Why software engineers are grieving – Jim Grey on software management
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Why software engineers are grieving
Joel came to work for us with his eyes wide open — or so he thought.
He told me more than once why he chose us over other offers. We were a B2B SaaS company that helped healthcare technology companies bring safer products to market faster. That mission mattered to him and was a genuine reason to get out of bed in the morning. He was a strong Staff-level engineer who could have worked almost anywhere. He chose us because he got to solve difficult problems, build things that hadn’t existed before, and do it all in service of something that felt larger than quarterly revenue targets.
"You mean I get to do stuff I like in service of a greater good I care about?" he told me once. "Sign me up."
I understood exactly what he meant.
If you’re an engineer who has spent the last few years feeling disoriented, grieving without being sure what exactly you lost, or wondering why work that once felt meaningful now feels like an unrewarding grind, I think Joel’s story may feel familiar.
Something changed. The disappointment many engineers feel is real. What I’m not sure we’ve done a good job of explaining is why it happened.
Looking back, I think the software industry spent 20 years offering engineers two unusually powerful reasons to love their work. The first was mission: the belief that our efforts were contributing to something worthwhile. The second was craft: the deep satisfaction that comes from solving difficult problems and building useful things. What many engineers are experiencing now is the realization that both of those pillars are less permanent than they appeared.
For most of the last 20 years, the software industry sold more than jobs. It sold a story.
The story was true, more or less, which is why it was so effective. You weren’t merely writing software. You were improving patient outcomes, transforming education, empowering creators, helping small businesses succeed, or connecting people around the world. The products usually did help real people solve real problems, and the missions frequently reflected something genuine about the value the company created.
Over time, however, the story expanded beyond the work itself. Increasingly, the mission wasn’t simply part of the job. It became the reason for the job. Companies encouraged employees to find purpose, identity, growth, community, and meaning through their work. Do work that matters. Join the mission. Change the world. Bring your whole self to work. The language varied, but the underlying messages were remarkably consistent.
Work wasn’t merely where you earned a living. Work became where you found purpose.
That story landed particularly well with software engineers. We enjoy difficult challenges. We like building things that hadn’t existed before. We take pride in mastering complicated systems. Many of us grew up reading stories built around quests, competence, sacrifice, and transformation. The industry didn’t invent the hero’s journey, but it certainly offered us a place inside one.
Part of the reason these stories became so powerful was economic. During the long years of cheap capital and rapid growth, software engineers were scarce. Companies competed fiercely for talent, and compensation alone wasn’t enough to stand out. A company that said, "We make healthcare compliance software" had a harder time recruiting than a company that said, "Help us improve the quality of life for patients worldwide."
Most companies weren’t inventing these stories from whole cloth. The products were useful, the customers were real, and the missions generally reflected something true. But when every company is competing for the same limited pool of engineers, the incentives naturally push the story in a particular direction. Over time, the language becomes more ambitious, more aspirational, and more emotionally resonant.
For many people, it genuinely worked. They found fulfillment in the combination of challenge, compensation, craft, and purpose. Some of the best years of my own career fit that description.
Then the conditions that supported that story began to change. Interest rates rose and investment dropped off a cliff. Hiring freezes followed, and then layoffs. The talent shortage that had shaped so much of the industry’s behavior eased rapidly and dramatically. Engineers who had once been extraordinarily difficult to hire became much easier to find.
The same engineers were doing the same work, but the labor market around them had become very different.
The values and aspirational mission statements remained. But the conditions that had helped elevate the story lost much of their force. The business realities that had always existed pushed back into the foreground. Companies focused on profitability. Efficiency mattered more. Headcount became easier to scrutinize.
The story wasn’t suddenly false. It simply...