There are developers with passion who have become bogged down in a job with passionless colleagues using old technologies who cannot bring themselves to leave. Many would consider it a form of madness to leave a job that pays the mortgage in the midst of what is basically a recession. So they try and satisfy their passion as best they can outside of work hours, and end up running themselves into the ground. no easy answers on this one because idealism does not pay the bills...

Anthony | August 23 2011 21:43

hey Andrew,

I'll start out by saying 'lets get this money thing out of the way' - I certainly wouldn't do this if I didn't feel I was being suitably rewarded for it - I'd either find another employer or I'd find another career.  I think money for me is one of the importants because I have a mortgage and now 3 kids and all of them seem to be good at haemorrhaging any money I have!

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, onto the agreement part

It's odd, about 7 years ago now I was made redundant from a role - I was (from a technical perspective) spot on for the role, and it wasn't like it had to be that role - it could have been any one of about 7 people - though at the time I was most expensive, and (more importantly) I'd gotten lazy - I used to do the core hours, I never really did anything away from the office, I never pushed to be above and beyond the others.  I was made redundant, and rightly so.  I panicked, and at that point thought 'I will never allow myself to be in this situation again'.

Within 2 weeks I'd secured another job, and my whole attitude had had the kick it needed - my passion was back, my desire to be better, my desire to deliver top quality product while being the absolute best I could be at my craft.  To start with it was hard, of course it was - it takes a great deal more effort (imo) to build up to be that sort of person than to maintain it.

7 years down the line, and I'm a senior dev/project lead (with occaisional nudges back towards team lead which I resist strongly!) - I love what I do - I love coding, I love architecting solutions, I love being part of the community, I love the fact that my peers see me as someone with knowledge.

I'd estimate this effort costs me probably 50hours per week (some weeks more) - that's including my day job - it's not a massive outlay.

Any why do I do it? well, of course I do it because I love what I do - that goes without saying.  Though if I'm ever in a redundancies situation again, I can pretty much bet I'll be one of the last to leave because of what I bring to my employer.


Great post fella - though I suspect those who actually arrive at this to read it are already part of the choir, not the group of people we wish to convert - shame really.

Terry Brown | August 24 2011 00:08

Very interesting post. I've often had similar thoughts myself. I've enjoyed software development for a long time, but I've only really considered myself passionate about it for the last 2-3 years. I used to be one of those 9 to 5ers, but that changed when I finally did 'raise my head above the parapet' as you put it. As soon as I did that I realised how much there was to learn and how little I actually knew. Since then I've been somewhat obsessed with learning as much as I possibly can, and you know what, I've found it makes me enjoy the job more! The extra work pays off, the more you put it, the more you get out.

Phil Hale | August 24 2011 02:01

Really interesting post Andrew. I think this extends beyond just developers and into all walks of life. You have people who are happy to do a 9 to 5 then go home and leave their work at the office. Sometimes this is justified by the saying - "I work to live not live to work". I feel sad whenever I hear this because it means someone is spending around 37 hours of their life every week doing something they don't enjoy or at the very least would rather spend doing something else.
I love developing, I love building things, creating something from nothing with only a suite of dev tools and the ideas in my head. It is even better when I get to share that with equally passionate people.

Aidan Garnish | August 24 2011 06:23

I'm going to come at this from a completely different perspective, that of a passionate 9 to 5 er.  Life isn't just about writing code and building apps, if like me you are doing this because you enjoy solving problems then there is plenty of things going on to take your intrest.  I think if we start saying now that the only good developer is one who comes into the office and then go's home and stays up studying, learning and potentially working; then what we end up with is very narrow life focused individuals.  I totally get that people enjoy what they are doing and really want to do more of it, but there is a world out there and it's worth experiencing.

I could quite happily work 60 hours a week, but you know what that would get in the way of my other big passion, scouting.  Scouting is something I am never going to be paid for so, should I just write that off to concentrate on being a really good developer.  Probably not as the experience of managing groups of volunteers and producing great activity programmes transfers to my working life as well.

