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The Moderately Enthusiastic Programmer
An anonymous reader writes: "Developer Avdi Grimm posts about the trend throughout the software industry of companies demanding that job applicants be 'passionate' about programming when hiring into ordinary development jobs. Grimm says, 'I love code. I dream of code. I enjoy code. I find writing high quality code deeply satisfying. I feel the same way about helping others write code they can feel proud of. But do I feel 'strong and barely controllable emotion' about code? Honestly? No. ... I think some of the people writing these job ads are well-meaning. Maybe most of them. I think when they write "passionate" they mean "motivated." No slackers. No one who is a drag on the team. But sometimes I worry that it's code for we want to exploit your lack of boundaries. Maybe it's fanciful on my part, but there's a faintly Orwellian whiff to the language of these job ads: excuse me comrade, I couldn't help but notice that man over there is not chanting the team slogan with sincere revolutionary conviction.' Is it realistic for employers to expect us to be passionate about software we're hired to build? If they're looking for the head of a major product, then maybe it's warranted — but for everybody, even the grunts?"
I don't get this psudo-nerd bragging right. I've worked jobs I hated and had dreams about them, too.
If you don't eat sleep and breathe their corporate paradigm at all times you're not the person they're looking for. They don't want you to forget that they own you, even when you're not physically at the office: your personal work belongs to them, your future employment opportunities (non-compete) belong to them, your personal activities (social media et al.) belong to them... And they wonder why people get disgruntled.
I feel this way about the current codebase I'm working on right now, but they only give me the nerf-type of weapons, so no one needs to worry.
God, schmod. I want my monkey man!
I like software development. But when I go home, I do other things than write more code (write/record music, write/shoot/direct/edit short films, cook foods, breed fish, exercise/martial arts, spend time with my SO, etc). Apparently, to some developers, this means I don't take my job seriously and I shouldn't be in the industry because I'm not spending every moment living and breathing code. I don't even own a github. And frankly, if that's the expectation, I'd rather not work in that sort of environment.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Honestly, most managers would be clueless as how to deal with a passionate programmer.
The meetings, conference calls, the coding conventions, the documentation, making hard choices that hurt the deeper beauty of the finished product. This is poison to the passionate programmer. Other people doing substandard things to her code. This isn't ok to do to someones passions. It would be like letting a person bring a pet to work, and the staff kicks it at a whim.
They want people who pretend to be passionate. But really their looking for employees that want a paycheck, and a good portfolio when they leave.
I'd agree that's normal. What's more, this "passionate" is without a doubt a code for "exploitable".
Here's why: for various cultural reasons, self-taught geeks who code from the love of coding are a far higher percentage of American-born coders, than of e.g. India or China, simply because "software developer" has a far higher social status (and relative pay) in other countries, such that parents push their children to become developers there in the way that some American children are pushed to become doctors or lawyers. Therefore, if you actually filtered on "loves to code" instead of "good at coding", you'd be illegally discriminating against a protected class, in a way that's not-at-all subtle to anyone who spends time on hiring in the field.
The goal of this "passionate" business isn't crypto-racism (it would be too obvious, if nothing else), but simply trying to find people who are not only good, but willing to work far longer than a professional work week at management insistence, and those qualities can be found in young and/or desperate people from anywhere.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The last time I was "passionate" about a job, they called me argumentative and difficult to work with, and insisted that I need to be a "team player". Make up your fucking minds. Do you want me to care, to really care? Or do you want me to just shut up and do the job? Because you can't have both.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Yeah, I saw manager speak all over this guy:
Where I work, there are no grunts. There are no people who mindlessly grind out code. We're not building yet another website: We're solving hard problems, and we want everyone to contribute
"If you call a day off work you better put it back either by extended hours for the rest of the week or throw in one of your weekend days. I don't care about your allotted sick or vacation days. You owe me work"
To contribute with value, you need to not stagnate in one technology for half your career. You need to be well-read about software.
"You better spend your offtime studying everything you don't do at work"
And while we work very few weekends, sometimes there are longer days (like anywhere).
"We work a 60 hour a week minimum and if that isn't enough to get done what I threw on you at the last minute, kiss your weekend goodbye"
The salaries are on the low-end of competitive.
"We pay dirt. If you don't like it, we can replace you with 3 indians"
However, there is a point at which more money no longer truly motivates me, and I passed that years ago
"I have plenty of money in the bank, I've paid for my kids college, own my house and two luxury cars. We aren't going to pay you more, so we will twist this into a debate about morals"
I could go on and on, but I've seen this guy too many times. The only people he is fooling is his employees.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson