one rooted in honesty and trust. To consistently feel unfiltered honesty in our leaders inspires trust, one where the only reasonable response is “all shall be well, and we can build the future.”

One way of doing this is to avoid language that widens the moral distance between actions and effects. Vague phrases like “easy and hard graders” are the genesis of fear and insecurity. Likewise, hearing the term “labor arbitrage” be used rather than something like “opening off-shore offices in the Philippines” raises doubt on intellectual and moral honesty.

I am not trying to be harsh; this comes from a place of wanting to build a platform and workforce of the future. I hope this was valuable insight.

I meant every word of that feedback. But I know how it will be received: intellectualized, abstracted, sanitized. Their moral distance will remain intact.

In my experience, raising concerns on the use of language is met with something along the lines of, "But he didn't mean that."

If you did not mean what you said, why did you speak? What else do we have language for?

Language is not decoration. It is moral architecture.

My will to continue on this morally-dead path is weak.

I think the feedback anyone would give me would be something like, "Marcus, have you considered switching to a new job or a new industry?"

The problem I see is systemic and structural, not specific. I see the structures of cyclical extraction, morally bankrupt leadership, and worker precarity as a feature, not a bug, of our society.

As a teacher, I would take a $60k+ paycut. And yes, I would still be routinely extracted from.

I know that there is no path forward without extraction.

But if I am going to bleed, let me bleed for something worth dying for.

Let my essence be cracked and flayed alive for people who need to be witnessed.

Let me offer grace, not efficiency.

Let me serve humanity, not abstract systems.

Let me die alive.