Industry has no place for passionate programmers?

Question

I've been interning at a place where my manager believes that if you are in a,

• product company, then you generally spend time tweaking the product and sometimes adding some features, or
• service company, then you keep doing repetitive things

which makes me feel industry is no place for someone who likes to do create news things and solve difficult problems.

So is the industry not a place for a passionate programmer? Does this change from country to country?

---

Update to clear some things that can be understood differently than what they were meant.

Tweaking here is making sure your product has tables with the number of rows and columns the client wants, etc. Customize it for the customer.

New "feature" isn't new functionality here. Just aesthetic-level changes. And it's sometimes.

I'm not sure what he meant by repetitive though. He was like, you have to make the UI again and again every time. (I see no repetition there though. If a different UI is needed then a different UI needs to be designed. If you can use the old one then you don't need to do much anyway.)

Answer 1

Your manager needs a shrink ;) Or you need to be aware of tiny frogs.

There once was a bunch of tiny frogs,... … who arranged a running competition.

The goal was to reach the top of a very high tower.

A big crowd had gathered around the tower to see the race and cheer on the contestants…

The race began…

Honestly: No one in the crowd really believed that the tiny frogs would reach the top of the tower.

You heard statements such as: “Oh, WAY too difficult!! They will NEVER make it to the top.”

or:

“Not a chance that they will succeed. The tower is too high!”

The tiny frogs began collapsing. One by one… ... Except for those who in a fresh tempo were climbing higher and higher…

The crowd continued to yell “It is too difficult!!! No one will make it!”

More tiny frogs got tired and gave up…

...But ONE continued higher and higher and higher… This one wouldn’t give up!

At the end everyone else had given up climbing the tower. Except for the one tiny frog who after a big effort was the only one who reached the top!

THEN all of the other tiny frogs naturally wanted to know how this one frog managed to do it?

A contestant asked the tiny frog how the one who succeeded had found the strength to reach the goal?

It turned out… That the winner was DEAF!!!!

The wisdom of this story is:

Never listen to other people’s tendencies to be negative or pessimistic… …cause they take your most wonderful dreams and wishes away from you.

The ones you have in your heart!

Always think of the power words have. Because everything you hear and read will affect your actions!

Therefore:

ALWAYS be…

POSITIVE!

And above all:

Be DEAF when people tell YOU that YOU can not fulfil YOUR dreams! Always think:

I can do this!

That version of this well known story can be found here in its context.

Answer 2

To me, "adding some features" can be creative. For service, you have be passionate if you want to keep the customers happy. In either company, you will face a lot of problems and some of them will be difficult to solve.

I've been working in the States, Canada, China and Hong Kong. In my personal experience, no matter which type of company you are working for, there is no lack of challenges, the need for creatively, and you have to be passionate if you want to do a good job and deliver good software.

Answer 3

Here are some interviews with 9 people who work for all different companies all over the world. None work for Microsoft though the interviews took place in a Microsoft building and the interviewer is a Microsoft employee. I think you can hear the passion everyone (including Charles, the interviewer) has for their work. Some make large apps, some small, and some offer services. C++ is a common thread but that's just how I happen to have links to all these.

• http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/VC-MVP-Summit-Kate-Gregory (yes, me)
• http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/MVP-Summit-2011-Meet-C-MVPs-Angel-PJ-Tom-and-Sheng
• http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/MVP-Summit-2011-Meet-C-MVPs-Alon-Marius-Bruno-and-Jim

People who love what they do, go far. You seem to have met a boss without much passion. That's fine, for your boss. As you already know, you can find inspiration in more places than just the boss' office.

Answer 4

I think you're looking at the topic incorrectly.

Businesses have the job of making their owners money. That can take a lot of forms, but for most software companies it involves growing a market to be acquired or being profitable in its primary endeavor.

The descriptions for product and service companies are a bit shallow, but that doesn't mean they are wrong. Services groups tend to do repetitive work because of market choice and optimization to get the most money for a job. Product groups make and enhance products. Once they are mature, they tend to mostly maintain and perform limited enhancements. That doesn't mean all of the jobs are the same, but there are patterns in those types of companies you can find.

I've been on both sides of the ProServer and product dev side of the business. I prefer the latter for a variety of reasons, but neither side limited my creativity or passion. Creativity and passion is more about what you bring to the position. Not something the company gives to you. That said, corporate culture can have a big impact on an individual's happiness.

