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?"

Comments

Dreaming of code?

[JLennox]

I don't get this psudo-nerd bragging right. I've worked jobs I hated and had dreams about them, too.

Re:Dreaming of code?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what makes workers happy and proud to work for your company and chant its slogans? Bonuses, good salaries, good benefits, reasonable metrics, pizza during long meetings and seminars, holiday parties; you know, all that shit that costs a few extra pennies that most corporations don't want to spend.

More likely is that corporations you're working for are pissing on your head and telling you its raining.

-- Ethanol-fueled

Re:Dreaming of code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that's (proven) not true. Money only works up to a (surprisingly low) point. Beyond that, what matters is that they enjoy what they're doing, and think they're making something worth selling. Investment in the product is what matters really.

Re:Dreaming of code?

[mbkennel]

| Actually, that's (proven) not true. Money only works up to a (surprisingly low) point

I've heard a CEO say exactly this in response to questions from an employee about bonuses and stock compensation.

Notably, it didn't seem to apply to him, when applied in much much larger quantity.

Re:Dreaming of code?

[fishybell]

Much worse: getting to work in the morning and the realizing you hadn't actually made the change to the code you dreamed about.

My biggest indicator I'm getting too stressed at work: all my dreams are in code. Not just me dreaming of sitting at a desk coding, but the actual visuals are of Vim and nothing else.

Re:Dreaming of code?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Actually, that's (proven) not true. Money only works up to a (surprisingly low) point.

Yes. Moreover, it's one of those issues that tends to be either neutral or bad: being perceived as underpaying is a big black mark, but being perceived as paying the going rate is just average and doesn't earn extra credit. On top of that, it's a relative measure, as employees are comparing with their peers at their current job and with what they could achieve elsewhere if they switched jobs, not with some absolute scale where paying $X is stingy but $Y is fair.

For a typical software developer, paying at or slightly above an honest market rate will go a long way to attracting and retaining decent people. It's a job, and they want to pay the rent/mortgage, look after their kids, take the family on holiday, and so on. Once they can do that, bonuses and profit share schemes and stock options and the like are all generally welcome, but sometimes it's more because they recognise the contribution the employee has made and the value of their work than because of any particular amount of money involved.

It seems strange, but it's often just as important or even more so that employees receive genuine compliments from peers and managers when they deserve them. Yes, they're just doing their job, but they're doing it well and no-one likes to feel their hard work is taken for granted. An honest appraisal that recent performance was good, or a sincere offer of support if some things need working on, goes a long way.

Even dumb stuff like a "meaningless" job title bump so it's the same as others in the industry with similar skills and ability can make a difference. I once worked with someone who only had a few years of experience out of university but who was smarter and more productive than average, and he left a role that was otherwise OK just because this didn't happen. The employer's HR department had a strict system where effectively your job title was tied to years of experience with very little flexibility. The developer was worried that his CV was starting to look underpowered if he wanted to move on later, because he still didn't have "Senior" in front of his job title when in most places he would have by then. He jumped ship for little more than a bumped title, and the previous employer lost one of the smartest guys I've ever worked with because HR's computer said no. Coming back to the original point, I think he actually took a slight pay cut to make the jump, too, which puts the money vs. recognition thing in perspective.

Re:Dreaming of code?

[easyTree]

I see a lot of job ads and 'enjoy' deciphering recruiter-speak.

For instance "Excellent Opportunity" invariably means "shitty pay - the only way is up."

Re:Dreaming of code?

[TangoMargarine]

me dreaming of sitting at a desk coding, but the actual visuals are of Vim and nothing else.

Ah, so obviously it was a nightmare ;)

Re:Dreaming of code?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the grandparent was refering to the TED talk that research showed that money is only a motivating factor up to a point. After that, motivation comes from other sources like mastery of a subject.

Here's the entertaining RSA Animate version of the TED talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Re:Dreaming of code?

[Half-pint HAL]

You think it's bad when you're asleep? I'm one of those people who sometimes gets my dream-state overlapping with my waking. I remember waking up when I was in the middle of cramming for an Artificial Intelligence exam, and I found myself trying to "instantiate" sitting up and getting out of bed. (Goddamned Prolog!)

Re:Dreaming of code?

[JustOK]

I'm from Japanon, you insensitive claude

Re:Dreaming of code?

[Stormy Dragon]

I think the most scary thing is that I've been out of college for almost 15 years now and I'm still regularly having the "it's finals week and you just realized you were signed up for a class you haven't been to all semester" nightmare.

Re:Dreaming of code?

[curunir]

It seems strange, but it's often just as important or even more so that employees receive genuine compliments from peers and managers when they deserve them

Yep. I work for a Fortune 100 company and one of the surprises when I moved to management was that the budget for salaries is actually 110% of what developers think it is (i.e. if you added up all the salaries that developers think they make, there would be an extra 10% left in the budget.) That last 10% is intended for managers to dole out as awards, which can be taken either as bonus pay or in grossed up gift cards. It was explained to me that the company found that employees were happier making the same overall amount when a portion of the pay was doled out for something they did well. That attachment to a job well done made the pay more meaningful to them than it would have been had it simply been added into their paycheck. And the encouragement to take the money as a gift card also helped associate the company with the spending of discretionary money, which is something that people find pleasurable.

The whole thing was an interesting look into how HR departments are using psychological research to help retain valuable employees. I'm still not sure exactly how I feel about it...on the one hand, it's deceitful that this is being done without employees realizing it. On the other hand, it's making them more happy in their jobs. It's almost like a doctor prescribing a placebo pill...if the patient gets better, does it really matter that it's actually due to a psychological phenomenon?

Re:Dreaming of code?

[GodfatherofSoul]

Friend, that is SO not true. Money has an interesting effect on people. The more you have the more you want. When I was in my 20s, I figured out that to have all I wanted in life I could do with $25K a year. Then I got my first job and "a car that just runs" wasn't enough. Now, I wanted a nice looking car with 4 doors. And, I wanted an apartment in a better part of town. Get another raise? Now, I want a motorcycle, too. And, I want a house. And, that shiny bow I wanted as a kid. Get another raise? Now I want really nice house and a luxury car.

I know I'm not an anomaly. Your tastes evolve especially after you've had a bite of the apple. And, even with $50K+ a year, after taxes that's still works out to $1000+ a paycheck.

Re:Dreaming of code?

[rk]

20 years this May. I still have that dream. I don't think it ever goes away.

Re:Dreaming of code?

[gnasher719]

I've heard a CEO say exactly this in response to questions from an employee about bonuses and stock compensation.

