This is always worrying to see when set as an expectation. I mean, I enjoy coding. My employer gets my 40-ish hours of attention. But I just can't seem to get into after-hours or weekend coding side projects.
I have ideas to explore (Nothing I'd ever want to turn into a business, perish the thought), but I just... can't find the motivation to spend more hours doing what I already spend about a third of my life doing. I enjoy reading articles and the like, sure, but if I wanted to work on side projects, I'd need to take extended time away from work to "reset" and get into something.
Does this make me destined to fall behind? I'm hoping not, but given how many people talk about needing one's job to be their all-consuming passion, to be something they spend spare time and weekends on... I'm not always hopeful.
I was the same way. I spent my college years poring over HN, /r/programming, various blogs and articles. An older software engineer I knew was always surprised at how many things I knew and had opinions about, even though I was inexperienced. But I never actually wrote up a "complete" project in my own time, not a single one, I couldn't stick to anything. And I kept worrying that it would make me less employable. Yet I got my offer at [large, popular software company] before I graduated, only on my merits.
I think the best that can be expected is that you do your work, do it well, and never stop growing. You don't have to dump time into coding outside of work, just don't get complacent. That's assuming you don't have crappy leadership, in which case you may want to consider a different team or company.
As an example: I know a guy who's about to become a 3rd level developer at [large, popular software company] at the age of 28, which is a pretty big deal from a career development perspective. I don't think he's touched a line of code, or a single technical article, outside of work in the 5 years he's been here. He regularly works 25-30 hour weeks. He's just smart, puts out good projects, and is productive when he needs to be.
I don't think coding side projects should be anything more than a hobby. Difference between coding for work and coding as a hobby is that with hobby you don't stress out yourself, but it relaxes you and makes you feel good.
If you take coding at home serious as you (presumably) do at work, like following deadlines, doing stuff you don't enjoy, stress yourself out, then it is a very unhealthy expectation.
Probably not what people want to hear, but I think it's near impossible to complete a significant personal project while working a FT day job, let alone gain the inspiration for something unique and meaningful. If you're really passionate about pursuing your own projects, unless you are superhuman, I think you'll have to take time off work, or find something PT or flexible consulting hours.
IMO, yes it does, but only behind a tiny sliver of developers. You can still have an excellent and rewarding (professionally and financially) without putting in the extra effort and without the "true calling" that some devs have (and many more blog about having).
If you don't have the passion to spend time on nights/weekends coding projects, don't do it. You'll still do OK. You probably won't do quite as well as someone who does, but excelling at work is only one aspect of a happy life. (I think it would be foolish to pretend though that someone else equally talented who has greater passion and puts in 50% more effort won't have better outcomes in their field over a large population study.)
I don't think it's about side projects. When I am on a good project the 40 hours for my employer are really interesting and i may spend more time at home reading up stuff because it makes sense. But it's hard to spend 40 hours a week with some dull, uninspiring work and then go home and be motivated do something cool. The dull work pretty much drains all energy out of you.
I honestly believe that as long as you are always trying to improve and don't coast, you should be good. I do not do side projects after work, but do try to work on my coding skills, focus and discipline during the workday. 17 years and counting, and every single year I improve (some times only by a little bit, but it really adds up).
I wouldn't worry at all if I were you. You're incredibly lucky to enjoy your job, and life has so much more to offer than coding, including family and friends. Your lack of all-comsuming passion for coding could easily be your ticket to a better life.
I have pride in my work, but I'm not going to kill myself for the company.
I work a 35 hour week, and if you want more out of me, pay me. I'm good enough to be worth a wage, I'm not about to undermine my own health and the hiring market to satisfy some fad about over work.
Just look at the games industry. Overwork is endemic. The only way its sustainable is by creaming off a new layer of young star-eyed programmers each cycle.
In areas that are not as glamorous, its just not possible.
I do not derive my self worth by how many hours extra that I put in at work.
