What if I told you that the reason you feel stuck in your developer career has nothing to do with your technical skills?
It has nothing to do with...
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There are 2 major problems with this post.
1. Seniority
While it is true that "experience" doesn't really contribute towards becoming a senior, it is, unfortunately, what companies use to try to measure, and there's a good reason behind it.
Companies tend to use experience (time in the job) as a measure of seniority because under normal circumstances, experience and knowledge/skills/expertise directly correlate: The more experience, the more skill.
However, this isn't always true, as talent is a real thing, whether or not people want to acknowledge its existence. Talented people require less experience to acquire the same amount of skill/expertise than the regular developers.
This brings me to the second problem.
2. Passion
To negate the fact that passion makes better programmers is the same as trying to eclipse the sun with one finger. Why? Passionate developers read and learn for entertainment. It is actually not a chore, not work, not a must, but a desire.
Second, passion leads to practice/experimentation, which is the same as "experience", which directly correlates to growth, as seen in the previous point. This means that passionate developers tend to increase their skills at a (much) faster rate than the average.
So is passion a myth? Not at all. It is a cold hard fact. Is it unfair to others not so passionate? Yes. Is it the passionate's fault? Hell, no. This is the real world, and if you don't like it you might be among the younger generation that were raised to think that anything is possible by just wanting it. It's not going to happen.
So if you are a not-so-passionate developer, or a not-so-talented developer that wants to compete for seniority, better positions and recognition, the reality is that you must work harder to accomplish the feats the passionate and the talented achieve more easily.
passion is a very effective career advancement strategy, particularly the image of passion, the more passionate you look the better you will do, virtue signalling + unpaid work all with the goal of establishing a reputation
I'm sorry to break it to you, but passion is entertainment. This is what passion-less people can't understand: Passionate people do it for fun. If they end up getting paid or promoted, is just a plus. Accept it or not, this the reality.
I cannot agree with you. When you do some work without passion, you must be a very sad person, and you should go do some other work that is more fitting for you because the current work probably is not for you.
Passion is not entertainment. It is an emotion that makes you happy during some activity, and then you do it faster than somebody without passion..
Passion can feel different to different people, but it generally is a good thing. Call it entertainment, call it happiness. How is this invalidating the argument? It feels good so you do it. Some would do it even if no money is involved (open source projects).
Well said, was thinking something close to this as I read. In fact I'd say the AI argument in this article is espousing retaining what I consider to be passion in the face of the rise of AI.
I think one thing to always remember is that you have to keep improving your skills. I know developers with YEARS of experience but they code like juniors because they never took the time to learn best practices and aren't willing to listen to others and try better ways to program. In my opinion, if you're the smartest person in the room you should find another room because you'll stop learning.
Thanks for this post! I'm just starting with frontend and when asking Seniors for advice regarding job and skills, most of them defaulted to years of experience. It was a boomer bc that wasn't really helpful, but now I understand why. Oh well, I'll just keep coding 😂
Cheers, mate.
_1. The myth of experience : _
I fell into the myth of experience at my previous job as well. For a long time I had been a freelancer and finally hired as a full time employee, and I fell into this myth because this was my first time working on a team. So naturally I wanted to show respect and also willingness at the same time. Long story short, the person that apparently had more experience than me knew less than me.
I don't know if this is the same world wide, but in Latin America, unfortunately it's more about how much you are liked in your current role, or basically who you know or if you had buddies that went with you to the same university.
I was basically the odd man out because I was with a group of people that held university titles while I am self taught, and also in a country that wasn't my home land. So I was basically the black sheep of the team, the most underpaid and most disrespected.
_2. The myth about passion : _
Yes, absolutely you need to have passion in what you do, all the way, otherwise you should have studied Business Administration if you really don't care.
But let me be clear about what type of passion. You must have passion in the work you do for yourself. The things that you create that change your life or personal projects that make you some type of income or revenue.
As a man who has spent several years making corporations millions of dollars, with my time and experience, and whose only compensation was about 10% of the total amount of revenue that those corporations made from my lines of code, no, I don't really feel "passionate" about that. Sorry.
And I'm pretty sure that the most experienced Software Engineers would agree, who can really feel passionate about working long hours and not being correctly compensated for your work?
You should consider the following for this article, and you don't have to agree with me, but I feel like it's worth mentioning.
For the people just starting out, don't make the same mistakes that I did. Don't just blindly accept an offer for the sake of getting into the industry.
Study the trends of your country and learn to understand your real value. Don't make the mistake of doing twice the work for half the pay, just because you want to change into another career.
And when you do finally get your first break, use it to learn as much as possible, because your first job won't be the only one you will ever have. And when you go out and look for another opportunity, you will be able to negotiate a better offer.
Omg, thanks for this post! 🙌🏼 Hahahah the myth of passion is the best! I laughed out loud.
You are welcome @alvesjessica
The AI part was well motivating and helping !!
Nice article. Thanks for sharing Dragos.
Great article
Great, Thanks for Sharing
Other ways to demystify the role of a developer:
In conclusion, embracing a balanced approach, recognizing the value of skills and experience, and viewing AI as a supportive tool rather than a replacement, pave the way for a nuanced understanding of the developer's role.
As always, these are very interesting conversations! ☺️
Great article!