> The other thing with great programmers is that if you don’t give us a sufficiently interesting problem to work on, we’ll often go and invent our own (whether

> The other thing with great programmers is that if you don’t give us a sufficiently interesting problem to work on, we’ll often go and invent our own (whether consciously or not). > That might be a plus for someone like Google, or sometimes for some kinds of start-ups, but not so much for some more pedestrian smaller businesses. If you actually like programming (as oppose to pursuing it for the money), you should only seek to work at places where you, as a technologist within your particular field will make a difference. Problem is that it's tricky to tell such places apart from the rest. Everyone calls themselves a "technology company". Mission of the company isn't a good heuristic: there are e-commerce retailers that are run like "IT shops" and there is Amazon (a true technology company). Nonetheless, from this message I can tell that something is different here and better here: http://groups.google.com/group/mi.jobs/msg/d81b6c1fa8f361fc?pli=1 http://groups.google.com/group/mi.jobs/msg/d81b6c1fa8f361fc?... In most other cases it isn't so clear; you have to read between the lines. Job descriptions only asking for years of experience with specific technologies, non-technical interview questions or interview questions that only involve language syntax and APIs but don't touch on algorithms and data-structures, inflexible working hours, mandated technology stacks (with no exceptions for new projects or experimental code) are a way for an employer to signal "hackers not wanted". Fortunately these are very easy to spot and avoid, but I've been surprised when people (who have other options) choose to work at companies that require them in their seat at 8:30 and clearly under-use their talent. On the other hand, I am afraid excessive commitment to methodology (e.g., daily stand-ups, inability to write any code without meetings + permission of the "scrum master" + index cards, pair programming, mandated test coverage percentages and "always write tests first") is another such sign, but unfortunately I am in minority.