I want to believe that things are changing, because the truth is coming up more and more: you will be a developer, they will get a shload of money. You will do it for yourself, because it's an honor towards the company, a sort of loyalty. Seriously??? I remember in a previous company one manager had the courage to say that "they pay our bills". Thanks, man! I am just giving you my time, you know, not that I need it, seriously, I would love to give it to you for free. No.
Working overtime is a subtle lie that many people don't seem to see.
I see some colleagues working on Sunday until 11.30 PM because they have a presentation on Monday. Seriously? I am sorry, but no, it didn't work out, because you didn't give us enough time/because the communication wasn't clear/because I couldn't figure out how to solve this network issue before, which became a blocker/because I can't still figure out why the hell VPN doesn't work yet and you the IT guy is on vacation. If there are blockers, if there are issues, don't make them yours. I work overtime when seriously needed, but then I want that amount of time back - either as hours off or as more money. Otherwise, find a code monkey, they are cheap, don't like to think, and "work hard and have fun".
I'm very much the same way, except you can't pay me to work more that 37 hours a week. At this point I feel that I'm to old to care about whatever random deadline management set on a project. It's not that I don't care about deadlines, I do, but if it's unrealistic, I'm not going to stay late to help meet it.
No one is rewarding you for getting stress or burn out. It's true that management will often reward those who stay late and "put in the extra hours", but in the long run I don't see it being worth the strain on my mental health.
I think it varies by country: some have work cultures where working more is somehow seen as a good thing and then everyone gets very confused about why people take weeks off with medical leave due to stress.
I find a scenario where I work more than my 37 hours for free inconceivable. If the deadline was missed then the planner needs to plan better next time. Even if I'm paid I don't think I've ever exceeded 42 weekly hours in my life. Nothing is as important as a good work/life balance.
I guess it depends on what you consider "work". I have a job and they pay me to produce software, and I spend 40 or so hours a week producing software that somebody else sells and makes money off of. I love to read about programming, though, so when I'm not working, I may be reading programming books or learning new programming languages, but not ones that are in any way related to the work that I do for my employer, just things that I think are interesting - and I get to decide what I focus on, not my employer.
A lot of development work is boring, unglamorous stuff that pays the bills and can't be avoided. Passionate developers hate that.
I've had to intentionally recruit "boring" developers, who weren't passionate at all. They just get on and do their 9-to-5 because it's their job. Without their help, we'd have lost most of our A-players due to a lack of sufficiently interesting work.
Relatedly, there's a difference between being motivated and being disciplined. Passion and motivation are essential wherever innovation is required, but otherwise discipline is what gets the job done. Turns out, in any team larger than a handful of people, you need a mix both.
Sure, I remember one non-passionate developer got very upset when companies asked him for code samples. He said "f that, I have a life. When I go home I cook, or read, I don't write more code. Any code samples I have belong to the company where I coded them. I'm not a nerd that does open source projects." So yeah, there u go. People like that exist and are part of the workforce.
There is room for both the passionate and non-passionate developer.
Because passion doesn't necessarily equate to skill. Passion looks like an eagerness to be immersed in a topic and invest time in that topic. Some people work out of necessity and not necessarily passion (maybe just passion to make a living, pay the bills, and support their families).
What actually matters is that you:
- follow through with your promises and claims to your team or manager/boss/founder/yourself
- you leave things better than you found them
- you're reliable
If you adequately do those things, there is plenty of room for you, passion or no passion.
My dad was a fast jet pilot, I grew up on RAF bases watching jets fly overhead, as a scout I worked at air shows. It was all I wanted to do, but unfortunately I was too tall to make the entry requirements.
I'm 34 and still haven't really got past that. As a student I looked for job adverts for well paid positions and decided that I'd look to become a contract Java developer in London on an income that would put me in the top 1% in the UK. It took me 5 years and I didn't have to go to London. Many of my peers are still struggling to get a mortgage with some looking at 40 year terms. While I have one, I have the funds to pay it off. Now my family are financially secure I can start taking on fixed price work with more risk and more reward; building out a business and getting away from a cripplingly sedentary job is the next goal.
I think you need commitment (amongst other aspects) and passion is one vehicle to achieve that, I'd imagine a more rewarding one, but it's not the only one.
