As a software engineer who lives in the Bay Area and works at an enterprise software company, I often feel embarrassed and sometimes even downright ashamed to be doing what I do. Even as early as college I would lie or downplay my computer science major because of the stigma that seemed to come with it, though at the time I wasn’t quite sure where that stigma came from. When I entered the working world, I continued to downplay it, sometimes referring to myself as “just another software engineer.”

I always wanted to be a programmer regardless of the money or cool factor, but as I’ve grown older I’ve become increasingly aware of why people harbor resentment toward the tech industry for the valid issues associated with it, like gentrification and income disparity.

Thanks to my job, I live without much struggle. I get free food (at least, I did when I worked in an office pre-pandemic). I have good health insurance. I don’t really have to worry about money. I am aware of the privilege I am afforded because of something as arbitrary as my job title. And often, I feel shitty about it. Do I actually contribute more to society than a public school teacher who works just as hard, if not more so? No. It doesn’t feel fair.

But I also realize feeling shitty doesn’t do anything to help. Instead, I’ve learned to turn guilt into gratitude, and my gratitude soon guided me to finding concrete ways I can use my privilege to be part of helping others in my community.

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I believe many people in the tech industry in the Bay Area have felt similarly to how I did in the past — guilty and frozen, not sure how to help the huge issues that plague our community. But I now realize that’s a lazy way of thinking, and if we all worked to use our privilege to give back, the Bay Area would benefit greatly.

I identified four main aspects of my privilege, which software engineers often have — money, power, mental space, and opportunity — and how I can be of service to others in each of those areas.

Decide how to donate money

Let’s be upfront, most software engineers make a lot of money. Of course, I can (and do) donate part of my income to causes I care about. It is often hard to decide where my contributions should go, and I try to think about the long-term impact, effectiveness, and timing.

1. Long-term impact

I believe people’s disillusionment with the political process can cause more harm than many policies themselves. Rather than trying to get small wins in the short term, I think about how I can help solve that disillusionment and get more people actively participating in democracy. This often ends up with me deciding to donate to political and legal causes that push forward a government system that people can have more faith in, even if their policies might not align with me in the short term.

2. Effectiveness

I often refer to websites like charitynavigator.org to help me determine how much of the donation goes to the specific cause rather than the organization’s logistics and marketing spend. I don’t use this number as a deciding factor, but rather a data point to add to my decision.

3. Timing

Cultural awareness plays a big part in effectiveness as well. Something that might not be as effective one month, might very well be the most effective cause the next. The Black Lives Matter movement is a good example of this. With all the attention currently on this issue, organizations have a lot more weight behind their voice (and your donations) to influence cultural direction and policy decisions.

Hold your employer to a high standard

Software engineers can have a lot of influence on the values of a company.

As a prospective employee, instead of only asking questions like “Who caters the lunch?” I ask questions like, “What plans do you have in place to promote diversity?” or “Do you have a policy on refusing customers that represent inhumane values?” or maybe even, “How does your product and business plan improve humanity rather than divide it?” Imagine how our industry would shift if these were questions we all asked.

How can I encourage my company to invest in good people from less prominent schools that add to the diversity of culture and thought?

If you’re a seasoned engineer, you have even more power to stir the pot and fight for those who aren’t as secure in their careers. Push for diversity in how your company hires and promotes. Advocate for the non-software engineer employees as well to help ensure that they’re heard and treated well. Encourage discussion of hard topics. Make it clear that not doing these things impacts the company’s ability to hire and retain you, and others like you.

These kinds of actions are already pushing the industry forward. If your company has any sort of diversity recruiting efforts, it’s probably in large part due to the fact that almost every other company is doing something around it, and they would have trouble recruiting past a certain stage if they didn’t. No one wants to work at a company that makes them feel like they’re a bad person for working there, and corporations are sensitive to that. It’s up to us as employees to make them understand exactly what that means to us, and to show them that there are business consequences if they aren’t paying close enough attention.

Do the emotional labor

Many people are preoccupied with ensuring they can simply provide for themselves and their family, and don’t have the time or mental energy to participate in political activism. My job gives me enough money to not worry about my next paycheck, and enough mental space to spend my energy thinking about how I can be involved in change. My job security frees up mental space that I can use to invest in emotional labor.

Discussing political issues with my friends and family is a small part that I can play in addressing a larger problem. I like talking to people, and I feel I have a lot of patience and empathy to be able to have those hard conversations with people who have very opposing views to mine.

This also means having time to dig deep and better understand the issues, by reading, researching, and listening.

Break down the gates that keep people out

I’ve often shit on tech companies for being homogenous but compared to other lucrative industries, I’ve come to realize that software engineering has the most potential to be welcoming to people of various backgrounds. Not all software engineers get computer science degrees, or even graduate from college at all. There are more resources and alternative pathways to help someone break into this industry than most others. Employers are also often willing to look past certain things, like the lack of a computer science degree, if you can prove that you can give them results.

How can I encourage my company to invest in people from less prominent schools that add to the diversity of culture and thought? What kinds of programs could I support to help smart people from atypical backgrounds get their foot in the door?

The conclusion I’ve come to is that, yes, I am privileged as a techie, but that doesn’t make me a bad person — as long as I recognize that privilege and use it to help and empower the people in the world who don’t have that.

What’s your story? What are you grateful for? What are you passionate about? What are you good at? How can you use your skills and interests to be a part of the solution?

Who knows, if you impact even one person’s life, maybe they’ll turn around and impact a few other people’s lives too, and so on and so forth until you’ve transitively cured cancer or something. It’s okay to play a small part in something big.

We have the opportunity to do something with our privilege, whether it’s big or small (although the bigger the better) and with more of us fighting together, I hope that one day we can feel proud rather than ashamed of our industry.