Pretty much. At this point it's just a paycheck, and such an easy (large) one that I can't possibly justify bothering to find any other line of work. Even if doing something else would make me happier, ultimately work is just work and optimizing for the least effort/highest reward is really the only criteria for it IMO. It leaves more room to find your meaning and passion in life outside of what you have to do to pay the bills.
Mine is frustrating and not a large paycheck at all. I was just browsing job posting this morning, but it's depressing. There's nothing interesting out there that pays more, and my skill set is not really in demand.
I can usually find interesting stuff, but nothing I’d ever be qualified for. Can’t speak to what most of it pays, but if I had to guess: more than I’m making now, less than I could be making theoretically.
Ah yeah, generally I look at jobs all over the place. It’s still relatively rare to see something I’d qualify as “interesting” but I do see them. Typically when I do find them they require significant professional experience within the respective domain. The worst possible example I can think of are any jobs dealing with scientific software where it’s made clear they want scientists who can program a little not programmers who know a bit of science.
My neighbor is an amazing carpenter. He makes beautiful furniture from exotic pieces of wood he's had for 10 years just waiting to be used on that perfect project. I told him he could make a fortune selling things like what he's got in his living room, but he just shrugged and said it would take away all the fun. He's right.
This reminds me of the parable of the Mexican fisherman and the Harvard MBA:
'An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
The Mexican replied, “only a little while.”
The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish?
The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.
The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?”
The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife, Maria, and stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine, and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life.”
The American scoffed. “I have an MBA from Harvard, and can help you,” he said. “You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, and eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middle-man, you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening up your own cannery. You could control the product, processing, and distribution,” he said. “Of course, you would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles, and eventually to New York City, where you will run your expanding enterprise.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”
To which the American replied, “Oh, 15 to 20 years or so.”
“But what then?” asked the Mexican.
The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time was right, you would announce an IPO, and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions!”
“Millions – then what?”
The American said, “Then you could retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you could sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play guitar with your amigos.”'
Yes. I build wooden boats. A neighbor is seemingly obsessed with the notion that I could start a business selling them. And I can think of no faster or more effective way to ruin boat-building for me.
That wasn't my point. You have to make a living, and in that regard fun is a nice-to-have. My point was even things people do for hobbies often become toilsome once they are your business.
My neighbor has a job unrelated to carpentry, and woodworking is his hobby. He doesn't want to ruin it.
If you still want to code as a hobby you could do "programming" opposed to "software engineering" as someone in this thread has pointed out. Personally I could see making web apps with a Web 1.0 design as a fun project although probably I would still structure projects "professionally" :)
I get that it's not much fun to code apps (which I did for fun, too) because you need to do some kind of marketing to get a user base because if you don't it's not much fun to have an orphaned app in a store.
There's still a place for fringe programming if you feel the urge. Or go fishing or do gardening.
Agreed. It's kind of assembly-line development now for me. Design by committee, break up tasks into tickets, estimate how long it'll take, sprint, sprint, sprint until done, monitor releases, add more tickets, and continue ad infinitum.