The best developers I've worked with are the ones who realize that while passion is helpful, it often fails you at the times when you need it most.
As an example, if I'm in the middle of a 3 a.m. debugging session because someone slipped a bug into production and customers are complaining and the company is losing money, I find that stone-cold professional determination is more reliable than passion.
I've worked with developers who has busy lives and families. They didn't do much programming outside of work, and they mostly worked 9-5. But they were so locked-in, determined, and professional while on the clock that they kicked ass and outperformed most of their colleagues. What programming they did do outside of the office was carefully chosen to help them keep up to date with the latest and greatest.
This isn't meant to knock passionate developers; I consider myself one of them. But given the opportunity in the future, I'd gladly work with a team of hyper-productive, focused, professional developers even if they don't have the 'passion' for programming that a lot of job postings seem to be looking for.
Passion doesn't even correlate with outside events OP lists.
Little point having a side project when your employer often asks you to sign a contract giving them ownership of all code inside or outside of work. I've walked away from job offers because they wouldn't strike this.
Where's the passion coming from in the 90 of 100 programming jobs that are programming payroll, fuel pump displays, stock systems and the 1,001 other not exciting, not full stack, not web dev role? OK, there's probably someone, somewhere, who can get passionate about fuel pump programming, but...
Also consider the employer's point of view. Unless junior code-monkey is needed, and even then, I would far rather see a well rounded individual with some non-IT to the fore. With at least a fighting chance of some social skills and some other interests than discover all free time is spent at the laptop working on other stuff. It can help when understanding client needs, or bring the idea from the model engineering or some other hobby to the task at hand.
As with almost everything, balance is the key. If, as a parent, you can't read one programming book a year, or spend a couple of weekends worth of time on a bit of tinkering there's something wrong. The reason a lot of parents end up no longer developers is they probably became senior enough that they're herding cats (staff) instead of bits.
So I'll stick with DHH and heavily favour work-life balance.
I'm super excited about programming "boring" stuff like the things you listed, because there are often huge usability improvements to be made and the people who use them express a tremendous amount of gratitude when they experience process automation. However, from what I can see, the bulk of them are in huge corporates and/or huge consultancies that work for them. Where are these 90% of jobs from your pov?
You have a passion for CRUD apps. You dream about CRUD in your sleep.
You attend (or give talks at!) CRUD conferences. Your bookshelf has at least five books on CRUD. You attend CRUDathons, and maybe have won first place in the most READs or most CREATEs category.
Yes I see adds for startups wanting developers like "we're disrupting the plumbing business we need a developer that is prepared to sleep and eat 80 hour weeks for equity" and I think pass, who'd do that? There are very few startups I see that are doing something interesting, just CRUD business apps in some business vertical market
If you are interested in the craft, it's hard to imagine the interest ends when you cross the threshold of the workplace on your way home.
But how that interest is measured is more interesting. A friend of mine just creates things for his kids, another has small hacks around the home, another is playing with his music setup and creating his own pedals, I run lots of forums and the systems for them.
It doesn't have to be a "Where's your OSS contributions?", or a "Work outside of work".
You just cannot make someone deeply interested not take an interest outside of work.
The hard bit is how to detect this fundamental curiosity, because I agree strongly with others that it isn't "What are your side projects, where are your OSS contributions?". It may surface in many more subtle ways, mostly private noodling around, wondering how things work, and could they be made better.
The thing is... if you're interested in almost anything else, there's no particular expectation that you spend every possible waking hour doing it. Most hobbies, you spend maybe an hour or two a night on, if that, and spend the rest of your evenings doing something else.
If you get enough flexibility to explore things you're interested in within the context of work, it seems perfectly reasonable that 40 hours a week of that is enough.
> If you are interested in the craft, it's hard to imagine the interest ends when you cross the threshold of the workplace on your way home.
It's not that I'm not interested in programming but there are a lot of things that I'm FAR more interested in. My personal example: I love working out, I love computer games, I love snowboarding, I love geocaching and I adore playing with my car. It's extremely rare that I ever choose to dedicate my free time to developing software when I have something to do related to one of those things. I'm an experienced professional and consider myself to be pretty decent at it but when it comes to fun things I can do on my own time, it ranks abysmally low.
