I have definitely been "the nerdy guy" at pretty much every software job I have ever had. I get needlessly obsessed with the cool mathey parts of software and

I have definitely been "the nerdy guy" at pretty much every software job I have ever had. I get needlessly obsessed with the cool mathey parts of software and formal methods, and consistently people get extremely turned off by the idea that anyone in software actually does math. They took the job because it pays well and it beats working outside, not because of some dogmatic obsession with all the tech that powers everything. Obviously I'm not going to begrudge someone for doing a job for the paycheck, that's what we all do and you don't have to be obsessed with every aspect of your job to be decent at it, but it was definitely a wake-up call when I first started as a software engineer. My first job after dropping out of college was working on billing and management software for Martial Arts studios. When I first got the job I assumed everyone there was going to be as geeky as I was, and be obsessed with trying out new programming languages or editors or the newest flavor of Linux/FreeBSD I was installing on my laptop. Instead everyone was not interested at all; they were fine just having the pre-installed Eclipse IDE (this is before IntelliJ had pretty thoroughly consumed the market), running Microsoft Windows everywhere, and would go home and watch some form of sportsball. I didn't dislike my coworkers, they were perfectly decent humans and always nice to me, but it was a little disappointing, because there was a realization that I would never really "fit in" at my jobs in the traditional sense. As I've had a million different jobs at different companies, I've more or less learned that it's kind of alright if I'm forever the "weird guy", and I don't have to be "normal" to be respected and liked at a job, and I've become less disappointed in my coworkers as a result. Your job doesn't have to be your identity, programming isn't a religion, and it's ok if I'm the geekiest guy in the room.