Solving your own little world’s problems

Since the hi-tech industry is a far cry from zero-sum, each success story heats up the competition for talent. Salaries and perks have all been leveled to the point where the previously novel have become the standard. Struggling to stand out from the growing crowd, companies have come to stress on how you’ll work on challenging problems.

“Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?” – Steve Jobs to then Pepsi Executive John Sculley

This is hardly a new technique for headhunters but, within tech circles, it refers more to the technical stack rather than the underlying product or service the company has to offer.

“We use Hadoop, Hive and Pig for analytics but are looking into Cassandra as well” – Your favorite social network for pets

There comes a tipping point where the opportunity to use interesting technology to solve challenging technical problems outweigh the otherwise dull initiative of the company. For those who take the plunge, they craft elegant solutions, ones that deserve more than the problems they solve.

We can’t keep ignoring the impact (or lackthereof) of these ‘challenges’.