The result? Total amount of software development that I've done outside work hours in the past year: 0 and I can't imagine it ever changing.
edit: in fact the quickest way to make me stop reading a job ad is to write too much of those "we expect you to breathe xxx technology". No thanks, I will breathe it for exactly the 37 hours I'm paid for and not a single one more. Fortunately enterprise development is a nice fit for me :)
For an internal project over a certain size for a large enough organization you actually want people that will just do their thing, be happy, collect a pay check and carry on.
your über 10x coder won't make any difference in these environments.
Yeah, that über coder is likely to make things worse because spending 40+ hours a day in a typical software job makes you feel your brain is atrophying and doing some overly clever stuff suddenly becomes a good defense strategy.
It's simple: If you spend more than 40 hours per week at the office, then you are bad at your job.
There are only two reasons. You either aren't productive enough, which means you are bad at your core job, or you are taking on too much, which means you either lack the social skills to say No, the maturity to manage your time, or that you are fucking around too much at the office. Basically, anything more than 40 hours means that you are either bad at your job or at managing your job.
That said, coding outside of the office with no particular purpose in mind is a lot of fun. The whole "play" thing. It's important to keep it at the level of play, don't get too serious. Serious ruins the point of play.
Funny how most articles mention family as the only acceptable thing to do outside of work, Even, or especially when you're young, there's more to life than shaving milliseconds from that query code.
Working OT should not only be discouraged, but disallowed to force people into hobbies or things they care about - watching loads of TV or whatever they feel like as long as it's not homogenous.
We know it in biology and other science that too sterile ecosystem is not good - you need diversity and variety. If all you do is code or later code and have kids, then on a global scale it leads to a really dull society.
My wife is going to school to become a programmer. She is the exact opposite of me. She is passionate about programming and it's a job to her. She hates talking about code outside of working hours. Yet she's a good programmer that can get the job done and has a part time job while at school.
I believe there are many people like her in the industry and they are the ones who do the majority of the work.
I have a super passionate colleague. It's actually counter productive working with him because most of our energy goes into design debates and office politics and competition
By any measure I'm a workaholic and I love programming, but something feels off with the word "passion" in this context. I don't think you need to be passionate to be good at anything, what you need is motivation and practice. In the case of programming, I believe you need enough curiosity such that the dopamine hit you get from figuring something outweighs the incredible pain of getting to that point. Only by stacking up those gains over a period of years will you achieve competence. If you don't feel that satisfaction and drive to continue learning then you will definitely burn out before you are competent.
In other words, I believe there's an intrinsic quality one needs to become a good programmer, but it doesn't necessarily manifest as passion.
There is quite a bit of room for the non-passionate developer.
The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of companies out there doing CRUD web development and there are lots of jobs that only require mediocre skills.
And it turns out that the Tech shortage is so bad that those mediocre jobs still pay very good salaries.
This is why tech bootcamps are so successful. It is not that these bootcamps are able to pop out high skilled developers in 3 months that are better than Top Tier CS grads. Thats ridiculous.
They are so successful because it turns out that you don't really have to be that great of a programmer to do CRUD web dev at your average startup. But these startups still pay insanely good salaries when compared to the median US work wage.
It seems like you're implicitly asserting that non-passionate developers have 'mediocre' skills, and are best-suited for CRUD work. Do you mean to say that passion is a prerequisite of professional excellence in our field?
It also seems like you're saying that bootcamps only produce mediocre CRUD developers - who, presumably, are non-passionate? I know some (passionate, highly-skilled) bootcamp graduates who would be really quite insulted.
You might be a little more deliberate with your axioms.
What do you consider so lowly about CRUD work?
CRUD can get pretty sophisticated. In fact my guess is that the majority of applications are some sort of CRUD.
"passion: a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something".
I am sure there is a place for people who are not passionate but I don't even want to work there. I have been programming computers for more than 30 years and it still excites me. I want to build great things and make the small things perfect. There is always a place for passion and always something interesting about everything.
