[i1856511]

How many people go into programming now simply for the money? More than 70%?

What percentage of programmers would still be programmers if competitive salary was not a concern in life, and people were free to simply pursue their passions?

[gavinray]

This is the most depressing/soul-crushing thing you discover if you're passionate about programming your entire life and then finally break into the industry.

You realize you're the weirdo, and after years of everyone else being blatant about really not caring, it starts to wear on you.

[pcmoney]

Honestly, I prefer to work with people who are in it long term for the money. Much more rational, much more pragmatic, much less bike shedding and holy wars, much higher degree of professionalism.

“How do we ship things that make us rich” vs “how do I scratch this nerd itch/play with new shiny thing/assert my passion purity”

[goodpoint]

That explain why CV-driven development has been aggressively overtaking good development.

Similarly, a lot of the original FLOSS culture has been overshadowed by the "github-is-my-showroom" model. Optimizing for github stars and so on.

[aynyc]

My informal poll last year of my friends suggest a 50-60% drop rate. I asked about 30 friends who are still coding for work. Almost 20 of them said they would not code anymore if they can find equivalent salary.

[i1856511]

Helpful anecdote, thank you. It sounds like you found the answer to my question to be, "most of them"!

[aynyc]

The problem is that they can’t find jobs as IC to make $200-250K a year. Unless they go to management, but that’s another career track they need to learn and move to. I think software engineering is one of the highest paid job as IC other than maybe doctors.

[seoulmetro]

Outside the US this is more like 10-20%.

Americans care about money a lot. American SWE care about money even more.

[pcmoney]

I mean sure but the track record of American Tech Companies speaks for itself.

Wanna know what the truly passionate programmer does? Ship things that make money.

If they don’t they are a hobbyist not a professional because it isn’t a profession for them.

[seoulmetro]

No. Truly passionate programmer doesn't ship at all, they create work for themselves.

Earning money or not does not recognise the difference between hobby and profession. Ironically a lot of hobbyists make money and very few professionals work for free.

[pcmoney]

I guess if you redefine what programming is you can say that. It is literally just finding efficient and maintainable ways to shuffle 0s and 1s so a computer does something a user wants it to do. Thats it.

Now there are good ways to do that and bad ways and we should take pride in our work but lets not pretend when we say “programming is an art” that we mean like a real art. Laying tile and drywall is also an “art” but people don’t care unless its part of a building.

[seoulmetro]

Nope. No redefining required.

I don't think you're replying to anything I said at this point.

[benhurmarcel]

Because comp outside of the US is low

[seoulmetro]

Nope.

[habosa]

I got into programming because I love computers and messing with them. I took a job as a professional Software Engineer because the job market was excellent and I could get paid for doing what I found fun. The money was good but I'd have done it for less at the time.

Now why did I _stay_ at a FAANG company doing mostly boring low-stakes work? For the money. I say that with no shame and I encourage others to consider doing it for the money.

It's life-changing money and the job is still pretty good! I still get to write code and talk about code for a living. I also have to go to some really stupid meetings and deal with bureaucracy and use strange tools but ... so what? It's still a good deal. Who knows when this market for our talents will disappear.

[xboxnolifes]

If competitive salary wasn't a concern in life, I would make my living casually playing video games. And specifically for the exact amount of hours that I would like to allocate toward it every day (because hours are part of the competitiveness of salary, and 40 hour weeks aren't a permanently fixed standard).

[motioncuty]

I mean, didnt working at it 2000+ hours a year beat the creativity and joy out of it?

[strikelaserclaw]

i think if people can afford houses in alot of these areas, the competition to keep increasing tc no matter what will lower.