In terms of training, yes I do believe work should pay or at least subsidise some of the cost, they after all get the direct benefit.  we get so little holiday which is time to mentally and physically refresh ourselves why waste it on working.

At the end of the day you can spend every waking hour perfecting your craft, being the best you can be; but if you burn out by 40 what use is that.  I'm passionate about what I do but I'm not prepared to miss out on the rest life offers.

Dave Lodwig | August 24 2011 09:47

Nice alternative perspective Dave. I think we may be in danger of confusing two different things - passion on the one hand and time/effort spent on the other. I agree with you that it isn't a prerequisite for being a good developer that every hour is spent perfecting your craft. I read 9-5er in this context as simply being short hand for the people who just turn up and take a pay cheque whilst putting in the minimum effort and clearly lack any passion or enthusiasm for what they do.

Aidan | August 24 2011 13:06

@Dave - really interesting point.  I would agree with Aidan on this one, and it's a discussion we've recently had at work because we mention that we're not a place where '9-5ers' will fit in - we've obviously realised the error in what we're saying because it's very much an attitude to your career more than the hours, and I think the two get muddied when the term is used.

9-5'er for me is (as Aidan puts it well) the guy who isn't driven, isn't interested in being the best they can be, and doesn't want to hone their craft.


From attending an awful lot of conferences, and talking to an awful lot of people, I think those with a passion who attempt to take these things forward are in the minority.  I had a very interesting conversation with a microsoft employee (I won't name names or job titles as he'd be too easily identifiable) about a year ago who'd been going out onto client sites, attending conferences, etc. for many many years.  We had a discussion about developer passion, and he very firmly was in the camp that nigh on 90% of the UK software development workforce were in this '9-5' attitude.  The people who cared, who pushed, who wanted to know more were such a small minority.

I'm lucky, my current place of work has a number of people who care about what they do and they are certainly in the majority, though in most other places I've worked the above has been true.

Terry Brown | August 24 2011 23:43

Hi Andrew, an interesting post that seems to be very relevant at the moment, if you expand the question to work in general not just in the IT profession, (and i may be showing my age a bit) but I seem to see an expectation from a younger generation that turning up for work warrants a good salary and some luxuries in life, regardless of there output or cost benefit to the company.I have always been thankful of the career i choose mainly for the reason that after 25 years I still expect to learn something new each day.

Graeme | September 8 2011 14:06

I agree with Andrews first comment. I think becoming a good developer takes real time and effort and often the rewards for all this effort is a below average salary and higher expectations from managers.  

Steve | September 9 2011 09:34

@Graeme - I don't see this as an age thing. I have worked with plenty of older people in the IT profession who are just turning up at work and taking their salary with no effort to stay current or learn new things. The idea of lazy entitled young person and lazy entitled older person are both stereotypes and I don't think they really help this discussion.

@Steve - I agree, definitely takes time and effort to be good, the same as anything I guess. Not sure about the below average salary though...if you are comparing with the national average and you work as a developer with a couple of years experience and are earning below that then you're "doing it wrong". As for high expectations they just push me to do better work...bring 'em on!

Aidan | September 10 2011 05:09

@Aidan - going to have to disagree with you here and again show my age! During a long period of affluence in this country (now at an end) people were expected to have a job. When I left university jobs weren't easy to find and if you had one you made sure you did it well. Maybe those times are coming back. Don't get me wrong there are a lot of skilled younger developers...but there are also a lot of developers. Having been through the recruitment process a couple of times over the last 6 months, you would be amazed at the standard of some people calling themselves developers. I think IT as a professional vocation is no longer the case. The skilled passionate people are still out there...just difficult to find or snapped up quickly!

Graeme | September 11 2011 11:49

Ooo - just stumbled back across this. I think you missed my point Graeme. I'm not saying that there aren't poor developers out there but I think you would find they are evenly distributed across the age groups.

Aidan | January 19 2012 00:42