Being excited and enthusiastic hasn't killed me yet.
It is not about huge hours. The world is full of dumbasses who work massive hours and write shit code.
I consider myself a passionate developer, and while strive to put myself into scenarios and projects where that is a plus, it's generally not the easiest route. People who care about what they're doing technically become bored or aggravated easily in their daily work. Being opinionated about things that are considered taboo is not always a good thing either, especially if that goes against common tropes or when you're on a buzzword-driven project. It's also easy to aggravate other passionate developers if there are different opinions. Passion-induced skepticism about a solution or tech stack can sometimes even be construed as incompetence.
If your passion is programming in general, chances are you have a broad experience background, which is not always perceived in a positive light by management. I recently had a meeting with a potential client who told me they would not hire me because they found it strange and implausible that someone would be able and willing to do both script language programming and also develop native modules in C.
I would say, all things being equal, non-passionate developers are very feasible career-wise and absolutely essential for many projects, because chances are they're going to be doing the brunt of the work.
Especially in a team, these players are important for follow through. I like to think of teams as RPG adventuring parties: you need people from all character classes to make it work. While all-mage or all-beserker parties can sometimes pull through, a balanced and diverse approach is a better generalized strategy. You want tanks and support characters.
When I started working, I lived with my parents to pay off student loan debt. I didn't have to go shopping or fix my house. I worked from 8 to 7, forgot to eat lunch sometimes, went to sleep at 8:30, and woke up at 4:30 to hit the gym before work. I'd code in my off time and go in on the weekends. Now, 3 years in, I have a house, a dog, a girlfriend, go to the grocery store and cook my own meals, try to work out some of the time, too many home improvement projects, a lawn to attend to, an old motorcycle I want to restore. That is, I now have everything I dreamed of and went to school for in the first place. But some part of me thinks that maybe I should be doing more, or I should be studying to try to work for one of the big software companies, or developing a portfolio. Part of me wants to, but mostly I just want a decent life, and maybe once I have that worked out I'll come back to software in my free time, because really, I do like it, maybe even a little too much, but right now I'd rather just try to get my shit together in the real world for once.
No, it does not - as evidenced by most of the industry. Being deeply interested actually hinders your ability to work in a lot of typical programming jobs, because it'll make you get bored out by the realities of business and pushing the same pointless CRUD or boilerplate JS code.
I feel that the reason startups like young people is that only fresh programmers can feel passionate about or impressed by this kind of work.
[+] [-] daviross|9 years ago|reply
I have ideas to explore (Nothing I'd ever want to turn into a business, perish the thought), but I just... can't find the motivation to spend more hours doing what I already spend about a third of my life doing. I enjoy reading articles and the like, sure, but if I wanted to work on side projects, I'd need to take extended time away from work to "reset" and get into something.
Does this make me destined to fall behind? I'm hoping not, but given how many people talk about needing one's job to be their all-consuming passion, to be something they spend spare time and weekends on... I'm not always hopeful.
[+] [-] greyskull|9 years ago|reply
I think the best that can be expected is that you do your work, do it well, and never stop growing. You don't have to dump time into coding outside of work, just don't get complacent. That's assuming you don't have crappy leadership, in which case you may want to consider a different team or company.
As an example: I know a guy who's about to become a 3rd level developer at [large, popular software company] at the age of 28, which is a pretty big deal from a career development perspective. I don't think he's touched a line of code, or a single technical article, outside of work in the 5 years he's been here. He regularly works 25-30 hour weeks. He's just smart, puts out good projects, and is productive when he needs to be.
[+] [-] keymon-o|9 years ago|reply
If you take coding at home serious as you (presumably) do at work, like following deadlines, doing stuff you don't enjoy, stress yourself out, then it is a very unhealthy expectation.
[+] [-] orthoganol|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sokoloff|9 years ago|reply
IMO, yes it does, but only behind a tiny sliver of developers. You can still have an excellent and rewarding (professionally and financially) without putting in the extra effort and without the "true calling" that some devs have (and many more blog about having).
