Mario Giambanco

Director of User Experience Development

Oct 7, 2020

Spoiler alert: it is.

Passion is not specific to programming. You should be passionate about any job you hold be it programming, dentist, garbage collector, accountant.

Passion is a drive to do better; to learn more; to want to find out what's next and pursue it.

Why would I go to a doctor or dentist that wasn't passionate about their career? That person probably doesn't care about new techniques or drugs or procedures. If it's just a job to them, how do I know they actually care about my health?

Same thing for programming. If you're not passionate about what you're doing, how do I know you have my project in your best interest? That you look at code holistically and try to make it better?

It's ok to not enjoy programming. It can be a good pay check and a decent job. But if you don't enjoy it, I'd probably look for a new career.

I'd rather hire a passionate junior developer that wants to do a great job and learn more than a non-passionate senior programmer that is calling it in.

You don't need to be the best programmer. But you at least need to care about the work that you do and show interest in it. Who would want to hire a developer that isn't otherwise?

I've been a web developer for 20 years now. TWENTY. I am not the best Angular developer out there but my job title and experience would say I'm pretty damn good. I am passionate about the work I do; strive to do a great job every day and hit my deadlines and treat my team with respect. Passion to learn and do a good job got me to where I am. Not looking for the next best paycheck.

Hey, thanks for the comment! I see we disagree on this (although I think less than it seems), which is perfectly fine, I expected people to have different opinion on this topic.

There are a few things that I want to address though:

I'd rather hire a passionate junior developer that wants to do a great job and learn more than a non-passionate senior programmer that is calling it in.

What about a programmer who thanks to this job can get out of poverty? Or a candidate who wants to save money for their children's education? Ex-felon who wants to put their life back on track?

There are tons of things that drive people to do a good job and become better, I think that by discarding people just because programming is not their passion, we are making the industry less inclusive and diverse.

But you at least need to care about the work that you do and show interest in it.

I totally agree - you should care about what you do and show interest. There is a lot of space though between passion and apathy, so you can enjoy your coding, you can care about your work, but your true passion might be playing guitar - this is not an impossible situation.

If it's just a job to them, how do I know they actually care about my health?

Because they're hopefully decent people and want to be fair. If I need money and offer to help you moving your apartment, and you pay me money for that, I want to be fair, I want to know that we're both satisfied with the deal, otherwise I'll have a sense of guilt.

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