He should realise that money isn't what motivates a developer to do good work. But money is what motivates a good developer to work for _his_ company and not the competitor.

Re:Dreaming of code?

[Mike Buddha]

I've taken interesting jobs that don't pay well in the past (ie not the going rate) and even though I've enjoyed those jobs, I find that eventually I will become resentful. I don't want to, but when you see other people in the same market making substantially more than you it's hard not to. Nowadays, I look at the salary surveys and ask for the median for the position and experience. No more, no less, and I explain to the interviewer this is why I'm asking what I'm asking. So far, this approach has been received positively by interviewers and hasn't seemed to lose any job offers for me.

Re:Dreaming of code?

[KingOfBLASH]

Well, sort of.

I once had a job that paid twice what I make in my current job. It was so horrible (I was on call 24 hours a day) I referred to it as "selling my soul" when people asked me what I did. I got the big raise because I told them I was quitting, and I literally was the only one who could (or would) do the work.

I ended up quitting and finding a job with more reasonable hours that let me come home and actually be happy.

Money is a funny thing.

If you make too little of it, you'll be unhappy. Even if the job is nice, if you are underpaid enough, you'll be miserable.

But, on the flip side, just throwing money at people will not make them happy. If my old boss had addressed some of the quality of life issues like getting called on to do work at midnight on a friday night, I might have enjoyed the job and stayed. There was no real reason I needed to field calls at midnight except upper management in a different time zone wanted to be able to wait until the end of their day to give me a call.

Re:Dreaming of code?

[Khashishi]

Is that like Maslow's hierarchy of greed?

Re:Dreaming of code?

[ranton]

The difference between $100,000 a year and $200,000 a year isn't really that much, particuarly when you consider how much disappears in tax.

To quote another poster, that is SO not true. But not because of keeping up with the Joneses, or greed, but because there is a very apparent difference between $100k and $200k.

It is the difference between being able to have an upper middle class lifestyle with a single breadwinner, or needing two earners. It is the difference between good schools, and the great schools where half of your kid's friends are going to Ivy league schools. It is the difference between still making sacrifices in your budget, and simply having everything that a middle class person would want (two weeks of traveling per year, a new car every five years, a 3500+ sq ft house, saving $100k per kid for college, etc). Someone with a $100k salary can still get any of the things I mentioned, but someone with $200k can get it without sacrificing any of the others.

As someone with a family income in between these two figures, I can tell you that every extra $10k per year makes a pretty big difference in our budget.

Re:Dreaming of code?

[GodfatherofSoul]

And my point is everyone's "aspirations run higher than [their] net worth." You like hiking? Fine, the local park is cool when you make $30K a year. Get a raise to $60 and now the park looks boring. Now you want to take a trip to hike in Colorado. You get a raise to $100K? Even better, now you can take that trip to the Amazon you always wanted to hike the rain forest. You make $200K+, well now you travel the world hiking in all sorts of remote and exotic locations!

This is HOW materialism gets you. It's not just about shiny baubles, champagne and Bentleys like some hip hop mogul.

What about me?

[xevioso]

I'm 40. I love what I do, I love building websites and I love doing front-end development. Do I live and breathe it? No. I go to work, work on great sites, and then go home for the day and enjoy my evening doing non-coding things.

Re:What about me?

[lgw]

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.

Re:What about me?

[Minwee]

I'm 40 --

Thank you, we've heard enough. Next applicant please.

Re:What about me?

[datavirtue]

This is major bullshit. I bought into that /. ageism paranoia until I got on my first dev team (I used to be in infrastructure...yuck)...most of the people are over 40...just had a guy retire from the dev team. This is at a very young, small company with high dev standards.

Re:What about me?

[JoeMerchant]

Depends on where you go, I've seen age-ism cut all four ways, for and against me, in my 20s and in my 40s.

Re:What about me?

[FatLittleMonkey]

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.

Re:What about me?

[Opportunist]

This. A billion times THIS.

Am I enthusiastic about code? Well, I can be. If, and only if, the code is interesting and the project feels like it's a good investment of my time. Doing jobs that have a good chance to result in awesome accomplishments or in something where you can with pride point to and say "I built that" sure makes it easy to be enthusiastic.

But jobs where you simply KNOW halfway through that it will never see the light of the day and is just not being abandoned because some bigwig's nephew is getting a cut from it or because some big shot's job hangs on its existence and he just wants to ride it for as long as he can, it's not easy to be enthusiastic and passionate about it.

So if you want me to be passionate about my work, gimme a reason to be!

Re:What about me?

[Sperbels]

They want you to care...and obey. Basically, you should love doing what your betters order you to do.

Re:What about me?

[Darinbob]

The problem is that the vast majority of programming jobs don't do a lot of programming. Most of it is bug fixing obscure stuff written by someone no longer at the company, documenting it all, coordinating with testers, lots and lots of meetings, etc. It is relatively rare to just sit down and start coding. When I work on my own private projects at home then that's fun, when it's at work it is sometimes only one day a month. There are things I'd love to do at work but I can't because those activities aren't a priority, don't earn revenue, doesn't solve a problem that needs fixing, etc.

It's really hard to have passion when the code you are working on is not a topic you are really passionate about. When I worked on business software I was bored. When I worked on medical devices though I loved it. When I worked on Windows I was bored and frustrated. When I worked on an embedded system I was interested.

As far as what companies what, passion should not be it. They generally want fast coders, lots of checkins (even checkins to fix checkins, since that makes you artificually seem productive), and working on high profile fixes and features. Whereas the person who wants to create good code with high quality often seems like the unproductive person in the team. Companies also seem to think "passion" means so caught up in your work that you're still there at 10pm because you lost track of time, then go home and ignore the family so you can keep working to 2am.

Re:What about me?

[Salgat]

Hiring older folk is awesome because you know they aint ever leaving because who else would hire their old ass? (in all seriousness, older folk do tend to stay with the company longer, which is an enormous benefit)

Re:What about me?

[Darinbob]

I love being a cog in the machine!

Re:What about me?

[technomom]

Bwahahahaha!

Not so much. Got my best job offers at 45 and 48, took 'em both! There are a lot of companies that pay big money for experienced programmers, especially ones that can point to actual products they had a hand in.

But if it makes you feel better to believe that, go ahead.

Re:What about me?

[Dodgy G33za]

That's only because perception of time changes as you age. They think that they have only been there for a few days and bang, retirement hits them.

Re:What about me?

