If this resonates with you, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Tracy Kidder's 1981 novel The Soul of a New Machine. You'll be hooked by the end of the introduction.

Help is the sunny side of control.

I can very much relate to the OP in this. I enjoy writing code, figuring out problems, finding solutions and in general helping other people with things that require some kind of software to be created or updated. And until year or two ago I thought I'd be able to continue to do what I love while getting paid decent money for it. With the advent of vibe coding and AI I'm starting to feel less sure in the future.

I have something similar to this need to be useful but perhaps a different twist that is causing me problems. It's not so much a sense that I want to be useful but a feeling that I HAVE to be or bad things will happen. Lately it's a constantly running internal narrative that everyone around me is useless. Which breeds an anxiety that if I don't do everything then something important will slip through the cracks. That yields a sense of dispair and eventually anger because of this constant weight that I expect I'll have to carry indefinitely.

I've been in therapy off and on through the years and I think this stems from a childhood with neglectful parents. I need to start seeing someone again. Thanks for the reminder!

The problem of doing this now is that no company will care, they will be happy that you are doing more for less, so no salary increase, no job tittle change.

I used to love my job (DevOps, Platform, DevSecOps Engineer) but I learned the hard way to disappear after 4:59PM and never get online before 8:59

Also, no more e-mail, teams, slack, etc, on my personal phone. While working be in the office or WFH, I do my best but outside that, you won't find me.

I am addicted to being useful culture died in early 2000s.... I am seeing projects where the goal is to have AI Teams managing AI Teams without human intervention, so enjoy your life and take workplace less seriously, we are gonna be replaced and you will regret spending more time working than living!!

The working dog analogy really resonated. I've noticed this same trait in teachers, nurses, even parents; that intrinsic satisfaction from being needed. The tricky part is knowing when it tips from fulfilling to self-depleting.

This resonated a lot with me. I am also addicted to being useful and find that off days where my output and usefulness isn't where I'd like it to be really tank my self esteem.

I do think it can be a double-edged sword that often leads to burnout. Respecting your limits and occasional therapy seem to help, as does ensuring you're in as stable and supportive environment as possible so your efforts are sustainable and "heroics" don't get normalized in your org. I wish I had a full solution but have yet to find one in my career that works :)

Anyone who finds this relatable (like me) might benefit from learning more about the last couple of decades of research on emotional regulation, trauma, and the nervous system. I have a great “trauma informed” therapist and over time this tendency of mine feels much less compulsive and more like a choice I can make because I know I’m good at something. At least for me having a calmer internal life has made it way easier to pick my battles and it usually means I end up feeding my desire to be useful on more satisfying and impactful things than I would have chased in more obsessive times in my life.

I can relate to this and in my journey, I was able to maintain feeding my need to be useful to the world around me and do well money-wise. The latter was my desire to be there for my family so they can focus on their health.

The best part about HackerNews, is that you get a very good sense of the envious and jealous nature of people. A lot of the "hate" or "angry" comments, are basically people who hate their relationship with "work".

To the author, I think you'll continue that process of being useful, but you'll see that in this new world, you're usefulness now scales..

This reminds me of the "three tribes of programming: mathematical poetry, machine hackery, and business value". I think each SWE gets similar but different feelings of satisfaction. I knew a coworker who cared about the result, and little about the code he wrote. This was foreign to me when I saw it, as I was and still am definitely in the love for "math poetry" camp when it's possible.

https://josephg.com/blog/3-tribes/