If you don't have the passion to spend time on nights/weekends coding projects, don't do it. You'll still do OK. You probably won't do quite as well as someone who does, but excelling at work is only one aspect of a happy life. (I think it would be foolish to pretend though that someone else equally talented who has greater passion and puts in 50% more effort won't have better outcomes in their field over a large population study.)
[+] [-] maxxxxx|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thomasnno|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pietro|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tooFastFuckYou|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] KaiserPro|9 years ago|reply
I work a 35 hour week, and if you want more out of me, pay me. I'm good enough to be worth a wage, I'm not about to undermine my own health and the hiring market to satisfy some fad about over work.
Just look at the games industry. Overwork is endemic. The only way its sustainable is by creaming off a new layer of young star-eyed programmers each cycle.
In areas that are not as glamorous, its just not possible.
I do not derive my self worth by how many hours extra that I put in at work.
[+] [-] mk89|9 years ago|reply
Working overtime is a subtle lie that many people don't seem to see.
I see some colleagues working on Sunday until 11.30 PM because they have a presentation on Monday. Seriously? I am sorry, but no, it didn't work out, because you didn't give us enough time/because the communication wasn't clear/because I couldn't figure out how to solve this network issue before, which became a blocker/because I can't still figure out why the hell VPN doesn't work yet and you the IT guy is on vacation. If there are blockers, if there are issues, don't make them yours. I work overtime when seriously needed, but then I want that amount of time back - either as hours off or as more money. Otherwise, find a code monkey, they are cheap, don't like to think, and "work hard and have fun".
[+] [-] mrweasel|9 years ago|reply
No one is rewarding you for getting stress or burn out. It's true that management will often reward those who stay late and "put in the extra hours", but in the long run I don't see it being worth the strain on my mental health.
[+] [-] lagadu|9 years ago|reply
I find a scenario where I work more than my 37 hours for free inconceivable. If the deadline was missed then the planner needs to plan better next time. Even if I'm paid I don't think I've ever exceeded 42 weekly hours in my life. Nothing is as important as a good work/life balance.
[+] [-] clifanatic|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevenwiles|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robert_tweed|9 years ago|reply
I've had to intentionally recruit "boring" developers, who weren't passionate at all. They just get on and do their 9-to-5 because it's their job. Without their help, we'd have lost most of our A-players due to a lack of sufficiently interesting work.
Relatedly, there's a difference between being motivated and being disciplined. Passion and motivation are essential wherever innovation is required, but otherwise discipline is what gets the job done. Turns out, in any team larger than a handful of people, you need a mix both.
[+] [-] andrewfromx|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slyall|9 years ago|reply
Do managers spend their off-hours coaching kids sports teams and running charities in order to boast their resumes?
[+] [-] rodgerd|9 years ago|reply
The overwhelming majority of the work force, in fact.
[+] [-] ktRolster|9 years ago|reply
Sounds like he was passionately non-passionate. (Also, a programmer who claims to not be a nerd is self-deceived lol)
[+] [-] meanJim|9 years ago|reply
Because passion doesn't necessarily equate to skill. Passion looks like an eagerness to be immersed in a topic and invest time in that topic. Some people work out of necessity and not necessarily passion (maybe just passion to make a living, pay the bills, and support their families).
What actually matters is that you:
- follow through with your promises and claims to your team or manager/boss/founder/yourself
- you leave things better than you found them
- you're reliable
If you adequately do those things, there is plenty of room for you, passion or no passion.
[+] [-] cs02rm0|9 years ago|reply
My dad was a fast jet pilot, I grew up on RAF bases watching jets fly overhead, as a scout I worked at air shows. It was all I wanted to do, but unfortunately I was too tall to make the entry requirements.
I'm 34 and still haven't really got past that. As a student I looked for job adverts for well paid positions and decided that I'd look to become a contract Java developer in London on an income that would put me in the top 1% in the UK. It took me 5 years and I didn't have to go to London. Many of my peers are still struggling to get a mortgage with some looking at 40 year terms. While I have one, I have the funds to pay it off. Now my family are financially secure I can start taking on fixed price work with more risk and more reward; building out a business and getting away from a cripplingly sedentary job is the next goal.
