I understand this point of view. Unfortunately, for those who entered computing out of a passion for it, it’s difficult to work for employers or managers where computing isn’t a passion. This leads to all sorts of practices that suck the joy out of programming (e.g., Leetcode, meetings, KPIs, PIPs, certain design decisions, etc.), reducing it to a corporate “monkey dance.” Maybe I have rose-colored glasses, or maybe I’m simply expecting too much from employment, but it seems to me that back in the 80s and 90s there was a lot more passion in the field compared to today. The pressure and the constraints are enough to make me want to change occupations at times away from computing and treat it as solely a hobby or as a side venture, except I can’t think of any other occupation that pays enough to live in America’s expensive cities that doesn’t require returning to graduate school and getting into five or six more figures of debt for a professional degree.

I think you're getting vloser to the root issue.

You can work with passionate people. You can work for a large corporate, for a huge paycheck and stock options. Pick one.

I work for a small company, and I make a great living, but it's a fraction of a fang salary, and there is no stock to option.

On the upside I'm responsible for my code base, I work on whatever I like, (which largely overlaps with customer needs since I like getting paid.) I rarely have a zoom meeting [1], I have in-person catch-up with colleagues once a month, usually at a restaurant over a meal.

The rest of the time we gave informal chat, we push the boundaries of the possible, we experiment, try out big ideas,and generally it's still enough fun to get me out I bed in the morning.

[1] I have a few corporate customers. They exist to remind me why I don't work for a corporate. We have a weekly zoom catchup meeting. Their two lead programmers go from meeting to meeting. Its hilarious and I mock them ceaselessly for it.

But they get paid a lot more than I do, and frankly they're welcome to it.

And clearly I'm not living in San Francisco ;)

> You can work with passionate people. You can work for a large corporate, for a huge paycheck and stock options. Pick one.

I’ve spent most of my decades in SWE in large organisations, working with passionate people. So you definitely can do that. There is no recipe that I can share with you other than to not stay in jobs that you don’t want if you don’t have too. Oh, and don’t be afraid to take a little pay cut, as long as you’re going from well paid to well paid. I don’t buy the fact that you can’t be passionate and still clock-out however. People with children should frankly always do this, at least until you can somehow involve your children in the joy of making the machine go boop. Anyone should clock-out really, if you’re doing work on your own time you’re doing work for free. I know this is an area where European and American mindsets tend to clash, but unless you really, really, really, really, love React then why on earth would you be fiddling with it on your own time? Anyway, I think it’s usually up to you to find a good place to work. It hasn’t been hard for me, and SWE being as in-demand as we are in my area has definitely helped, but you still need to make the moves when your current place becomes a bad fit.

That being said, I think it’s perfectly fine to find a nice well paid job and just work it and then live your life on the side. In my experience people who don’t really care about CS on their own time can be just as excellent as co-workers as people who nerd away.

Small companies are where the fun software work is for sure. That has been my secret sauce for a while.

It is the corporate environments and the entanglement of Business BS that ruins software work for me.

Leetcode is actually one of the things that makes me feel energized about programming... it's just the pure problem-solving part without logging, legacy software constraints, tedious debates about code styling, and the other lame parts of the job.

Definitely worth checking out ICPC problems if you like Leetcode. IPSC is another good one.

...and now you turned the fun part back into comparing different third party services and choosing between one.

...and now you turned the fun part back into comparing different third party services and choosing between them instead of the direct problem solving.

I hear you and share the sentiment (for the most part). I don't understand what's with leetcode. Granted it's not the best for way to judge the capabilities of a programmer, but then what is? A design round can be gamed as much as an algorithmic round can be. At least with leetcode, people become aware of different ways of thinking. By different ways, I don't mean different algorithms. I mean, given a base set of capabilities (algos), how to use them effectively to solve a much more diverse set of problems. This kind of pattern almost always exists in my day to day job. The constraints are limited, and I need to figure out an effective way forward.

It’s not Leetcode in of itself that I hate; in fact, I enjoy programming challenges such as Project Euler and Advent of Code, and I occasionally read my Knuth volumes for fun. It’s the interview process that sucks the fun out of it, where you have to compete against those who just seem to eat, sleep, and drink Leetcode. It reminds me of my high school days when I stressed out over grades and SAT scores. I understand that for highly-desirable companies there needs to be some mechanism for culling the mass number of applications they receive, but when just about every company seemingly asks difficult Leetcode questions even if the job doesn’t require sophisticated algorithms, it’s very demoralizing. I’m getting tired of monkey dancing and I’m researching alternative ways of making a living.

Unfortunately that's true. I think he companies can ask interesting questions that are not in leetcode, but it's basically a game where the companies make up new questions and they get added to leetcode. I don't think any company wants to spend their employees fighting a battle that's not worth it.

Plus an interest in developing one's career eventually means focusing on things other than growing slightly better at writing code (such as mentoring, designs, apportioning work, working with many stakeholders, and so on).

Your Wwrk should be a passion in your life, not the only passion.

People often assume that "work should be your passion" means that it should be the singular one.

It's my passion, but I still don't being work home, even if I work on related (if distantly) hobbies in my free time (and at work too sometimes)

"Work is work" is a perfectly fair conclusion. It works pretty well (so to speak) and you can live comfortably like that. Many people do.

On the other hand, there's something that eats at me all the time: the fact that a huge portion of my life is spent on work. If I had to choose between zoning out for 8 hours a day vs working towards something I care about for 10+ hours a day, I can't help but feel like the latter just sounds better. Maybe not easy to attain, but definitely better.

The parent commenter wrote:

> Clock-in, clock-out doesn't mean these software engineers don't like the work they do, or do not write software that is good, or that they do not take pride in, or they do not feel responsible for it.

I don't think "zoning out for 8 hours a day" is a fair representation of that.

Programming in your free time isn't "work", though. The people I've worked with who aren't programming in their free time have all been worse than the ones who did, which really isn't a big surprise.

It's not hard for me to understand why someone would not want to only develop software during work hours, but that doesn't mean I have to force myself to like working with them.

> I mean how difficult is it for people to comprehend that that are too many kinds of people out there and hence too many kinds of software engineers out there!

How difficult is it to accept that if you're not doing much to become better at your craft you'll also likely not be deemed as good as your peers who are? I don't know why people who admit to not caring as much as others about growing their skills are so offended that some people would rather work with people who are.

All things being equal I'd rather work with someone who can tell me about their weekend project on Monday.

P.S.: If someone said "I don't like working with people who program in their spare time" that's also fine. We don't all have to like working with each other and pretending there is some kind of fairness equalizer that makes everyone as good as everyone else helps no one. If work is truly just work, just do your work and accept that some people don't like your attitude.