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No you don't. A competent software engineer can produce good work whether or not he/she believes in the project. Projects vary in their scope for making the wor

by cutler 5y ago

No you don't. A competent software engineer can produce good work whether or not he/she believes in the project. Projects vary in their scope for making the world a better place. In a capitalist econonmy many businesses are not required to produce a net benefit for anyone other than the shareholders. This kind of thinking comes from the same kindergarten view of life which espouses only working on what you feel passionate about. If we all did that there would be an immediate shortage of shelf-fillers and cleaners. The same applies to the tech industry where a siginifcant number of fintech projects, such as HFT, contribute nothing of any real value to society. Each time I hear some startup wonk claiming he gets excited about making a better todo app I just want to throw up. The startup world is full of trivia chasing investment dollars. I've made a point of telling interviewers that I don't believe in their product and that it shouldn't matter. I'm hired for my technical ability alone for which I have a track record of producing good work on projects in which I had no personal investment. Clarity of goals does matter. That can make or break a project but it has nothing to do with believing in the product.

musingsole 5y ago
You know it is entirely possible to be passionate about mortgage insurance market platforms. Or any [insert nominally boring task here]. If there is enough money to afford a developer for a problem, I'd argue it's a guarantee that it's possible for someone to be passionate about the problem space. So, if passionate problem solvers are available, what comes of not using them? Insufficient solutions. Keep telling yourself you make fine systems when you don't love the project. I bet you do. But the developer who actually cares will always produce something better. Add in that technology becomes entrenched, I'd argue we're always better working with no solution than to become attached to an inadequate one. Before you get hung up on "inadequate", I'll also throw out there that no spec is perfect and it is only the passionate who can properly fill it in. tl;dr projects completed by the jaded will only meet stated requirements. Projects completed by the passionate will define the actual problem in the course of solving it. Projects produced by the jaded should be discarded.
- cutler 5y ago
  It may be possible but is it likely? If you only have to hire one dev for the job you might get lucky but I'm talking about macro trends here. A lot of jobs to a lot of people are just plain boring. Life sucks. You say the developer who cares will always produce something better. Isn't that assuming parity of technical ability? Big assumption. You don't have to be jaded to not invest in the product personally. What's wrong with just doing a good job with professional detachment? Maybe it's more the case that projects/domains vary in their scope for passion and belief. A small team working in a startup is a different world than a Java team working in a large bank where corporate structure dominates.
tester756 5y ago
>A competent software engineer can produce good work whether or not he/she believes in the project. good? yea, maybe. can motivated employee do something better? more likely. If I'm working in exhausting/problematic business domain and salary is bad, then I'm not trying to outperform/save the day/yadayada unless I really see stuff that must be improved, but generally I'm just doing my stuff and go ahead. I don't like it, but sometimes there's boundary of how much you can mess with stuff that writing burns your hands.

by cutler 5y ago

musingsole 5y ago

You know it is entirely possible to be passionate about mortgage insurance market platforms. Or any [insert nominally boring task here]. If there is enough money to afford a developer for a problem, I'd argue it's a guarantee that it's possible for someone to be passionate about the problem space. So, if passionate problem solvers are available, what comes of not using them? Insufficient solutions. Keep telling yourself you make fine systems when you don't love the project. I bet you do. But the developer who actually cares will always produce something better. Add in that technology becomes entrenched, I'd argue we're always better working with no solution than to become attached to an inadequate one. Before you get hung up on "inadequate", I'll also throw out there that no spec is perfect and it is only the passionate who can properly fill it in. tl;dr projects completed by the jaded will only meet stated requirements. Projects completed by the passionate will define the actual problem in the course of solving it. Projects produced by the jaded should be discarded.

cutler 5y ago
It may be possible but is it likely? If you only have to hire one dev for the job you might get lucky but I'm talking about macro trends here. A lot of jobs to a lot of people are just plain boring. Life sucks. You say the developer who cares will always produce something better. Isn't that assuming parity of technical ability? Big assumption. You don't have to be jaded to not invest in the product personally. What's wrong with just doing a good job with professional detachment? Maybe it's more the case that projects/domains vary in their scope for passion and belief. A small team working in a startup is a different world than a Java team working in a large bank where corporate structure dominates.

tester756 5y ago

>A competent software engineer can produce good work whether or not he/she believes in the project. good? yea, maybe. can motivated employee do something better? more likely. If I'm working in exhausting/problematic business domain and salary is bad, then I'm not trying to outperform/save the day/yadayada unless I really see stuff that must be improved, but generally I'm just doing my stuff and go ahead. I don't like it, but sometimes there's boundary of how much you can mess with stuff that writing burns your hands.