Week Marks - Week of January 26, 2026

Tech Culture & Careers

Sean Goedecke’s I’m Addicted to Being Useful

• HN thread has good discussions to read through.

It’s hard for me to see a problem and not solve it. This is especially true if I’m the only person (or one of a very few people) who could solve it, or if somebody is asking for my help. I feel an almost physical discomfort about it, and a corresponding relief and satisfaction when I do go and solve the problem. The work of a software engineer - or at least my work as a staff software engineer - is perfectly tailored to this tendency. Every day people rely on me to solve a series of technical problems

But what actually does motivate software engineers is often more of an internal compulsion. If you’re in that category - as I suspect most of us are - then it’s worth figuring out how you can harness that compulsion most effectively.