I think you need commitment (amongst other aspects) and passion is one vehicle to achieve that, I'd imagine a more rewarding one, but it's not the only one.
[+] [-] kpil|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rpeden|9 years ago|reply
As an example, if I'm in the middle of a 3 a.m. debugging session because someone slipped a bug into production and customers are complaining and the company is losing money, I find that stone-cold professional determination is more reliable than passion.
I've worked with developers who has busy lives and families. They didn't do much programming outside of work, and they mostly worked 9-5. But they were so locked-in, determined, and professional while on the clock that they kicked ass and outperformed most of their colleagues. What programming they did do outside of the office was carefully chosen to help them keep up to date with the latest and greatest.
This isn't meant to knock passionate developers; I consider myself one of them. But given the opportunity in the future, I'd gladly work with a team of hyper-productive, focused, professional developers even if they don't have the 'passion' for programming that a lot of job postings seem to be looking for.
[+] [-] anexprogrammer|9 years ago|reply
Passion doesn't even correlate with outside events OP lists.
Little point having a side project when your employer often asks you to sign a contract giving them ownership of all code inside or outside of work. I've walked away from job offers because they wouldn't strike this.
Where's the passion coming from in the 90 of 100 programming jobs that are programming payroll, fuel pump displays, stock systems and the 1,001 other not exciting, not full stack, not web dev role? OK, there's probably someone, somewhere, who can get passionate about fuel pump programming, but...
Also consider the employer's point of view. Unless junior code-monkey is needed, and even then, I would far rather see a well rounded individual with some non-IT to the fore. With at least a fighting chance of some social skills and some other interests than discover all free time is spent at the laptop working on other stuff. It can help when understanding client needs, or bring the idea from the model engineering or some other hobby to the task at hand.
As with almost everything, balance is the key. If, as a parent, you can't read one programming book a year, or spend a couple of weekends worth of time on a bit of tinkering there's something wrong. The reason a lot of parents end up no longer developers is they probably became senior enough that they're herding cats (staff) instead of bits.
So I'll stick with DHH and heavily favour work-life balance.
[+] [-] Kliment|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eric-hu|9 years ago|reply
You have a passion for CRUD apps. You dream about CRUD in your sleep.
You attend (or give talks at!) CRUD conferences. Your bookshelf has at least five books on CRUD. You attend CRUDathons, and maybe have won first place in the most READs or most CREATEs category.
[+] [-] chadcmulligan|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] buro9|9 years ago|reply
But how that interest is measured is more interesting. A friend of mine just creates things for his kids, another has small hacks around the home, another is playing with his music setup and creating his own pedals, I run lots of forums and the systems for them.
It doesn't have to be a "Where's your OSS contributions?", or a "Work outside of work".
You just cannot make someone deeply interested not take an interest outside of work.
The hard bit is how to detect this fundamental curiosity, because I agree strongly with others that it isn't "What are your side projects, where are your OSS contributions?". It may surface in many more subtle ways, mostly private noodling around, wondering how things work, and could they be made better.
[+] [-] vertex-four|9 years ago|reply
If you get enough flexibility to explore things you're interested in within the context of work, it seems perfectly reasonable that 40 hours a week of that is enough.
[+] [-] lagadu|9 years ago|reply
It's not that I'm not interested in programming but there are a lot of things that I'm FAR more interested in. My personal example: I love working out, I love computer games, I love snowboarding, I love geocaching and I adore playing with my car. It's extremely rare that I ever choose to dedicate my free time to developing software when I have something to do related to one of those things. I'm an experienced professional and consider myself to be pretty decent at it but when it comes to fun things I can do on my own time, it ranks abysmally low.
The result? Total amount of software development that I've done outside work hours in the past year: 0 and I can't imagine it ever changing.
edit: in fact the quickest way to make me stop reading a job ad is to write too much of those "we expect you to breathe xxx technology". No thanks, I will breathe it for exactly the 37 hours I'm paid for and not a single one more. Fortunately enterprise development is a nice fit for me :)
[+] [-] kd0amg|9 years ago|reply
People's interest in just about anything has a tendency to fade over the course of the first eight hours they spend on it in a day.
