The impending end of the year always prompts reflection. What worked and what didn’t? What were the highlights? Is there room for more of that next year? Doing these exercises, I admit that I sometimes get haunted by the impermanence woven into the very fabric of the tech industry. Let me explain.
Impermanence is everywhere from day one. We build software projects, but priorities change, and they are abandoned. We gain knowledge that becomes obsolete. We build high-performing teams we love and then face the unpredictability of layoffs. This raises questions about the meaningfulness of our work. How much of our work is futile effort? And how do we reconcile with that possibility of futility?
If you’ve ever pondered these questions, let me offer some thoughts that aid me.
Firstly, it’s impossible not to think of Sisyphus, who, according to Greek mythology, spent his life rolling a boulder up a hill only to see it roll down when it reached the top. We are similar to Sisyphus; our precious boulders always roll back down. Albert Camus then comes to the rescue: “If the descent is sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. The word is not too much”. Towards the end of his famous book The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus argued that we must imagine Sisyphus happy because “striving towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart”.
In addition to Camus’ help, I’ve discovered another perspective that assists me. For context, throughout my life, I was a student of computer science departments in the USA, UK, and Argentina. Something I liked about Argentina that I can notice now: we shared many of our courses with astronomy, physics and mathematics majors. This interdisciplinary approach meant many of our professors were mathematicians researching the purest and most abstract domains where the impact may not be immediately apparent. The mark left by that type of research is hard to gauge unless you’re looking back (in some cases >100 years back). I think normalising this broader view of impact could benefit the tech industry. How do we get there is open to ideas.
There is also the tangential impact of our work, and by that, I mean everything that is not linked to the concrete output of the work. For example, did your project inspire someone to create something unique that is not necessarily related to your work? Did your leadership cause someone not to give up tech when they were on the verge of? Unfortunately, the challenge is that we rarely witness this kind of influence unless someone gives us the feedback to glance at it for a brief moment. One of the many reasons why feedback is a gift.
“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again”
A. Camus.
Ultimately, as we stare at the transient nature of the tech landscape, few things are guaranteed. We can count on the satisfaction of our discipline, the connection to others in our shared struggles, and the grounded hope that our work will impact beyond what we have visibility today. We can tap into that next year.
giselarossi.co.uk 
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