I don't think most "corporate" programmers would consider themselves passionate. The nature of the work isn't something that passionate people would find fulfi

I don't think most "corporate" programmers would consider themselves passionate. The nature of the work isn't something that passionate people would find fulfilling. As such, I'd venture to say that the vast majority of programmers aren't passionate (or they used to be, but now see it as a job). The passionate ones are those who work on their own stuff. Either by figuring out how to monetize their passion projects, or working for Big Tech where you can get paid to continue your research. The passionate ones who don't future out how to work on their own projects are probably poor hires, since clearly they are missing some critical component to success in the industry. I would argue that this particular attitude is probably going to stagnate your career. > You can still be a quality developer even if: > You don't tweet, or read blogs, or spend your free time learning new frameworks and languages. The march of technology never stops. Either you: - get lucky and work in a sub-field that doesn't have much change year-to-year, so you can stay there indefinitely. - get lucky and work a job that offers enough flexibility that upskilling at work is possible. - don't get lucky and have to upskill in your free time. - slowly lose employment prospects. Those first and last points are kind of related. I've seen people work at a company for years, then those years turn to decades, and they realize that they have no marketable skills outside of their current role because they never needed to grow. Plus, if you don't stay abreast of technology trends, then the people you work with who do keep up will be the ones deciding the future technology of your company and you won't be in a position to gauge how good of a fit it will be or what your personal opinions of it are. I do as much upskilling at work as possible, but there's just not enough time in the day to do billable work, while staying relevant. Especially since products aren't simple anymore. Most new products you'll be introduced to as a dev are complicated enough to warrant some training time before using.