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I think that's a bit outside of the topic, because we're now discussing a case of "only passion, 0 knowledge" which was not the point. The author of the article

I think that's a bit outside of the topic, because we're now discussing a case of "only passion, 0 knowledge" which was not the point. The author of the article thinks that not looking at the bigger picture (or the upper "decision level" if you will) is inherently wrong. My point is that enjoying the process and not caring about the product is more than enough realistically. So assume a worker that perfectly knows and likes their job, but doesn't care about the process "above" him. If you enjoy the process of tiling and you have some experience with tiling, you don't have to care about what kind of building/room you are working on. Somebody designed the room, somebody picked the right materials, somebody probably bought them and it's in the spec/design. You can just "tile away" and make a career out of it. Similarly in software, if you care only about programming and languages and whatnot and not the product - it's all you need with the right team/org. You won't be a product owner and you wont advance to "decision-making" levels in the company, but if you don't want to why would you need to.

aynyc 4y ago
I can't really agree to what you are describing, despite the fact that certain parts of my career, I fit your description perfectly. The issue I have with is the statement of "make a career out of it". I don't think you can, at least not in the software industry, a lot of folks are perfectly competent developers but can't move forward and eventually get replaced by younger/cheaper developers because they are basically doing the same thing for the past 10 years. I agree with having passions for something, but making a career out of it is a lot harder if you don't do the "extra".
- amonith 4y ago
  > a lot of folks are perfectly competent developers but can't move forward and eventually get replaced by younger/cheaper developers because they are basically doing the same thing for the past 10 years I'd argue that they are replaced (if they are, because I'm not sure, there are not a lot of old folk because IT industry is pretty young, I already worked with a few 50+ mid devs and the pay is kinda reverse, because old folk already have homes and don't need to pay off huge mortgages) not because they didn't get promoted (mid dev -> product owner / domain expert) but because they stopped upgrading the skills relevant to their current job. So in terms of the example presented by the author it would be developers that are no longer even hyped about languages/tools. And in our imaginary "tiling specialist" it would be a guy that didn't care that the current fad is some kind of funky pattern + new material of tiles and still wanted to lay old ceramic square tiles for his entire life. I'm still not convinced that there is a scenario where you __have to__ care about "the domain" / "the problem being solved" / "the bigger picture" that much. You can, it will improve some aspects of your career, but you don't have to and it would degrade other aspects of said career (we all have about 16h max productive hours daily, and I'm being generous).

aynyc 4y ago

I can't really agree to what you are describing, despite the fact that certain parts of my career, I fit your description perfectly. The issue I have with is the statement of "make a career out of it". I don't think you can, at least not in the software industry, a lot of folks are perfectly competent developers but can't move forward and eventually get replaced by younger/cheaper developers because they are basically doing the same thing for the past 10 years. I agree with having passions for something, but making a career out of it is a lot harder if you don't do the "extra".

amonith 4y ago
> a lot of folks are perfectly competent developers but can't move forward and eventually get replaced by younger/cheaper developers because they are basically doing the same thing for the past 10 years I'd argue that they are replaced (if they are, because I'm not sure, there are not a lot of old folk because IT industry is pretty young, I already worked with a few 50+ mid devs and the pay is kinda reverse, because old folk already have homes and don't need to pay off huge mortgages) not because they didn't get promoted (mid dev -> product owner / domain expert) but because they stopped upgrading the skills relevant to their current job. So in terms of the example presented by the author it would be developers that are no longer even hyped about languages/tools. And in our imaginary "tiling specialist" it would be a guy that didn't care that the current fad is some kind of funky pattern + new material of tiles and still wanted to lay old ceramic square tiles for his entire life. I'm still not convinced that there is a scenario where you __have to__ care about "the domain" / "the problem being solved" / "the bigger picture" that much. You can, it will improve some aspects of your career, but you don't have to and it would degrade other aspects of said career (we all have about 16h max productive hours daily, and I'm being generous).