Passion vs. Perseverance There are people who are prodigies, raised around tech, they fell in love with coding and figuring things out at a young age, and I am not one of those people. No, I’m one of millions of software engineers, or developers, designers who have chosen the long dusty road of self-study and or Coding Boot-camp. Many people, especially those who have been coding a while, seem to imply passion and a love for programming are essential to being a successful programmer. Often interviewers ask potential hires about passion and drive, but I propose those traits need not be directed at coding in itself, but rather the individuals ability to continue when things are difficult also known as perseverance.
Passion and proficiency are often conflated. A professional and proficient programmer can deliver readable, re-useable and maintainable code completely devoid of passion. Individuals lucky enough to stumble upon programming and develop their skill as a hobby seem to be the focus of hiring managers. However, I propose an individual who saw a need, and chose to learn the skill, not for fun or passion but to work should be given the same opportunities. Programming is an art, but its also a trade and the same way designing and fixing a plumbing system requires skill in the trade, no asks a plumber to be passionate about that skill to be seen as proficient in it. Passion is for hobbies, but for me, programming is work. In the early days of the Internet when most users were hobbyists and tinkerers but in an economy that demands programmers, the motivation to learn for the sake of financial security should also be accepted.
People who are new to programming like myself as well as people who were around since the beginning need to find a common ground. Learning the skill is hard enough in itself without the added stress of every job posting looking for rock-stars who do it all. How about a proficient programmer with the perseverance to work at and struggle at gaining a skill that is not necessarily, easy or fun? Maybe prodigies are the rock-stars but us regular people that charge into problems headfirst and struggle to find solutions, should also have their place.