[diggan]

> I agree with all that. But software development also often seems to have a strong thread that if you don't also do this for fun, you're not really A material--in a way that really doesn't apply to other engineering disciplines.

This is the same in every space/community/hobby I've ever participated in. The people who don't live and breathe $SUBJECT 24/7 are often passed off as "posers" and only doing it for the money, in everything from software engineering, finance, gardening, music making, game development or whatever.

Eventually, we grow up and realize everyone needs food on the table, and everyone isn't chasing combining their passion with their career, and sometimes just do their career to earn enough so they can continue with their passions.

[ghaff]

Music making? Probably. If I'm a landscaper, I'm not sure I need to have a garden at home. Finance? Other than managing my personal finances, I'm not sure I'd have any reason to be an active bond trader in my spare time even if that's what I did all day.

Hopefully you like your day job well enough but lots of very competent people shut it off when they go home.

[diggan]

> If I'm a landscaper, I'm not sure I need to have a garden at home.

There are more professions around gardening than specifically landscaping :) And yes, they have communities and hard-core fans who read books, engage with community members and spend basically 24/7 thinking about plants and what not.

Same with finance. You've never met any finance-bros who just can't stop talking about finance every time you look their way?

> Hopefully you like your day job well enough but lots of very competent people shut it off when they go home.

Absolutely, I wasn't trying to say if you don't do that, you suck at your day-job. I'm just trying to get across that this pushback you see sometimes in the software industry about people just doing it as a job instead of a passion are "worse" somehow, happens in every industry I know of. It's in no way exclusive to software developers.

[datavirtue]

I'm so bored with software, be careful not to bring up finance around me.

[htrp]

> in everything from software engineering, finance, gardening, music making, game development or whatever.

In finance, the A tier people don't have work/life balance. It's expected for them to demand effective 24/7 availability (and they get paid accordingly)

[hello_moto]

Likewise in Software. Those A-Tier paygrade is expected to be on-call (24/7 through weekend) no-bonus, lead big projects, review codebases, teach juniors...

[ghaff]

Or exec salaries tend to come with a lot of baggage. Yes, some do fairly disconnected personal travel. But there tend to be pretty long hours and a lot of business travel that I've seen.

[ghaff]

Yes, but that's different from having finance as a hobby.