[zenasprime]

I don't care if someone acts like a "cunt" or is "argumentative" if they make valid points and can get me to stop being a stubborn idiot who's going to screw shit up. I'd rather that the job got done right, despite my own fail-able self. Fight me when I'm wrong or I don't want you on my team.

Re:What about me?

[Cederic]

There's, "you fuckwit, you've totally cocked that up" and there's "there are better ways to do that, would you like me to show you?"

I want teams that have strong enough relationships to do both of those without being argumentative or acting like a cunt. Building relationships, establishing credibility and demonstrating trust are all important and have fuck all to do with whether you're right or not.

Re:What about me?

[FatLittleMonkey]

Passion doesn't excuse acting like a cunt.

It's amazing how people have projected project so much onto my comment.

It's possible to be passionate with being argumentative

I disagree. "Passion" isn't just the positive, it's also the negative. A "passionate relationship", for example, isn't just wild sex, it's also the wild arguments. Passion is about strong emotions. Good and bad.

A good manager knows how to steer passion into creativity. A bad manager doesn't, and usually ends up surrounded by passionless drones who do what they are told, no matter how stupid/wasteful/pointless, and allow bad decisions to play out to disaster.

I've watched, from outside, as a good manager steered an angry staffer into first ranting with the manager about the problem (by showing them the actual reason for the stupid/wasteful process), and then the rant culminating in the staffer solving the problem. Suddenly, "I can't believe they are so stupid! Why don't they just... [solution]?!" The rant was part of them sorting through what they knew, letting intuition and creativity play while their consciousness was distracted by the rant. And then the staffer designed the whole new system that afternoon, happily working away like a madman (passionately, you might say; the workplace equivalent of make-up sex.)

I'm guessing Zenasprime is that type of person, able to work with passionate people. You, perhaps, are not.

The eight hour workday is too short

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:The eight hour workday is too short

[Coffeesloth]

I wish I could moderate your comment up. I work for a company that doesn't officially have this policy but sometimes at the lower management levels this seems to be the mentality.

Re:The eight hour workday is too short

[tompaulco]

Are the Accounts Payable people passionate about writing checks? Are the secretaries passionate about answering the phone? Are the Helpdesk people passionate about resettiing passwords? If so, then I guess they should required the programmers to be passionate about programming.

Re:The eight hour workday is too short

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, pretty much. The lowly geek caste should be grateful, that his most excellent MBA owners have seen fit to let him slave away for 60 hours a week to earn a crust of bread. After all, that's all they really want to do, if they wanted wealth, influence, or respect they would have opted for a more respect-worthy career.

Re:The eight hour workday is too short

[Cederic]

Exactly. Making the passionate programmers passionate about the company is usually easy: give them a direct way to see how the code they're writing benefits the external customers, the internal users, the shareholders, the people around them.

Happy people are very good at keeping themselves happy, so you just need to keep the bullshit out of their way and make it easy for them to share their joy.

Strong and Barely Controllable Emotion

[SirLurksAlot]

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.

I feel you.

[Rinikusu]

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.

Re:I feel you.

[rlwhite]

These ads make me feel this way too. To me, leaving coding at my job and doing other things in my off time is very important to avoid burn-out. Pursuing something else I'm passionate about is refreshing, and being knowledgeable in other subjects should further a programmer's career because programming is ultimately about codifying knowledge. This career field is fundamentally cross-disciplinary.

Re:I feel you.

[jythie]

Even to other developers, when I was job hunting a significant number of them held up hobby programming as a metric for how good a fit you would be. If were not involved in your own projects it was a sign that you didn't care or would not keep up with new trends or otherwise just not be 'enthusiastic'. Non-programming hobbies were sometimes acceptable, but only if they were robotics or something just barely one-off.

Re:I feel you.

[JoeMerchant]

Some jobs maybe not, but experience from my outside interests have proven highly valuable to my "day job" on many occasions, and has also helped me land new jobs on occasion.

If you're 19 years old and didn't start coding until you were 17, sure - live, breathe, sleep and dream code - you need to to get up to speed. If you like that lifestyle, I think EA is still running their revolving door....

Maybe they have a problem

[cold fjord]

People will do things for love that they won't for money, including endure abuse, or attempt the impossible.

Re:Maybe they have a problem

[cold fjord]

Nothing new there, it was known to the ancients.

“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. -- John 15:13

Re:Maybe they have a problem

[Khashishi]

People will do other things for money they won't do for love.

Well You Know...

[TemperedAlchemist]

What management actually means by, "We want people who are passionate!" means that they live in a fantasy world where truly passionate people will come work for them for meager pay, lousy benefits, and an average work environment. It's the ultimate delusion of entitlement. Because why should talented people settle for them?

There is good management. But most of the time you see poor management who blame their own inadequate and incompetent leadership abilities on their employees. Many seem to look at subordinates as nothing more than a monkey there to churn out code -- like it's such an inconvenience that they have to deal with actual humans who have like, squishy innards that need nourishment and rest.

Add it to the list...
"Fast paced work environment!" We're understaffed.
"Opportunity for advancement." We have a high turnover rate.
"Flexible hours!" You'll never be able to predict the next week's schedule.

Re:Well You Know...

[RobinH]

"Fast paced work environment!" actually means that we change our specs a lot, even up to the hour before delivery, and we don't want you to complain because we're "fast paced"! :)

Re:Well You Know...

[tompaulco]

At my office it is "We're okay with you coming in late so long as you put in 12 hrs each day and show up no later than 8 and leave no earlier than 6."
Seriously, you get no leniency whatsoever if you were up until 4 in the morning working on an unreasonable deadline. If you are not in first thing the next morning, you get a talking to. I've gotten in trouble for not resolving an issue within an hour when it was sent by e-mail at 6 in the morning. I can't leave my phone next to my bed because the binging and bonging goes on all night long. I can't tell the difference between a production down e-mail and one saying my expense report status has changed, so I am supposed to look at my phone every 15 minutes all night long whenever it dings at me.

Re:Well You Know...

[rk]

Get thee hence to a new job, for verily thy current job sucketh in abundance.

Always looking for passionate programmers

[Dracolytch]

So, when managing, I'm always looking for passionate developers. Here's why:

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. To contribute with value, you need to not stagnate in one technology for half your career. You need to be well-read about software. And while we work very few weekends, sometimes there are longer days (like anywhere).

When I mean I'm looking for a passionate developer, I'm looking for someone who cares about their craft, not just someone who shows up to close bug tickets and collect a paycheck.

