Searching for Purpose as a Work-From-Home Engineer

One thing I noticed during the pandemic was how different work feels when you can clearly see who it helps.

Building online forms that helped people during that time gave me a stronger sense of purpose than I’d felt in a long time.

Work That Felt Meaningful

During the pandemic, I had the opportunity to develop online forms to assist people in need. 

For the first time in a long while, the connection between the work and the people it was helping felt immediate and visible. The forms were practical, simple things—but they helped people access support during a difficult time.

That changed how the work felt. It stopped being abstract tickets, systems, and projects, and became something more human.

What Changed After the Pandemic

Although the pandemic has ended, I'm still working from home as a software engineer. While I'm grateful for the work I do, I'm currently exploring ways to find a greater sense of purpose and fulfillment in my work and personal life. My family is my main focus in life, and while I enjoy my hobbies, I've been wondering what my overall purpose is.

After some reflection, I've realized that finding purpose is a journey that requires patience, introspection, and a willingness to take action. Here are some tips that have helped me find meaning and fulfillment in my work and personal life.

What Actually Matters to Me

Reflect on Your Values

For me, family is my top priority. I want to make sure that I'm spending quality time with my loved ones and supporting them in any way I can. What values are most important to you? Take some time to reflect on what matters most to you, and use those values as a compass to guide your decisions and actions.

Set Goals That Align With Your Values

Once you've identified your values, set goals that align with them. For me, this means finding ways to spend more time with my family and being present for the moments that matter. Maybe for you, it's about making a positive impact on the world or pursuing a creative passion. When your goals align with your values, you'll feel more purposeful and fulfilled.

Find Meaning in Your Work

Even if your job is not your primary focus in life, you can still find meaning and purpose in your work. For me, developing online forms that helped people during the pandemic was incredibly rewarding. Now, I try to focus on the positive impact my work is having, even if it's smaller. It's important to recognize the value of your contributions, no matter how big or small.

Pursue Your Hobbies

Hobbies are a great way to find fulfillment outside of work. For me, woodworking and working on cars are my go-to activities. Pursuing hobbies can also provide a sense of accomplishment and purpose, as you learn new skills and create something with your own hands.

Embrace Your Role as a Parent

Finally, as a parent, I know how important my role is in shaping the lives of my children. Being a loving and supportive parent is one of the most purposeful things I can do. Embrace the joys and challenges of parenthood, and let your love for your children inspire you to be the best version of yourself.

Trying to Find Balance

I don’t think purpose is something you suddenly discover once and keep forever.

It changes over time, and often comes from smaller things than we expect—family, useful work, building things, helping people, or simply feeling connected to what we do.

I’m probably still figuring it out.

A lot of this also connects to my thoughts on working from home and how it changes the balance between work and life.

It also links closely to my post on visual thinking and understanding how different people experience work and learning differently.

Technology feels very different when it genuinely helps people.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how systems, services, and digital tools can be made simpler and more useful for the people using them.

You can take a look at my TechFix service if that resonates.

Why It Felt So Good to Be Hands-On Again

Looking back now, I think this was the point where I rediscovered how important meaningful hands-on work was to me. For years I had gradually drifted further away from engineering and closer towards meetings, management, process, and office politics. This role felt like reconnecting with the part of work I actually enjoyed.

So I get to be hands-on again.

Drifting Away From Engineering

I spent years in my last job working my way up the ranks from junior software engineer to engineer, senior, lead, and then principal. I picked up a growing team peaking at about 10 folks. It became inversely proportional to the number of hands-on meaningful work I actually did. It was more about meetings, plans, and justifying what you needed to do.

I have always thought when a company employs you as an engineer they want you for your brilliant engineering skills, Then you do a good job and they promote you... you then do less engineering, and they want you to deal with Faff (office politics, office politics, failings of others). You are not trained in Faff and you are not good at it but you manage. So they promote you again and you do even less engineering and have to deal with more Faff (runny noses, timesheets, holiday forms). Before you know it you are promoted again and you find yourself as an engineering manager (a job you are not trained for) and you no longer do any engineering whatsoever. So you are now doing a job you are not very good at and don't do any work that you are good at...

Getting Back to Meaningful Work

Now I am at ACC I'm back in the role where I am employed for something I am good at, I have no Faff to deal with, I get to do hands-on, meaningful work and I'm loving it.

I am in a small team involved with updating and creating a new website. My role is to create processes in the website's customer experience platform (CEP).

Learning Civic Technology Platforms

It's all part of a content management system (CMS) which seems like a whizzy bit of software. I have read somewhere that it is used by quite a few councils in the UK so it's well used and there are support services and forums for help if needed.

Why Hands-On Work Matters

It doesn't take away from the hands-on-ness (couldn't think of a word) because it may be super whizzy but it is just a bunch of clever nuts and bolts and it is up to you to engineer solutions for the CEP processes.

So far I have been tasked with the process and workflows for the waste and recycling services. Basically is a customer accessing the website giving their details making a request and behind the scenes, the CEP process I program will automate the output of the requests.

I have had a play with it this week and have processes working from end to end, generating tasks, emails, and responses. There is some HTML and CSS involved and also some data structures to name and format.

Next week I have a couple of days of formal training to attend on the CEP and also one on the CMS. The CMS is the front-facing website part.

It's the end of week 3 as a web developer and I couldn't be happier. In fact, all the people I am now working with seem happy. Perhaps it's contagious?

A Different Kind of Commute

I'm even happy with my commute even though it's part car and part bus and involves some walking. I drive for 15 minutes without getting stuck in traffic. I hop on a bus and have another 15 into town. This morning's journey was a hydrogen bus, so calm and almost silent (Sitting on the bus I check my emails, plan for the day and write my blog). I then walk for 5 minutes.

This week for Udny Solutions I did a training evening with a client to show them how to manage and update their website themselves. They were amazed at how easy it is compared to their old flat HTML one. This was key for them wanting to make news updates and add new pictures themselves. It went well and I am super happy to hand over what I created. Roll on more opportunities like that. There is one more hopefully in the pipeline.

Looking Back at the Transition

It’s strange looking back now and realising how much this period shaped the direction of my later career.

At the time I was simply happy to be building things again, learning new systems, and solving practical problems.

What I didn’t realise was that this would gradually lead into years of work around digital services, workflows, automation, accessibility, and civic technology.

This all came shortly after my decision to retrain and completely change career through CodeClan.

A few weeks later I also reflected on unexpectedly crossing paths with other CodeClan graduates while working in civic technology in When Two Cohorts Collide.

A lot of this also connects closely to why I enjoy fixing systems and understanding how things work.

Looking back, this was the point where I rediscovered how much I enjoy practical problem solving and building systems that genuinely help people.

A lot of the same mindset around workflows, usability, automation, and meaningful technical work still shapes the projects and reflections I continue to write about today.

You can explore more of that journey through the blog and related projects here.