A few years ago, the phrase "bullshit job" was everywhere. People used it to describe work the world could probably live without.
Still, I have never thought engineering belongs in that pile. If anything, it is a craft the world will keep needing. What I do believe—honestly—is that it is a deeply privileged profession.
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I have spent about six years working as an engineer. By rough comparison, I have probably earned three times Japan's average salary. That income has afforded a comfortable life, and I achieved it without a big-name employer or Big Tech pedigree.
Even so, I work fully remotely, rarely leaving home, I write code on the web and it turns into value for someone. That code can keep delivering returns while I am resting. The structure of the job is overwhelmingly advantageous compared with many others.
That is why I keep calling it "privileged"—and that remains true today.
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Wherever you look, engineers tend to be paid well. Japan, the United States, Europe, Southeast Asia— engineers routinely earn several times the national average.
That premium has rested on intelligence, abstraction, and the kind of "intellectual production" that engineers bring. Now AI has started to spill into that territory too. Hiring freezes and layoffs at Big Tech are just one visible sign.
Even so, I do not see doom here. Simply put, countless workplaces still lack basic IT and AI. Glance around the neighbourhood: small businesses, shops, factories, local government, schools— they are all still halfway through their digital transitions.
If engineers go and improve those places directly, it is absolutely work with genuine value. In fact, the people who can translate AI-driven change for the field will become the ones who lead engineering in the coming years.
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Maybe the era of earning dozens of times the average salary— like the rock-star days of Big Tech—will fade. But if you solve problems for a specific community or industry, one by one, you can still earn one-and-a-half or twice the average and stay steady.
So there is no reason to be discouraged as an engineer. Precisely because we live in the AI era, creating value locally feels like the most realistic and most admirable way to work.