Re:Always looking for passionate programmers

[zenasprime]

Yeah but are you willing to pay for that level of commitment?

Re:Always looking for passionate programmers

[mrchaotica]

I'm always looking for passionate developers. Here's why: 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...

But that's what they all say, including the companies just building yet another website.

Not to mention, there are 10 "yet another website" companies for every 1 "solving hard problems" company, and even programmers who start out passionate lose that passion if they end up at one of the former.

Re:Always looking for passionate programmers

[Dracolytch]

I work for an academic non-profit, been there about a year. Happier here then I've been anywhere else in my career.

The salaries are on the low-end of competitive. However, there is a point at which more money no longer truly motivates me, and I passed that years ago. Now, there are other cultural things which do motivate me. They include:

I'm not the only person who's at the top of their game. It's nice to be able to really learn from others.
I get to go home on the evenings, and the weekends.
I can work from home when it's practical.
I don't have someone hawking over me.
I have a large amount of freedom to execute the work in a manner which makes sense to me (This is why people who care about their craft are important!)
I have interesting and very difficult problems to solve.
The problems I solve aren't just about lining someone's pockets with money. There's more purpose here.

There are lots of places that survive off of hiring mediocrity, and have controls/standards in place to help hedge that (Extensive code standards, technology restrictions, other bureaucratic controls). Some people are VERY comfortable with that level of constraint. In those kinds of places I have quickly grown frustrated and unhappy. Of course, those places that survive off of mediocrity ALSO think they want passionate developers... But very often they don't really, they just want people who will work super extra hard but not ask questions nor challenge the system. It's up to the candidate to distinguish between the two.

Re:Always looking for passionate programmers

[phantomfive]

This is true. I used to be like the guy above, who only wanted 'passionate' programmers. But then I met programmers who weren't passionate, but were still very good at what they did.

Now I look for programmers who are good at what they do. I would rather have the guy with a good work ethic who is committed to completing a task; not the guy who passionately writes a thousand lines of code, working into midnight, but gets disinterested when it comes time to debug (both real people I've met).

Basically you want someone who can do the job, that's all that matters. People who say they want passionate programmers say so because they think only passionate programmers can do the job. I used to be one of those people, but it is a sign of lack of life experience.

Re:Always looking for passionate programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for an academic non-profit...The salaries are on the low-end of competitive

So to answer the question: No. You are not willing to pay for talent, but expect it anyway.

Re:Always looking for passionate programmers

[SirGarlon]

This makes me realize another good retort: "Are you (the hiring manager) passionate about management?"

Are you always looking to drive the project to success? Do you know how to enable your team to meet expectations in a normal, 40-hour work week? Are you committed to professional development for your team members so they can chart their own courses for their careers? Do you consider offering average salary and benefits "not good enough?"

Or you really just asking for more from your people than you are willing to deliver yourself?

Re:Always looking for passionate programmers

[uncqual]

I think you nailed it.

Money is a great demotivater. You certainly can demotivate someone who is passionate about a job by underpaying them - even just a little bit of underpaying can be disastrous.

However, money is not a great motivator for people passionate about a trade or skill except, perhaps, in special circumstances where that trade or skill is money oriented (banking/finance for example). In fact, trying to motivate someone by significantly overpaying them can backfire because they may become fearful of losing their job and returning to "market rate" and having $50K less a year to spend/invest. In a field like software development, you don't want your employees to be too motivated to "keep their jobs", you want them to be very motivated to "do their jobs" well -- and sometimes that means telling the project manager that "Nope, we can't/shouldn't do X in time Y because if we try, it will suck" or telling their manager "The weekly Aggregated Project Control Summary Assessment Review Status Inventory Process is taking me two hours a week to complete and I think it's a complete waste of time - please explain why this is of benefit".

Most great developers I know would work for free if their modest needs were provided for and they could do what they love to do. Of course, what one developer loves is different than what the developer in the next office loves. It's the responsibility of management to figure that out and assign work/guide the project to best "exploit" (in a positive sense) the strengths/weaknesses and passions of each developer while also giving them assignments that allow them/urge them/require them to expand their scope and horizon -- esp. for less experienced developers who are more likely to benefit.

Re:Always looking for passionate programmers

[Dracolytch]

Look, if money is your focus, there are LOTS of companies willing to give you lots of money, and will give you a soul-crushing or brain-numbing job. I turned many of them down during my last job hunt.

Re:Always looking for passionate programmers

[TheRealMindChild]

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.

Re:Always looking for passionate programmers

[SirGarlon]

At one point my stepmother was interviewing for a new job and the interviewer stopped her and said, "Hey, wait a minute. You're interviewing *me!*"

To which she replied, without missing a beat, "Don't worry, you're doing fine."

Re:Always looking for passionate programmers

[Stormy Dragon]

You also missed that "Where I work, there are no grunts. There are no people who mindlessly grind out code." is code for "There is no technical career track here; once hired you will never get any sort of promotion."

Re:Always looking for passionate programmers

[Cederic]

Yeah, I think I've scared off a couple of hiring managers by quite clearly showing an interest in their own approach to the role.

It's important to me, I have to be able to work with these people. That means it's important that I know they're competent, and that they know that I expect them to do their job.

If you're thinking that I find it hard to find jobs, you're right. Always been happy with the jobs I've chosen though, so never regretted taking the time.

Re:Always looking for passionate programmers

[uncqual]

"Modest needs" includes those expenses associated with being married and having a rug rat or two and saving for retirement. Of course, sometimes a developer's spouse makes a lot more money so that can reduce the compensation level required to meet modest needs - perhaps down to zero. BTW, I'm in no way suggesting that developers should not seek pay above their modest needs or that employers should try to keep salaries down to a level just covering their developer's modest needs -- the market will decide if compensation is above or below a particular individual's modest needs.

However, most great developers I've worked with don't have extravagant needs and as long as those needs are met, they are likely to value the nature of the work more than salary (within reason of course).

Re:Always looking for passionate programmers

[Snorbert Xangox]

Sorry, but I disagree. I work for an academic employer (a supercomputing centre), and the environment that now exists in that workplace is much as Dracolytch spelled out in his second post. We really want to work alongside people who are prepared to think about more than the immediate next step in getting a problem to go away. I'm not a manager, and barring something drastic happening, I will not be in the foreseeable future, but I really value being able to work alongside people who, y'know, care about getting to the root of problems and fixing them in ways that help improve the lot of other staff and our user base. As for whether this is really "passionate", I'd prefer to say something like "thoughtful, considerate, productive and interested in learning."