[+] [-] jimjimjim|9 years ago|reply
For an internal project over a certain size for a large enough organization you actually want people that will just do their thing, be happy, collect a pay check and carry on.
your über 10x coder won't make any difference in these environments.
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Swizec|9 years ago|reply
There are only two reasons. You either aren't productive enough, which means you are bad at your core job, or you are taking on too much, which means you either lack the social skills to say No, the maturity to manage your time, or that you are fucking around too much at the office. Basically, anything more than 40 hours means that you are either bad at your job or at managing your job.
That said, coding outside of the office with no particular purpose in mind is a lot of fun. The whole "play" thing. It's important to keep it at the level of play, don't get too serious. Serious ruins the point of play.
[+] [-] ams6110|9 years ago|reply
The word passion to me implies an level of emotional obsession that borders on (or actually is) unhealthy.
I enjoy programming, and find it interesting. But I'm not passionate about it.
[+] [-] xchaotic|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msoad|9 years ago|reply
I believe there are many people like her in the industry and they are the ones who do the majority of the work.
I have a super passionate colleague. It's actually counter productive working with him because most of our energy goes into design debates and office politics and competition
[+] [-] dasil003|9 years ago|reply
In other words, I believe there's an intrinsic quality one needs to become a good programmer, but it doesn't necessarily manifest as passion.
[+] [-] cel1ne|9 years ago|reply
Or reduced code. Or improved UI.
Generally anything that improves my life as a developer or those of my users.
[+] [-] stale2002|9 years ago|reply
The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of companies out there doing CRUD web development and there are lots of jobs that only require mediocre skills.
And it turns out that the Tech shortage is so bad that those mediocre jobs still pay very good salaries.
This is why tech bootcamps are so successful. It is not that these bootcamps are able to pop out high skilled developers in 3 months that are better than Top Tier CS grads. Thats ridiculous.
They are so successful because it turns out that you don't really have to be that great of a programmer to do CRUD web dev at your average startup. But these startups still pay insanely good salaries when compared to the median US work wage.
[+] [-] BurritoAlPastor|9 years ago|reply
It also seems like you're saying that bootcamps only produce mediocre CRUD developers - who, presumably, are non-passionate? I know some (passionate, highly-skilled) bootcamp graduates who would be really quite insulted.
You might be a little more deliberate with your axioms.
[+] [-] vonmoltke|9 years ago|reply
From what I can tell, the "talent shortage" only exists for companies that insist on high hiring bars without having deep pipelines.
[+] [-] collyw|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mianos|9 years ago|reply
I am sure there is a place for people who are not passionate but I don't even want to work there. I have been programming computers for more than 30 years and it still excites me. I want to build great things and make the small things perfect. There is always a place for passion and always something interesting about everything.
Being excited and enthusiastic hasn't killed me yet.
It is not about huge hours. The world is full of dumbasses who work massive hours and write shit code.
[+] [-] Udo|9 years ago|reply
If your passion is programming in general, chances are you have a broad experience background, which is not always perceived in a positive light by management. I recently had a meeting with a potential client who told me they would not hire me because they found it strange and implausible that someone would be able and willing to do both script language programming and also develop native modules in C.
I would say, all things being equal, non-passionate developers are very feasible career-wise and absolutely essential for many projects, because chances are they're going to be doing the brunt of the work.
Especially in a team, these players are important for follow through. I like to think of teams as RPG adventuring parties: you need people from all character classes to make it work. While all-mage or all-beserker parties can sometimes pull through, a balanced and diverse approach is a better generalized strategy. You want tanks and support characters.
[+] [-] thebigspacefuck|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewstuart|9 years ago|reply
The key point being that programming really requires that the programmer is deeply interested in doing it.
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|9 years ago|reply
I feel that the reason startups like young people is that only fresh programmers can feel passionate about or impressed by this kind of work.