On Extroverted Programmers
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On Extroverted Programmers
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Re: On Extroverted Programmers
#2...and the rise of the brogrammer?
Re: On Extroverted Programmers
#3Another reason for showing more extrovertedness is that the general public has become more aware of what programmers actually do.
Re: On Extroverted Programmers
#4> Varona et al. hypothesize that the shift towards more extroverted personality types is caused by a need for ever more collaboration among engineers.
I don't believe this. Since when did a person's interest get determined by the need for a particular kind of skill or personality?
26% in a single MBTI type mostly suggests to me that the sample was too small or the research was set up badly.
Re: On Extroverted Programmers
#5Another theory: the survey was done among Cuban software engineers. Now, I know terribly little about Cuba, but I do know that in some Eastern European countries, computer science is a very popular subject because programmers are in demand. Thus, becoming a programmer is a relatively sure-fire road to a decent career and a decent income.
ExTJ types, maybe more than any other, may be very prone to carefully plan their careers as a matter of course, and listen less to what they want to do most, deep inside. So if Cuba is anything like Eastern Europe, this could explain a large amount of ExTJ types in programming
Re: On Extroverted Programmers
#6> Varona et al. hypothesize that the shift towards more extroverted personality types is caused by a need for ever more collaboration among engineers. I don't believe this. Since when did a person's interest get determined by the need for a particular kind of skill or personality? 26% in a single MBTI type mostly suggests to me that the sample was too small or the research was set up badly.
Job positions select for personality types by whether or not that personality type is generally successful at the job. If a job needs someone who is outgoing and reaches out to others constantly, it's going to tend to select for extroverts, and a job that asks people to work alone for long stretches is going to tend to select for introverts.
Not that I believe the results either. I suspect they are fatally flawed in some respect, since most of the programmers I've met have been introverts. (Someone else noted that the study was only among Cubans, for instance.)
Re: On Extroverted Programmers
#7ENTP here, arch type for inventor. 2% seems like a low value, although about the normal for entire population sets from memory.
Theres been a few articles here recently on the subject, but being naturally prone to creative and innovative ideas generally doesn't go down well in risk adverse IT departments/teams (let alone business in general if the articles are to believed). So I've grown to not enjoy working in IT teams.
I no longer class myself as a programmer after 15 years of it, and am now self employed.
Re: On Extroverted Programmers
#8At university I spent the vast majority of my time getting drunk, doing drugs and chasing girls. I then took the show on the road and did more or less the same thing in Japan for s few years. There was absolutely nothing introverted about those five years. I made a ton of friends, got into lots of excellent adventures and generally had a good time.
Fast forward a few years and I'm a mid to senior level developer. I'm surrounded by socially, how can I put this this, 'challenging' people. I realized however that after enough time doing this, it's rubbed off on me. I have difficulty making small-talk, making new friends and being sociable.
In my case at least, my 'introversion/extroversion' factor is variable. When I'm jobhunting or marketing or looking for my next project, I'm in 'extrovert' mode. If I'm heads-down programming then I find it much more difficult to deal with human beings.
As an aside, I have serious misgivings about MBTI, not least because I took the test once every month for three months and got different results! It appears to be 'horrorscopes for smart people', or a convoluted wizard for selecting your character class in the big RPG of life.
Re: On Extroverted Programmers
#9I was thinking about this the other day because I realized that I had shifted from an extrovert to an introvert in less than six months, and that I have gone through periods of my life in one state or the other.
Right now I'm working intensely on a project, and I'm basically living inside my head, totally consumed with what I'm working on. But last year I took the year off and socialized, basically gearing up for what I'm working on now.
But I couldn't just pop back to that extroverted state from my present state of mind. It would be a process, and I would have to transition into it. This got me thinking -- what if people who see themselves as complete introverts are that way just because that's all they know?
Re: On Extroverted Programmers
#10At university I spent the vast majority of my time getting drunk, doing drugs and chasing girls. I then took the show on the road and did more or less the same thing in Japan for s few years. There was absolutely nothing introverted about those five years. I made a ton of friends, got into lots of excellent adventures and generally had a good time. Fast forward a few years and I'm a mid to senior level developer. I'm…
I have no idea about how valid or invalid the MBTI tests are, but I think that your type can change over time. You describe yourself as somewhat of a chameleon, the tests seem to be reflecting that.