But I strongly dispute that, in the sense Dracolytch seems to be using it, it means "enthusiastic to the point of being exploitable". We *did* see that sort of boundary violation in our organisation with one manager who was thankfully moved sideways to other responsibilities: key people were being poached from other teams and grossly overcommitted to an endless series of new projects, expected to take on way-out-of-hours problems on office hours pay, with absolutely no formal overtime or on-call provisions (how wonderful it was to receive a text from that manager at 12:30am offering me the root passwords to a storage service the manager wanted to see brought back online when the main admins were on leave, having previously been actively ignored and excluded from that part of the business by the same manager), and generally jerked around like marionettes in a hurricane as the manager pursued his strange agendas of trying to take on any data storage job that would bring in some bucks without any detailed capacity planning or workload modelling. People had to learn on the fly to get things running ASAP; testing was minimal, mistakes were made, and the resulting services were slow and unreliable. It was a very demoralizing time, and everyone was glad to finally see a manager appointed for operations who started planning, listening to his staff and concentrating on delivering a core set of reliable, well-managed services. Even so, everyone still needs to bring a decent level of enthusiasm for fixing problems, building well-engineered systems, looking at the bigger picture, and learning new things. Petaflop-scale HPC and storage is not a turnkey operation, and it's not advisable to kick back and coast along if you are planning to be around when the chickens come home to roost.

Be careful what you wish for

[tempest69]

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.

Re:Be careful what you wish for

[Akratist]

I completely agree with this. When I started at my current place, I was like "Hey, we can fix X, change Y, and implement Z," all of which would have slashed the time spent on maintenance. As a result, I got off on the wrong foot with my boss, who is conservative, almost cautious, about changing code. I understand his perspective, that they are happy with a system that works, and that incremental improvements are what people are used to and want here. One of the other guys I work with here is the same way as me, wanting to improve the app, but not being allowed to start making substantive changes. I understand my boss' position, and I don't actually have a problem with it, because it is what is expected of him and what suits the company. At the same time, it's not an environment I'm actually happy in, so it's just a matter of good and bad fits for each type of coder.

Build Mastery

[Anonymous Coward]

Mastery and Passion go together. Without Passion, Mastery will not result.

I've been writing code since the '60s. I'm still the best in any team I join. When I'm not, I refactor, relearn, rebuild, etc. my skills. Then I'm the best again.

This doesn't diminish the other dimensions, but this is where it's at. If you're not passionate, you won't think about it night and day, and you just won't reach that level of Mastery.

Nor will you gain the satisfaction from having done so.

I don't always code,

[schlachter]

...but when i do...i prefer to do it with passion.
stay passionate my friends.

Re:I don't always code,

[DoofusOfDeath]

You are the most interesting programmer in the world.

Re:I don't always code,

[pixelpusher220]

well that's a low bar ;-)

Much ado about nothing.

[wcrowe]

I think this is being read the wrong way. There is a huge demand (sometimes real, sometimes perceived) for coders out there. Companies feel like they need to attract coders who, in most cases, already have a job. A lot of these coders are in jobs that are not very challenging, and/or they have bosses who are like the PHB in Dilbert. Basically, a lot of coders are unhappy. Their jobs are tedious and they don't get recognition for doing good work. By using words like "passionate" employers are creating the illusion of a job that will be more challenging and exciting than whatever job the coder is currently in. In reality, businesses could care less whether you are "passionate" about coding or not, so long as you can get the job done and you are halfway competent they're okay. There's nothing really Orwellian about it. They're just trying to use language that will catch the attention of potential candidates.

It is code for WARNING: Dumbass Managers Ahead

[Anonymous Coward]

Managers and HR want only the best coders, they solve this by the following:
Taking 10+ random and duplicate hour long interviews of which the person must pass all with flying colors
Must be really good at puzzles, because programming is soo much about pulling novel tricks out your ass on the spot
"He" must fit in with our culture and be cool and hip
And lets not forget paying them:
Be willing to be paid in free fruit and soda or pay us to work here because we are an awesome fashion subscription next big thing and women buy anything
OR we are a post IPO social company with a 200 P/E ratio and we will give you a wheelbarrow full of our stock options
OR he must have wet dreams about coding elaborate medical billing systems, because oh yeah that is the boring shit we actually do

I think you over estimate non-engineers

[netsavior]

Anyone with any lick of coding ability is passionate about programming. This is equivalent to hiring an artist to draw logos and saying they must be passionate about art, of course they are, or they wouldn't be an artist.
Compare that to other "less creative" positions... The average call-center person is probably not passionate about call centering.
Consider this:

public String getSum(int numA, int num2) {
if (numA == num2)
{
return "" + numA*2;
}
return ""+(numA + num2);
}

If that was painful for you, congratulations... you are more passionate about programming than 99% of people are about their job.

Re:I think you over estimate non-engineers

[NewWorldDan]

And it's even more embarrassing when I realize that I'm the idiot that wrote it.

Re:I think you over estimate non-engineers

[rk]

Code review time! This function is not optimal. This is better:

public String getSum(int numA, int num2) {
    if (numA == num2)
    {
        return "" + numA << 1;
    }
    return ""+(numA + num2);
}

Much better, see? ;-)

What they're really after

[dkleinsc]

What they're saying they want is people who will happily be in the office 100 hours a week, plugging away and barely stopping to eat.

In other words, it's a red flag, and I'll pretty much reject out of hand a contact from a company that makes a big deal about it.

Depends on the job and person

[Akratist]

Truthfully, there are a lot of jobs which basically require a person to show up and write competent code according to decent instructions, then shut it down and go home for the day. There are some jobs which require a high, if not manic, level of commitment to the job, because it's difficult, the tech is hard to work with, the requirements or deadlines are insane, etc. A high-performing coder is going to get bored at a 9 to 5 maintenance job...while an average code is not going to be able to take on the latter kind of job, but will do fine at maintenance. I worked for several years at a place that was a start up with a lot of big dreams and long hours, then it basically folded and I took a job which is a 9 to 5 maintenance job. When I get out of here for the day, I go home and start coding for fun, while keeping an eye out for the next high-pressure, high-demand gig. I get bored in this kind of environment, and so do most of the people I used to work with at the start-up. It's just about the right person and job and not some latest buzzword or ideal about who a candidate should be.

Congrats at noticing code words

[k8to]

Corporate speak is full of nonsense code words use to mean things other than what they mean. Job postings are nearly the thickest.

"Need Passionate Self-Starter who is a rock-star team-player who wants to change the world!"

This stuff has been nonsense since before I was born.

