The Enshittification of Tech Jobs

My first “adult” job was as a product manager for a startup that didn’t have a product. The founder raised 24 million dollars by telling the story of using big data to solve problems in travel. The business case was supposedly self-evident because travel spending was in the trillions of dollars and big data was the new shiny technology. But as an employee, I couldn’t tell which problems we were trying to solve. There was no clear need.

My job made no sense. It was the quintessential “bullshit job”. According to David Graeber, “bullshit jobs are jobs which even the person doing the job can’t really justify the existence of, but they have to pretend that there’s some reason for it to exist.” But as a young adult, I loved the regular paychecks. I took meandering walks around Boston during the work day. I enjoyed leisurely hour-long lunches. The alcohol fueled Friday team lunches were the highlight of my week.

Despite the meaninglessness of my job, I recognized that I was lucky to have a coveted tech job in an up and coming startup. The prevailing wisdom was that software was eating the world. Software companies needed investment rather than profitability. That free money produced companies that thrived on venture capital largess. Perks like free meals and extravagant swag were free flowing. “Rest and Vest” was a named phenomenon where some privileged tenured employees would do very little work and receive massive stock compensation.

In truth, this narrative masked rampant sexism and racism. At Google, Erica Baker exposed wage discrimination by collecting salary information. Tracy Chou’s call for transparency in diversity numbers showed how abysmal the representation of non-white and Asian men was at tech companies. Even in my meaningless startup job, I witnessed multiple women get fired during their pregnancies or shortly after returning from maternity leave. But it was far easier to focus on the perks than on the widespread inequity.

“Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification.”

Cory Doctorow (source)

Now, the perks that counterbalanced this toxicity have slowly disappeared. There is a version of enshittification happening to tech jobs. In place of the cushy benefits are regular layoffs and cost cutting measures. The full hour lunches have turned into Sweetgreen salads eaten quickly over Zoom meetings. Meandering walks are now done on walking pads under desks. The funds that were spent liberally to keep tech workers comfortable have been exhausted.

Long before the enshittification of tech jobs, the joint forces of technology and capitalism transformed many other workplaces. Algorithms eliminated the predictability of shift work by introducing on-demand scheduling for hourly workers. Gig work like Uber and DoorDash promised flexibility. In exchange, they robbed workers of key protections and benefits. The relentless drive for efficiency and automation has also transformed healthcare and education. The tech industry is not immune to the same influences. But these shifts create inhospitable workplaces for us all.

As a Black woman, I’m well practiced at working in places not designed for me. Most American companies are not by default designed for people like me to thrive. So remaking the culture to be more hospitable has been a key part of every job. I spent much of that first job educating my white boss about racism. I shared articles about race in the workplace and psychological safety with countless coworkers.

I was patient as my colleagues learned about how the twin forces of racism and sexism impacted my experience at work. Over time, each workplace would become more bearable. But I resented the unpaid labor I regularly had to perform. I wished I could simply do my job without also changing the environment.

“Terraforming is taking an inhabitable planet like Mars and changing the atmosphere to make an ecosystem capable of supporting life”

Deb Chachra

According to Deb Chachra, this work of remaking our culture to be more equitable is a form of terraforming. As tech workplaces become more inhospitable for more people, terraforming can be a tool to help us create the workplaces we deserve.

Most tech workers don’t have the power to change how work is measured or whether layoffs will happen. But we can change the way we speak about our coworkers to be more gentle and inclusive. Rather than categorizing colleagues as “high” or “low” performers, we can build systems that enable everyone to thrive and do good work. Instead of looking to books like Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”, we can read Adrienne Marie Brown’s Emergent Strategy to learn about a more peaceful form of leadership.

We can show up open heartedly and care deeply for the humans who are working with us. And what does it mean to take that one step further? It feels scary to mention unions and filing formal complaints, but what if that's what it takes. And over time, we can transform our workplaces from spaces where inequities are normalized to humane spaces. Terraforming is hard and continuous work. But it’s necessary to build resilient and equitable workplaces.

Acknowledgement

Thank you to Rye for helping me build a writing practice and being a brilliant editor. Thank you to Mel Chua for introducing me to the concept of terraforming. A final thank you to a recent boss who helped me recognize that terraforming is work.