Until you come to the realization that most developers are “dark matter developers” doing yet another software as a service CRUD app or bespoke app that will never see the light of day outside of the company.
At the end of the day, if you got hit by a bus, your company would send flowers to your funeral and have an open req for your position before your body was buried.
> At the end of the day, if you got hit by a bus, your company would send flowers to your funeral and have an open req for your position before your body was buried.
Which is exactly what I expect them to do. Its a business and not a family. They compensated me for my work, I don't expect them to cry for me when I'm gone, but to hire someone immediately to continue the business.
Which is exactly why it's best to maintain an emotional distance. If you are looking for it to be fulfilling then in most cases you are going to be disappointed. Almost by definition there will be little or no intrinsic rewards, the extrinsic ones will drive that out.
> Which is exactly why it's best to maintain an emotional distance. If you are looking for it to be fulfilling then in most cases you are going to be disappointed.
I do see your point but the difference is that in my perspective the emotional attachment to something I build lasts only as long as I'm building it. Once the thing is delivered, its up to the users to ultimately decide to use it or discard it. I think my emotional attachment is to the process of building things rather than to the thing produced by the process.
I do agree that if you want to see the thing you built get used then yes, very bad idea to get attached to that emotionally. But the way I see it, after its built its out of my hands.
That's a pretty cold way of looking at it. I've certainly never worked anywhere where the death of a coworker would be as inconsequential as you make it sound.
I’ve only worked at one large company in my life - at the time it was a Fortune 10 non tech company. I didn’t have a name in any official sign on or documentation. I had an “SSO number”. My 2nd level manager wouldn’t have known me if he bumped into me in the street.
I worked at a startup where the founder thought he was irreplaceable since he was the only one who knew how to modify and compile the custom C/MFC custom IDE/VM/compiler that he developed and everyone in the company had been using for years before I got there.
They somehow convinced him to show me how everything worked since I was the only person who had a C++/MFC low level optimization background. As soon as they were comfortable that I could do it, the board pushed him out, laid off a bunch of other developers and gave me the responsibility.
At the end of the day, if you got hit by a bus, your company would send flowers to your funeral and have an open req for your position before your body was buried.