No, those qualities you list in your second paragraph are orthogonal to passion. They are also good qualities to have. They can exist with passion in the same p

No, those qualities you list in your second paragraph are orthogonal to passion. They are also good qualities to have. They can exist with passion in the same person. They way you describe passion in your first paragraph approaches passion. What job ads mean, when they use the term passion, is that you will spend long hours and weekends slogging and slaving to get something delivered in half the time that it should have taken, something that will either ultimately be killed anyway by management or something done for a company that will kill itself while, ironically, it shaves away anything resembling passion from its employees. If you are passionate about programming, or anything, you should generally not work for a company clueless enough to use that word in a job ad, description or interview, because that word does not mean what they think it means. The only things that deserve passion are your family, and whatever grabs you in life. You don't have to be passionate about your job to be an asset to an employer. You just have to ship and be pleasant.