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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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,

[pixelpusher220]

well that's a low bar ;-)

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?

[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: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: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.