Meaningful software: how to align purpose and technology

Finding talent who work with what they like and have a routine focused on a purpose that moves them is a rarity. But is it possible to offer positions that bring great rewards and at the same time are opportunities for engineers who want to create meaningful software?

If you are looking for software engineers or talent who are developing their careers in technology, you will definitely face this type of question. Usually, this moment comes just when you approach this software engineer or when he feels stuck where he works.

According to data from Page Personnel, 22% of talents ask for the bills when they receive a better job offer, another significant portion felt unmotivated or stagnant in their role.

If your recruiting team is looking for talent in technology, you must keep in mind that these professionals have a great diversity of opportunities in the job market. Therefore, this person is more attentive to what their company offers in order to identify if it is one of the best companies to work for.

After all, for them to create transformative software, these talents need to be 100% sure that your company makes sense for their work culture and their career moment. How to communicate this to your talents and get ahead in the battle for the best Employee Experience? Keep reading this post!

What is the difference between wasting time and working on purpose?

First of all, ask your talent the following question: “What do you want to do for life?” and “What is your objective when developing a project?”.

For the talent, it must be clear that if the answers come down to more money or even status, he will be wasting time and not working with purpose.
Not that he doesn’t deserve remuneration according to the knowledge or experience he has. But for him to find a purpose, it is necessary to sustain arguments that go far beyond that. Here are some points for reflection that will lead you to the meaningful software:

We are what we admire, which is why we must avoid contradicting ourselves: if we are talking about creating meaningful software, professionals must have enough motivation to make this happen in their daily lives. Starting by eliminating what doesn’t make sense to the values and principles is a great strategy. Moving away from jobs that have nothing to do with what he thinks is a good way to go.

Focus on what inspires others: Forbes cites a very simple technique of listing a few people who matter to you and asking what the main value we convey to them is. This helps us understand the best way to serve others.

Discover the activities we feel most motivated: when we volunteer for a project or perform a task that gives us a feeling of fulfillment, this positive energy spills over into our workday. We should start noticing what these moments are and trying to understand how to find more opportunities like this in our work.

Going beyond formal work: in the journey of self-discovery, we can also discover that it is okay to have a life outside of work. From volunteering to moving to another country, we have many paths that can lead us to understand where we want to go. Engage with communities and people we want to help, create something new just for the sake of creating or start learning something we never imagined. Remember: work is not the center of our lives.

To understand if your talent will work with purpose to create meaningful software, the key will always be to ask them:

– ‘Who are you?’
– ‘What do you do well?’
– ‘What are your values?
– ‘If money and time were no problem, what would you do?’

What is meaningful software (and purpose-engineered)?

Given so many projects that have already been developed, what are meaningful software and purpose-built engineering project?

Mark Snyder has a definition worth quoting: he says that meaningful software is software that delivers benefits to both the creator and the consumer. In other words, it is the intersection between the objective and the goal of the company or entity responsible for devising it and putting it on the air and the value generated for its end-user.

In short, we can say that meaningful software is software that has a clear purpose to exist, inserted in a win-win relationship in which everyone leaves happy.

Happiness, incidentally, is not something that subjective.

A University of Georgia study shows that there is a strong correlation between purpose and happiness, including that it is one of the key factors in overcoming substance abuse, recovering from tragedy or loss, and seeking economic success. Another study (from the John Hopkins Hospital) proved that people who have a purpose in life live longer.

Airbnb’s Latam Talent Lead, Milena Brentan, explains that people who understand where they are and why they are in a certain place can make better choices. “The motivation comes from within and it’s personal. The impact of a motivated person is immeasurable and unlimited”, she explains.

In the workplace, she points out that the awareness of a company’s purpose is directly related to its reputation and its financial results, much more than just the profit goal. Thus, when our purpose goes beyond the goal of achieving only financial results, the chance of being successful increases considerably.

Shawn Achor, author of The Harvard Way to Be Happy, explains that happiness is the experience of positive emotions – pleasure combined with a deeper sense of meaning and purpose. “Happiness implies a positive mood in the present and a positive outlook for the future,” he described.

Martin Seligman, the pioneer of positive psychology, breaks down happiness into three measurable components: pleasure, involvement, and a sense of purpose. These same studies confirm that those who seek only pleasure experience partial benefits of happiness, while people who seek all three walk live more fully.

They say that ‘people who live purpose-driven lives much more enjoy the joy of giving to others. That is, sometimes purpose-making can involve putting someone else’s needs ahead of your own (which could, at first, contradict such a ‘search for happiness).

So if you’re looking for talent that’s going to develop meaningful software, you first need to find out how your candidate/talent uses technology as a means to achieve a purpose. A practical example from Itamar Turning citing technology focused on helping to reduce climate change, building alternative energy systems, working on public transport planning, and, more broadly, just making computing more efficient.

How to identify meaningful software

Meaningful software is sustainable for a large proportion of the people who will be using it while meeting the goals of those who are creating it.

Meaningful software is more cost-effective because it does not create unnecessary costs for its creator and waste of time, opportunity, or financial cost.

The software that transforms is capable of overcoming vanities or passions and being refactored if need be.
Meaningful software is holistic, that is, meeting stakeholder objectives, and equates target user needs, construction cost, validation techniques, and promotion methods with the mechanics of how the software works.

How to Offer Meaningful Job in Technology

Creating paths for software that transforms is not easy. After all, how do you offer positions that have a purpose for your talents?

To find professionals looking for meaningful software as a life objective, it is necessary to be inserted in the development communities and aligned with their aspirations.

In short, your company needs to provide a culturally comfortable environment, and your leadership needs to inspire confidence. The way the company and the people who work for it communicate must be transparent and clear. Furthermore:

• The company can offer inclusion and diversity incentive programs
• Stimulate your team’s creativity through a collaborative and safe environment
• Does your company offer exciting professional perspectives and challenges for your developers? Is there room for everyone to grow
• Do your benefits, promotions, recognition, and pay match what the recruiters say?

How Ubiminds can help you find purpose-led tech talents worth your daily effort

Ubiminds is an enabler that connects nearshore software engineers and high-performance distributed teams. By bringing together software engineers and innovative companies across the United States, Ubi helps these talents find unique opportunities, going the extra mile to ensure a complete experience for the employer and software engineer who will be part of a distributed team. Everything is covered by Ubiminds.

See what software engineers say about Ubi:

“I have the privilege of working with a team where people come first. I feel welcomed and can share my professional and academic experiences and also learn a lot from my colleagues. Even 100% remotely, the team is present: working with a team and leaders who support me and value my work, motivates me to be a better professional every day. I am grateful to work in a psychologically safe environment where ideas are shared and everyone respected.” – Thais Lopes, Tech Recruiter
“Working at Ubiminds has been fundamental for my career growth and professional development. Being part of a global team is an incredible challenge! This takes me out of my comfort zone on a daily basis and motivates me to always do my best.” – Erika Medeiros, Data Scientist

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Scheila Farias Silveira

International Marketing Leader, specialized in tech. Proud to have built marketing and business generation structures for some of the fastest-growing SaaS companies on both sides of the Atlantic (UK, DACH, Iberia, LatAm, and NorthAm). Big fan of motherhood, world music, marketing, and backpacking. A little bit nerdy too!