The not-so-passionate programmer: finding a job when you’re just a normal person

When reading programming job postings you’ll find many companies that want to hire “passionate programmers”. If you’re just a normal programmer looking for a normal job this can be pretty discouraging.

What if you’re not passionate? What if you don’t work on side projects, or code in your spare time?

What if you have a sneaking suspicion that “passionate” is a euphemism for “we want you to work large amounts of unpaid overtime”? Can you really find a job where you don’t have to be passionate, where you can just do your job and go home?

The truth is that many companies will hire you even if you don’t have “passion”. Not to mention that “passion” has very little impact on whether you do your job well.

But since companies do ask for “passion” in job postings and sometimes look for it during interviews, here’s what you can do about your lack of “passion” when searching for a job.

Searching for a job

The first thing to do is not worry about it too much. Consider some real job postings for passionate programmers:

• “[Our company] is looking for Java Engineer who is passionate about solving real world business problems to join our team.”
• “We’re looking for a senior developer to play a major role in a team of smart, passionate and driven people.”
• “This role is ideal for somebody who is passionate about building great online apps.”

They all say “passionate”, yes. But these are all posts from very different kinds of companies, with different customers, different technology stacks, and very different cultures (and they’re in two different countries). Whoever wrote the job posting at each company probably didn’t think very hard about their choice of words, and if pressed each would probably explain “passionate” differently.

It might be a euphemism for working long hours, but it might also just mean they want to hire competent engineers. If the job looks good otherwise, don’t think about it too hard: apply and see how it goes.

Interviewing for a job

Eventually you’ll get a job interview at a company that wants “passionate” programmers. A job interview has two aspects: the company is interviewing you, and you are interviewing the company.

When the company is interviewing you they want to find out if you’re going to do your job. You need to make a good impression… even if insurance premiums, or content management systems, or internal training or whatever the company does won’t be putting beating cartoon hearts in your eyes.

• First, that means you need to take an interest in the company. Before your interview do some research about the company, and then ask questions about the product during the interview.
• Second, since you can’t muster that crazy love for insurance premiums, focus on what you can provide: emphasize your professional pride in your work, your willingness to get things done and do them right.

At the same time that you’re trying to sell yourself to the company you should also be trying to figure out if you want to work for them. Among other things, you want to figure out if the word “passionate” is just a codeword for unpaid overtime.

Ask what a typical workday is like, and what a typical workweek is like. Ask how they do project planning, and how they ensure code ships on time.

Finally, you will sometimes discover that the employees who work at the company are passionate about what they do. If this rubs you the wrong way, you might want to find a different company to work for.

If you’re OK with it you’ll want to make sure you’ll be able to fit in. So try to figure out if they’re open to other ways of thinking: how they handle conflicts, how they handle people with different technical opinions.

On the job

Eventually you will have a job. Most you’ll just have a normal job, with normal co-workers who are just doing their job too.

But sometimes you will end up somewhere where everyone else is passionate and you are not. So long as your coworkers and management value hearing different opinions, your lack of passion can actually be a positive.

For example, startups are often full of passion for what they’re building. Most startups fail, of course, and so every startup has a story about why they are different, why they won’t fail. Given the odds that story will usually turn out to be wrong, but passionate employees will keep on believing, or at least won’t be willing to contradict the story in public.

As someone who isn’t passionate you can provide the necessary sanity checks: “Sure, it’s a great product… but we’re not getting customers fast enough. Maybe we should figure out what we can change?”

Similarly, passionate programmers often love playing with new technology. But technology can be a distraction, and writing code is often the wrong solution. As someone who isn’t passionate you can ensure the company’s goals are actually being met… even if that means using existing, boring software instead of writing something new and exciting.

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There’s nothing wrong with wanting to go home at the end of the day and stop thinking about work. There are many successful software developers who don’t work long hours and who don’t spend their spare time coding.

If you would like to learn how to negotiate a job that doesn’t overwhelm your life, read my book: Negotiate a 3-Day Weekend.