You're not paid to write code; you're paid to provide business value. I once had an argument with a friend who had an indie game development company. He wanted

You're not paid to write code; you're paid to provide business value. I once had an argument with a friend who had an indie game development company. He wanted to develop games so he could make money. I wanted to develop games and make money off them. It's a very subtle difference that becomes clearer when you dig deeper: he would have (e.g.) made soap if he thought it was a better way to make money; I wouldn't, because for me the important part was "developing games". It's true that you're not paid to write code, but provide business value instead. Indeed, good programmers will try to write as little code as possible and if they can provide business value by removing code, so much the better. On the other hand, if you're reading the OP out of your own interest, you're most likely not being paid to provide business value by drawing pictures of stuff or assembling furniture or arguing in the court of law (to give some examples of activities), but instead you're being paid to provide business value by dealing with code. Yes, you need to market yourself in order to improve your career. Good marketing won't hurt and really bad marketing can hurt you badly. None of that means that you should disregard the fact that you are a programmer and that good programmers aren't an undifferentiated commodity that you can "outsource to India" without second thought. I agree that marketing yourself is important, but there are many -- perhaps too many? -- people telling kids that marketing is important and not enough people telling them that doing what makes you happy and becoming awesome at it "just because" is even more important. I'm just trying to help balance the scales ;)