> I tell students thinking of getting into coding that "you gotta want it". If you love that work, great. If you don't, you're going to have a hard time of it. Not impossible, but maybe something peripheral like tech sales would be better, etc. Same reason I'd have a hard time being an accountant.
i hear/see this all the time here on hn. it does not reflect my experience in
1) elite school
2) FAANG
first of all, an enormous number of people (undergrads) i met while doing my phd in cs at xyz-elite school did not love cs and they were almost all uniformly excellent. the ones i kept track ended up in FAANG or quantfi or whatever tough/challenging software engineering role.
second of all, not a single person/manager/intern/etc i met during my several internships in FAANG ever professed a love of the job. they all professed a love of money/prestige/benefits. they were almost all uniformly excellent.
> Same reason I'd have a hard time being an accountant.
i wonder who you think enjoys being an accountant, or a lawyer, or in IB, or whatever other professionally and intellectually demanding role that's highly compensated? a similar question: who do you think enjoys leetcode? yes i'm aware there are a few CP people around but that vast majority of people that have cleared the LC gauntlet aren't that.
there's a word for this: it's called grind. i know, it's shocking and hard to believe, but some people can muscle through a terrible job that they hate, and still be good at it, purely for the money.
so i tell students, the job sucks, it's stressful, it's tedious, you'll be surrounded by people that don't relate well with others, etc etc etc and then i ask them: what's your pain threshold? because the higher it is, the more money you can make in software, and you don't need a cert/MS/PhD/MD/JD/etc. that last bit is what makes it unique amongst the other highly-skilled labor jobs.
EDIT:
i'm gonna say something that'll borderline get me cancelled: there's an implicit bias in the "you gotta love it" trope. it's enormously colored by a US/western centric perspective. I'm american and white but I'm friends/friendly with many chinese/indian immigrants in tech (you know - the huge number we're all surrounded by...). not a single one of them has ever said they picked this job because they love it. many of them say they picked it because either it was a way out of their country or a way to help their families. again: uniformly excellent engineers. you might say it's because they've made it through two filters (finishing an engineering degree and being good enough to land a US job) but nonetheless.
> an enormous number of people (undergrads) i met while doing my phd in cs at xyz-elite school did not love cs and they were almost all uniformly excellent. the ones i kept track ended up in FAANG or quantfi or whatever tough/challenging software engineering role.
These sound to me like people who "wanted it", and probably had a harder time than people who loved the work.
> i wonder who you think enjoys being an accountant
I admit to only knowing two accountants, but they love it. For me, accountancy books are good as a general anesthetic.
Let me put it this way, instead: if you hate programming with a passion, you're going to have a lot of trouble motivating to put in the work to get good at it.
> These sound to me like people who "wanted it", and probably had a harder time than people who loved the work.
yea all of these elite engineers at FAANG had a harder time than all of the lisp/hobby/gamedev/etc coders that just love it. totally.
> if you hate programming with a passion, you're going to have a lot of trouble motivating to put in the work to get good at it.
i absolutely hate programming. i hate it more than any other job i've done. i put in the thousands of hours over the last ~2 years getting good at it and i am very very good at it. and i'm not talking about research code, i'm talking clean, production quality, engineering code. the reason i did this is because i knew i'd get paid a fat signing bonus/RSUs/cash base at the end. simple.
I guess so. You hate it with a passion but you're totally motivated to do it; you get up in the morning rearing to go and spend every waking moment considering how to improve the craft. Well done you.
i hear/see this all the time here on hn. it does not reflect my experience in
1) elite school
2) FAANG
first of all, an enormous number of people (undergrads) i met while doing my phd in cs at xyz-elite school did not love cs and they were almost all uniformly excellent. the ones i kept track ended up in FAANG or quantfi or whatever tough/challenging software engineering role.
second of all, not a single person/manager/intern/etc i met during my several internships in FAANG ever professed a love of the job. they all professed a love of money/prestige/benefits. they were almost all uniformly excellent.
> Same reason I'd have a hard time being an accountant.
i wonder who you think enjoys being an accountant, or a lawyer, or in IB, or whatever other professionally and intellectually demanding role that's highly compensated? a similar question: who do you think enjoys leetcode? yes i'm aware there are a few CP people around but that vast majority of people that have cleared the LC gauntlet aren't that.
there's a word for this: it's called grind. i know, it's shocking and hard to believe, but some people can muscle through a terrible job that they hate, and still be good at it, purely for the money.
so i tell students, the job sucks, it's stressful, it's tedious, you'll be surrounded by people that don't relate well with others, etc etc etc and then i ask them: what's your pain threshold? because the higher it is, the more money you can make in software, and you don't need a cert/MS/PhD/MD/JD/etc. that last bit is what makes it unique amongst the other highly-skilled labor jobs.
EDIT:
i'm gonna say something that'll borderline get me cancelled: there's an implicit bias in the "you gotta love it" trope. it's enormously colored by a US/western centric perspective. I'm american and white but I'm friends/friendly with many chinese/indian immigrants in tech (you know - the huge number we're all surrounded by...). not a single one of them has ever said they picked this job because they love it. many of them say they picked it because either it was a way out of their country or a way to help their families. again: uniformly excellent engineers. you might say it's because they've made it through two filters (finishing an engineering degree and being good enough to land a US job) but nonetheless.