Who are your customers? There are plenty of low level systems developers at Facebook and Google and so on. The solve the same hard and interesting problems that you do, probably at greater scale so they're even more hard and interesting. Often they're many layers removed from the people who directly get others to click ads. Being a low-level developer, or being at a separate company, doesn't necessarily put you at any greater remove from the advertising octopus.
I work in Fintech, our customers are banks and the like. They actually buy our software because it generates value directly instead of trading in human attention.
Maybe you think banks are just as bad as advertisers but I tell myself I am enabling the tens of millions of Americans who have retirement accounts. The day-to-day is enjoyable nonetheless.
> Maybe you think banks are just as bad as advertisers
Banks as in consumer banks? Maybe not. Commercial banks, brokerages, hedge funds? Welp. I admit that some of those have made my imminent retirement possible, but from a broader view I don't see much good about how large the US financial sector is compared to the overall economy or the preferential treatment they get from our government.
> I tell myself I am enabling the tens of millions of Americans who have retirement accounts.
I'm sure many at Facebook would say they're enabling small businesses and non-profits directly through advertising, and many more "little people" through the platform(s) that those ad dollars pay for. They're also enabling some very unsavory people and behaviors, as are most in fintech. Read the news lately? ;) Everyone likes to dump on ad-funded businesses. I've done so myself. It's not entirely unjustified, but sometimes it seems disproportionate and even hypocritical.
I'm a happy low level systems developer. I solve hard and interesting problems that have nothing to do with ads.