If you want to always be working on something new and 'exciting' write code for your own fun projects. Business projects aren't always cool and exciting.

Answer 5

Passion is nice, but you also need to know when to let go, when enough's enough and it's time to close things up and get the product shipped. If you're too passionate, you can't ever let go, it's never quite polished enough, never quite done, and the product never will ship.

I've seen more than one project go under because of that. People set the wrong priorities, wanted things to be perfect rather than good enough, wanted everything under the sun when the budget only allowed for a drink with a very small cherry. and of course they went way over time and budget before anything was ready to deliver to the customer.

Answer 6

You can be passionate and creative and work as a developer. PERIOD.

If you're current role doesn't allow for this, and you're not enjoying it, move on - there is always something else out there that you can be passionate about. You need to understand for yourself what you are passionate about and find a role that meets most of those requirements (be a little pragmatic about it though...)

Answer 7

The whole purpose of computers is to do repetitive tasks for us. If you're a a developer and you keep doing repetitive tasks, you're doing it wrong. You have to distill repetitive tasks into a higher, non-repetitive abstraction. That way you're not only creative, you also produce more business value and can make more money.

Answer 8

Your boss has made some wrong presumptions

• Product companies always have dedicated to create innovations, so that they have an edge in the market. It all depends on the company you are in. Some companies expect all of their employees to be passionate enough to innovate (e.g. Google's 20% time). Some product companies hire guys and girls with Phd's to create ideas and give them a team to implement them. I've found up that in every company has a team where all the bright kids hang out together.

• Service companies now have been changing their model (due to the recent recession). They now take a stake in the profit instead of service/development fees. Therefore they have to innovate or else their profit will suffer.

Sadly it kind of does matter on the country. Since you are from India, I've seen that product companies 'offshore' the boring work to India. So that they can focus on innovating. Because its cheaper and lets face it, there are very few instances of innovative 'products' coming out of India (compared to USA or japan). Probably because creativity is pretty much killed at school. The scene is changing I admit but not as fast as it should.

Also have a look that this presentation. Being passionate != wise innovation. You might just create the best product ever but no one uses it. That means a huge hole in your company's pocket. e.g Google wave, Windows CE and ahem Yahoo answers

Answer 9

There's plenty of opportunities as an in-house software developer at all kinds of companies, in all sorts of industries. Many organizations prefer to hire a small team of developers to provide customized, proprietary solutions rather than spending money and effort administering licenses for generalized software. This allows them to focus on their own requirements, and gain a competitive edge on other companies all using the same tools.

There's plenty of room for passionate programmers (like myself) to produce new and original software from month to month with direct feedback from business users and a clear impact on productivity and revenue. It's a great place to be, just need to think a little more laterally when looking for job opportunities.

---

For example, I currently create disaster and financial modelling software for a company in the reinsurance industry. I previously worked for a waste to energy conversion start-up implementing mathematical, physical, and chemical models. All this has paid very well and been very conducive to my passion for programming and creativity.

Good Luck!

Answer 10

He's not wrong, but you have to decide what perspective you want to look at development. You don't get to show up for work every day and create a new app. A new function or a better design can be an equally creative process.

Once you get past building some sort of prototype or beta, you're tweaking and adding new features.

If you're doing repetitive things as a programmer, then you are not taking advantage of programming.

"We're going to create a new website where people can log in and enter stuff that gets saved in a database and lets you upload files and share stuff with other people and comment on other stuff other people enter." Where's the creativity in that? I think there is plenty; it's all relative. You can either be someone who breaks rocks or builds cathedrals - the choice is yours.

Edit: If the work is limited to minimal cosmetic changes and you're not allowed to create a way to let the user customize this stuff, you may want to start some personal project that is more challenging.

Answer 11

What you describe are traditional corporations. There are still a lot of startups, mid-size companies, and new-technologies corporations. Many of which have more innovation oriented mindset.

Answer 12

The key problem here is YOU. You demand some "real task" that will let you "unleash your creativity" which implies that you can't do it until that task is given to you.

What is really needed is job done well - be it neatly arranged buttons in the UI, be it well-thought logging, be it the program recovering after a crash or whatever other thing that makes users feel better and avoid ffruustration (this one explains it best, sorry) and feeling dumb when using the program.

There is place for "passionate programmers", you just have to be more positive.