A Letter to Javascript Engineers

An Unconventional Invitation

Dear Software Engineer,

In 2016, I took a leap. Employed at a fast growing company I helped start, a friend invited me to work for a nonprofit. I made assumptions about overstated impact, career advancement, and even compensation. Overcoming an initial lack of interest, I took some time to explore the team and their global reach. They were making a difference in the lives of families around the world. I wasn’t searching for a new job, but entertaining the opportunity has shaped my understanding of impact, purpose, and building software or significance. My initial assumptions were wrong.

Two short years later, we’ve impacted thousands of families. The code we write is transforming communities across the globe and we are on the verge of our next great challenge. Our internal tools revolutionized the way we work, so we are reconstructing them for other organizations.

We’re entrusted with a single metric: lives changed. In early years, we thought in terms of thousands but today we champion the hundreds of millions who live in survival mode. Real people with families, hopes, and dreams.

Today, I extend an invitation of my own. With thousands dying every day from the effects of inadequate housing, we set our sights on ending survival mode living. Period. Along the journey, technology amplifies our deliberate effort. If you’re a software engineer seeking meaningful work… come.

You will be compensated fairly but…

• It will be difficult.
• Your peers won’t understand.
• You’ll encounter problems you aren’t ready to solve, yet.
• We’ll fail hundreds of times and only maybe succeed.

There are obvious reasons to say no, but I’m looking for the bold who feel the pull to say yes. You’ll likely write thousands of lines of software this year so make it count for something that matters.

P.S. If this isn’t addressed to you then it’s yours to share. You may not be able to write software but odds are that someone else comes to mind. Pass it along to them.

Godspeed,

Morgan J Lopes

CTO at New Story