The flip side of passion

[swm]

Most of the code that I see exhibits what I can only describe as a kind of aggressive indifference.
It's not just that they don't care.
They *totally* don't care.
And they're going to make sure you know it.
And suffer for it.

After a while, dealing with this stuff is just depressing.
Especially if you do care.

Application for telephon sanitizer position

[sinij]

I love sanitizing telephones. I dream of sanitizing telephones. I enjoy sanitizing telephones. I find high quality telephone sanatization deeply satisfying. I feel the same way about helping others sanitizing telephones so they can feel proud. Please hire me so I can buy food and shelter.

The message

[Spiked_Three]

I saw a big change happen in the industry, while I was briefly at Microsoft.

My manager, and Microsoft in general was more about delivering a positive message, as opposed to having a positive message to deliver.

The problem with that is, if you encourage everyone to do it, they eventually begin doing it even to the company and not just the customers.

"How is that new version of windows going?"

"It's going great!!"

And we all know now, it was terrible, horrible, full of in fighting, self promotion, bad decisions.

"How is that new web site that all America will use, and a presidency depends on?"

"It's going great!!"

See the pattern here?

You really want passionate developers? You are an idiot if you do. As a boss, I did not want surprises, and to me the worse thing in the world a company could do was sell something that was broke. Companies today do not seem to share that philosophy. Consumers tolerate crap and beg for more. So, I guess it really is not just the companies to blame.

Bolerplate requirement

[floobedy]

Perhaps this "passion" stuff is just standard bullshit which is not really expected.

A few jobs ago, I worked for a company which had a job opening. They posted an ad for the job, in which they described the ideal candidate as someone who was deeply "PASSIONATE" about their work. However the position itself was in accounting--specifically, in payroll. Obviously nobody is passionate about payroll. Nevertheless, they asked each interviewee if he was "passionate" about payroll, and each candidate answered that he was.

It's an art form

[Floyd-ATC]

If you want to paint a barn, you hire a painter. If you want to decorate the ceiling of a cathedral, you hire an artist who is passionate about her work. The painter will usually have more predictable working hours and make enough to support a family. The artist is the one who will be remembered :-)

Re:It's an art form

[Altus]

The artist is the one who will be remembered :-)

And will die alone and penniless in a ditch.

I love this article!

[bigsexyjoe]

I like coding. I don't love it. I have a wide variety of interests in my life, such as family, movies, reading about other topics.

I have met a very few coders who are really all code all the time. And you know what? I find them insufferable.

A person should be well rounded and have many interests.

I know where to find some passionate programers!

[XxtraLarGe]

Better hurry up while supplies last!

Passion is an overstatement ...

[perpenso]

Did you think that those personality surveys pushed by MBA's for gas station attendants wouldn't reach Engineering?

We did those at work and school and the programmers did fit into a couple of predictable buckets. It was fun to watch one manager say this test is wrong, my observations would put you into a different bucket.

This is not to say a person must be in one of the predictably buckets to do well at a particular job, just that there is something to these tests. Some people with certain dispositions find some jobs more attractive than others.

The problem is, being passionate about code, doesn't have anything to do with being able to code. Just how much you enjoy your profession (Without the added benefit of pay).

Passion is buzzwordish and an overstatement. However the better programmers that I have known over the decades have been those who have a genuine inherent interest in programming. They will read about software development, learn new languages and write some program on their own for nothing more than their own amusement or curiosity. Those who have never written any code outside of work or school tend not to be the better programmers. When someone uses "passionate" I interpret it as distinguishing the former from the later. Granted there may be time periods where those interested in programming may not have the free time to do so, like when they have a new child. However when free time and circumstances permit I've seen a little reading and coding creep back in.

That said, my first job out of college was to take a custom designed board for an embedded system that the hardware guys just got working and to write its firmware: a kernel, its drivers and software that would load and host a C-based application. I don't know if "passionate" would apply but as someone who likes assembly language and low level programming I was pretty damn excited and really enjoyed my day to day work an awful lot. I suppose a buzzword compliant manager could have described me as "passionate" although I would have sued different words.

Re:Passion is an overstatement ...

[icebike]

Everybody seems to think the maker for programmers revolves around game development or writing yet another version of some cockamamie scripting language. They look for people who can create the next Doom game engine, or re-write the current one to drive and assembly line or something.

Then they hire these people to keep an in-house accounting system running, or do maintenance on some software product that they sell, and (far less frequently) to design and build something totally new.

The guy reading every new text about programming and fiddling with every new programming language will sooner or later end up using YOUR project as a proving ground for HIS passion. Soon you have an maintainable mess, and he moves on to another job.

For most work in this industry (any software industry), pride of craftsmanship is worth a great deal more than passion.

I quite frankly don't care what he does on the weekends, and the fly fisherman will arrive back at work Monday morning more refreshed, and with fresh insights (there is a lot of time to think while waiting for fish to commit suicide). That vexing problem and that horribly complex chunk of code will end up being well handled and properly structured, simplified, before it is actually written, and documented, and tested, because the pride of authorship won't allow anything else.

Meanwhile the guy coding up his own game engine nights and weekends burns himself out, arrives with a fried brain, and your project suffers.

Not saying that a healthy interest in programming techniques and after hours involvement in coding projects are bad. Just that they aren't actually necessary for a long and successful career, and aren't always going to be all that helpful to the employer, and the employer should be looking for traits more suitable for the job at hand.

If that job involves new game development, or writing new code to drive your computerized plant automation system, you probably want an experimenter. If the job involves security issues you want the paranoid. If it involves inventory or money or scheduling or sales or bean counting you want the guy that writes the cleanest code.

One size doesn't fit all.

Re:Passion is an overstatement ...

[Megane]

Writing code for your own amusement without any purpose in mind is not a very logical way to spend your time.

Neither is sitting on a couch watching a bunch of grown men run around a field carrying and/or kicking a ball.

Re:Passion is an overstatement ...

[Quirkz]

The guy reading every new text about programming and fiddling with every new programming language will sooner or later end up using YOUR project as a proving ground for HIS passion.

One of the happy coincidences in my life occurred when I needed to build a classroom reservation and scheduling tool for a university at the same time I was building an in-game auction tool for an RPG. There was a surprising amount over overlap in the code between the two, juggling calendars, users making claims on entries, placing restictions, etc. Just doing my day job, I could learn things that I'd need to re-apply in the evening, and testing in the game gave me insights that funneled back into the code for the day job. It was very satisfying.

Re:Passion is an overstatement ...

