The dispassionate developer

We use this process at my current employer, and we've gotten mostly good feedback about it (including from people we didn't hire), though some candidates don't like it. The people we've hired using this process have been quite good, though I can't say if that's the process or something else that leads to that outcome.

" For reasons that are complicated and that I don't fully understand, the software development community in the eighties and nineties developed a culture of anti-capitalism and liberal values that put technology on a pedestal for its own sake. Open source good; commercial software bad. Free software good; commercial software bad.

I'm not entirely unsympathetic to such ideas, but it's seems clear, now, that these ideas have had unintended consequences. The idea of free software, for example, has led to a software economy where you, the user, are no longer the customer, but the product. "

Free software is free as in freedom, not free as in you don't have to pay for it. If Google & co followed the ideals of free software, all of their source code for their servers would be available to the public, and indivuduals would be free to spin up and run their own google that doesn't use ads.

This writer has no idea what he is talking about, its not worth reading this post.

I am passionate about software development - I enjoy it and while I have experienced burnout before, its never been from software development, only from all of the other things that have to do with business. I want to hire passionate developers not because they are "easier to exploit" but because passion helps you be better at what you do - if you can program for hours and not feel burnt out because you enjoy it, youre likley to program a lot and gain a lot of technical expertise. Passionate people are more likley to be happy with their jobs, and happiness can be contageious - it contributes to a positive office environment. I dont expect anyone to ever work more than 40 hours a week regardless of passion - in fact I discourage it, and even encourage working less than that if you can still get things done doing so. Passionate people don't get "rewarded with a pat on the back" as the writer claims - they get rewarded by having done something they enjoyed and being happy. Huge difference.

It sounds like this person isn't passionate, and is trying to make up for it by mischaracterizing passionate people and attacking them. This seems dumb, jelous, and mean. I agree that passion shouldnt be a requirement to be employed in a field - after all, lots of people arent passionate about anything and still have to make money. Fortunatley, from fist hand experience, it is obviously not neccisary to be passionate about software to have a career in it. We already live in the world this person wants. I agree that this is how it should be. I dont see the point of trying to go after people who value passion or try to form work groups where thats a sought after trait, them doing so doesnt make things worse for anyone else.

I would say that I am passionate about solving problems with technology - I was coding since GWBASIC on a Soviet 286 when I was 8 years old. I am in product now and I still get fired up about solving problems for my users and clients.

But...

I was also able to channel this passion into lucrative fields. If you asked me 2 decades ago if my passion is derivatives trading software, I'd say no. But turns out this field gave me plenty of space to be creative, enthusiastic, and engaged while giving me and my family a good life. And also I can connect my work to important things (eg: helping asset managers generate good returns for pension funds)

To be honest, I'd hesitate to hire someone who is just all about open source, because if they don't care (that much) about financial impact of their work on their own life, I can't rely on them to care about the financial impact of their software on my company's success either, and I guess it just feels like impractical/unpragmatic decision making.