Development: Fun, Hobby or Work?
Let’s explore why different developers get into the Development Industry. Some things might be surprising.
Why does this matter?
Over the past week I have been analyzing a lot of twitter polls and posts that seem to be a recurring theme? These are;
- Why do you develop?
- Why did you become a developer?
A lot of the responses lead me to explore this topic, because I was somewhat puzzled by most of the answers. A list of the common answers were;
- Work (for good Money).
- It’s fun and provides good money as a bonus.
- It’s always been a hobby and everything else is a bonus.
Lets explore.
1. Work for good money
Incase you are unaware, software development has an average salary of ~$100,000 in the United States. Numerous job advertisements for Software Developers will under sell the salary expentations to ~$50 – $60k or even less. If a developer attends an inteview, It’s not uncommon for the developer to ask for something in the region of $100 – $150k.
With that said, I was intrigued to see that most polls or questions on Twitter pertaining to “Why Do you Develop?” the responses for “Money/Work” was significanty above 50%. To back this up, I did some research on reputable sources and one source I trust for sure, is StackOverflow. A staging 65% people look for a job purely on “Better Salary/Pay“. Is this wrong?
Does this mean said developers don’t care about coding and just about money? Does it mean they feel they are worth more? This is down to individual developers and noone can provide a consensus on this. I would, however, like to hope that once the developer is in a happy, in a position of enjoyment and loves what they do, money is not the be all and end all.
Screenshot from a recent Stack Overflow article.
2. It’s fun and provides good money as a bonus.
On the other hand, many developers decide to do down the Solopreneur or Entrepreneur route, to build there own product(s) from the ground up. Whether this avenue was taken or you’re employed by a company, developing for fun is a great. It makes work feel less like work.
Whilst I do not have charts and statistics to back this one up, I took some time to speak to people who answered polls with this answer. A reoccuring theme was established. That was; having fun, with being paid well as a bonus made developers happier, and made there time at work more joyous rather then tedious.
3. It’s always been a hobby and everything else is a bonus.
An interesting observation I established during the conversations I had in point 2 above was that the reason some people develop, is simply because it’s their hobby and everything else involved with what they do is a bonus. This makes me feel wholesome, purely because this is how I feel when I code and develop products. I put 100% of my effort, happiness, and joy into writing as close to a perfect and bug free solution for all clients. For developers who fall into this section, I admire you.
Parting Words
As always, if you got this far, thank you for taking your precious time reading this article. I’m trying to get better at writing articles, it’s something I have never been good at, so any feedback in comments or on my socials, is more than welcome.
Until next time – Be Safe & Happy Coding!