[DuckDodgers]

I have two points along those lines:

1. Writing software isn't like pumping gas, cleaning hotel rooms, or driving a delivery van. Unless you are a world class genius, even a very slight amount of effort devoted to self-improvement means that you will be able to write cleaner, less error prone, easier to read, easier to maintain, more flexible code every year than you did the year before. If you have zero interest in writing software outside your day job, I can be confident the code quality I get from you today will be the exact same I get from you in five years, ten years, or twenty years and you will be exactly as competent to handle any given task then as you are now. In certain tasks that's fine with me - provided you only ever want salary increases to match inflation.

2. In my own career, I've found that the better I became at writing software, documenting it, designing it, writing tests for it, using source control, setting up development environments, etc.... the more I enjoyed it. I phoned it in at my job from age 24-30, and the only thing that made me improve was getting assigned tasks outside my comfort zone when no one else at the company was available to bail me out. Then in my early 30s, I had a little bit of enjoyment in what I do and started reading Slashdot and Lambda the Ultimate and so forth. Now in my late 30s, I love my work. I may be an awful developer relative to most of the software developer population, I can't judge that accurately. But I am certain my skill today is dramatically superior to what it was five years ago, and in turn that's well beyond where it was ten years ago. So when I see someone that works in this field but never willingly learns new things or discusses ideas beyond exactly what is required for work, I believe in most cases it means they're not skilled enough to enjoy it.

I am not asking anyone to make writing software their sole passion or give up nights and weekends to read on the topic or write code on side projects. I don't do that myself. I read about one non-work-related technology book a year, or take one Coursera class, and tackle a few little personal projects (e.g. setting up a Minecraft server on a VPS for my kids). That is barely a hundred or two hundred hours of work related to my career outside the day job, but the payoff is enormous.

Re:Free overtime

[Anonymous Coward]

You also don't have a life. Good luck trying to recapture your youth when you're a burnt out middle-aged husk.

I love what I do

[petes_PoV]

All of this stuff is merely emotional inflation. These days you can't just like something, you've got to love. Likewise, if something displeases you a little, you are said to hate it. Personally I find these extremes: black or white with no middle ground to be rather childish - like TV villains who are only bad, or heros who are only good. It might work in programmes where you only have 1 hour - or rather: 40 minutes + advertisements to introduce, flesh-out and conclude a story, but real people aren't like that and adopting TV-style dialog into real-life is misleading.

So to say you "love" programming is pointless. I'm sure people are drawn to some aspects of creating new software (though doing the documentation and the testing never seems to be those aspects) and occasionally actually like the feeling of creating something. But is that love? No of course it isn't. Love is (break out the violins) all-conquering, an emotion you would go to extreme lengths to preserve and protect.

If you really did "love" coding, you wouldn't have to be paid to do it. Maybe that's what employers are really looking for.

Re:I love what I do

[Darinbob]

I love programming, but that does not mean I love all programming or even like what I am programming for my job.
Look at it like art. One can be a lover of the arts, have gone to school to study art history, but then be bored and noncommital about a job creating greeting card images. Or you love literature but your job is writing technical publications.

Re:8 hours a day

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

A lawyer dies and goes to heaven (hey, it sometimes happens).
At the pearly gates, he's greeted by St. Peter and a huge heavenly choir, singing.
Lawyer says "What's with the big turnout?".
St. Peter says "We've had popes and saints and kings arrive here, but never someone who's 196 years old."
Lawyer says "What are you talking about? I'm 62."
St. Peter says "They must have added up your billing hours instead".

Companies aren't passionate about you...

[fahrbot-bot]

It's worth noting that regardless of how passionate you are about your work and job, your company will fire you in a hot second if it serves them best for even just the next minute.

I've been through that, almost 8 years ago.

[Slime-dogg]

I interviewed, scored well technically and got along with everyone in both interviews. I interested them. I didn't get the job. The reasoning? They wanted someone that spent their off-hours doing development work.

At the time, I was disappointed. They were doing interesting stuff, like streaming video over satellites using the .NET framework. I was a budding mid-level then. I would have been a cheap developer for them. I would have learned quite a bit as well. What I understand now, however, is that they probably wanted to know if they could overload me with work. They were likely looking for someone who was willing to work evenings and weekends, without the extra pay.

Looking back, I'm glad that I did not get hired. I value my free time, and I do not spend it in complete passionate pursuit of development. I read about stuff every now and then, and do some home projects, but I find that I'm far more useful at work when I haven't been focusing on the same stuff at home.

Not convinced I'd want "passionate" programmers

[QuietLagoon]

Passion is driven by emotion, not facts.

.
I'd want programmers that are driven to write quality software based upon factual reasons, not emotional ones.

In fact, the last thing I would want in a software engineering department is someone who is overly emotional.

passionate about programming, or the product?

[clovis]

Are (were) these people "passionate" about programming?

http://www.fastcompany.com/281...

I don't know; I wasn't there. I think they were passionate about how their product turned out, but passionate about writing code?

I've known people that were passionate about their "product". They were great to work with when they had a good idea and they got their way, and hell to work with when they had a bad idea, whether or not they got their way. Match one of those up with a boss that has no bs filter, and, well, now you're not having fun anymore.

Another thing about that sort of question. I do believe that a well-run company would look at the psych profiles to see if applicants (and existing workers) are a best fit for their kind of job. But from what little I know about industrial psychology, it is generally worse than useless to just openly ask people that kind of question with one exception. That exception is if the job requires a bs artist or sociopath such as sales.

Anecdote: The best programmer I ever knew was highly productive - one of those people who would sit motionless for 10 minutes and then write nearly perfect and documented code for hours as fast as anyone could type. I mean like 10-20 times as productive as the next best programmer in the shop.
This person would not work after five PM or Saturday except under greatest duress. (Why me? Make the slow people work late; maybe they can catch up.)
This person was a perfectionist about everything but passionate about coding? Oh hell no.

In my experience

[stox]

The fastest development comes from a group of motivated individuals who are almost all the same (ie. background, experience, language preference, o/s preference)

The most robust development comes from the most diverse teams.

Rarely does fast = robust, or vice versa.

Re:Its across the board...

[MichaelSmith]

When I was out of work recently I had to do dozens of IQ tests as a part of job applications. Eventually I got good enough at the tests to land a job. I must have a really impressive IQ now!

Send us your github handle

[bored]

The first time I saw that, I thought it was a cold idea.. It filters out the people who can't code and don't have little hobby projects to sharpen their skills.

Then I got thinking about it..

My git hub account has like 1 thing on it, my sourceforge has 3 or 4 abandoned projects (a couple with a fair number of downloads too). And I have dozens and dozens that never made it to the see if anyone else can use it stage.

What does that tell a potential employer? I can't finish projects? Well that isn't what happens at work, I do the fun stuff and I trudge through the boring parts of supporting and maintaining it too. That is why its work...

Now I have a family, and that seriously eats into the time I have for hobby projects (especially if I work 60 hours), leaving what? The time I'm at work? Unless your google working on a hobby project at work is a major NO NO.

So, really what are they getting from your github account? That your unemployed and have time to spend maintaining an open source project? That you don't have a family life, or instead of working 60 hours at your job you work 40 and spend 20 hours on a hobby project?

In the end, I'm betting most of the people who have large active projects on github that aren't their day jobs, don't actually make very good employees.

Re:touchy-feely HR people?

[mrchaotica]

On a related note, please stop calling every damn job title an "architect" or an "engineer." Engineers are people who have PE (or EIT) licenses.

"Sales engineers" are not engineers, they're salespeople. "Software engineers" are not engineers, they're programmers (or maybe "software developers," although that probably pisses off people looking for jobs in real estate). "Support Engineers" are not engineers, they're tech support clerks. "Test Engineers" are not engineers, they're QA.

I was looking at a job listing email for "Engineering/Architecture" and 22 out of the 24 listings were programming jobs (and one was for sales). This is fucking goddamn ridiculous!

Re:Its across the board...

[curunir]

The reason passion matters for developers is the speed at which our industry changes. For someone working if a field with fewer changes than ours, going to school and learning how to do the job can be enough. But for a developer, staying qualified for the job requires a commitment to continually better yourself. You have to read up on the newest technologies, trends and methodologies on an ongoing basis...and most employers aren't willing to have you do it during work.

This is why they're looking for people who passionately love developing. Those are the people that spend half their time away from work hacking on personal projects where they're free from any constraint around technology selection or architecture that might be imposed at work. What you're looking for is someone who views writing code as almost a form of play. That's what they mean by passionate...that intrinsic motivation that doesn't need to be cultivated, because companies are terrible at making employees grow their skills and even worse at monitoring those changes in employees....it's just simpler to screen for it in the interview process.

In the sushi world we have a word for passionate..

[p00kiethebear]

In the sushi world we have a word for passionate chefs... It's 'shokunin' You'll find in Japanese dictionaries that it's defined as 'artisan' but the connotation implies so much more. A shokunin comes to work and does the same task every religiously. Relentlessly trying to improve his technique. He cares only for perfection. Where other people see 'work' he sees 'duty.' He wipes his knife clean after every cut. When he cooks rice he removes or adds half a tablespoon of water at a time to ensure the amount of water is correct. He sharpens his eyes over years and carefully learns to identify and pull parasites from fresh fish, making them safe to eat. He cooks perfect folded eggs in a square pan never allowing it to burn at any place and ensuring each layer is evenly folded and cooked. He takes no breaks until the last customers is served. He works because, more than money, more than fun or pleasure, he desires to be better. Not only does he practice the physical techniques, he sees socializing with the customers over the counter as a skill to be practiced. His conduct and comportment do not waiver inside or outside of the restaurant (his temple) At my restaurant I may hire an average sushi chef to make rolls or to prepare fish in the back. But the person I hire for working behind the bar, unless he's my personal apprentice that has learned to work the way I had to, I would only hire a shokunin. When he works there he represents my business and my restaurant and I know he will outside of work in his daily life as well. Passion is important. But I would never pretend to say that passion was required for the easier and less formal jobs, some people just need a paycheck and as long as their work is good, I can respect that. The person who's responsible for putting a face to the company must be a master.

Just a little indulgence in curiosity or amusement

[perpenso]

Meanwhile the guy coding up his own game engine nights and weekends burns himself out, arrives with a fried brain, and your project suffers.

I am not referring to people who spend all their evenings and weekends on some personal project. I am referring to people who had used some of their spare time, when they had some, to read something development related or to do some coding.

Sometimes this was done precisely because their day to day work was insufficiently challenging. One guy I knew was working on a legacy project that was pure C. For fun he spent a little time learning smalltalk. He was also someone I occasionally went scuba diving with. We met at his house early one morning for a dive, double checked our gear and loaded it into his truck. Before driving to the beach we called a dive shop as soon as they opened. We learned that the conditions sucked. We unloaded our gear from his truck and I spent a couple of hours geeking out as he showed me some smalltalk. Different hobbies for different days and different moods.

When I refer to some after hours coding I am not referring to any great or grand projects. Just a little indulgence in curiosity or amusement.

I also think that the more challenging home project helped preserve this guy's morale at work. Made the less challenging day job more tolerable, his itch was getting scratched elsewhere.

Not saying that a healthy interest in programming techniques and after hours involvement in coding projects are bad. Just that they aren't actually necessary for a long and successful career

I'm not saying a complete lack of ever having had an after hours coding project is a career killer. I am just noting a correlation between the better programmers and those who on occasion when circumstances permitted had indulged an inherent interest in programming.

Re:In the sushi world we have a word for passionat

[Anonymous Coward]

Sushi chefs would have to relearn entire species every 5ish years and have to change their tools just as often if they were parallel to software development. Plus their chopping boards would be varying in real-time, as would the customers' orders.

That's what got me out of the industry.

If it takes 10000 hours to achieve mastery, you're looking at 3-5 years of full-time work. From 1980-1985, I went from "what's a computer, Dad?" to knowing everything that was going on under the hood of a PET/Apple/C64/6502-based machine. From then to 1990, I got to know the PC very well, but not down to the bare metal. From 1990-2000, it was Win on the side and Solaris/UNIX/Linux. Somewhere between 2000-2010 I noticed the rate of change was accelerating beyond my ability to keep up. The lifespan of stdio.h was measured in decades -- and although Java and Javascript have had similar lifespans, nobody codes down to that level. It's all framework-of-the-year, and nothing seems to have a lifespan longer than 2-3 years. Competency is easy, but before you've reached mastery, the technology you were trying to master has been deprecated before you get close.

My solution was unorthodox. I threw up my hands, quit the industry, and will slowly draw down my savings over the next 20-30 years to master a few things that interest me. I probably haven't even found those things yet, but for the first time in my life, I have all the time in the world.

Not a single company will profit a whit from whatever I end up mastering. That's their loss, not mine. I will put a bullet in my brain before I go back to working for a living.