#WorkForMoney #PassionVersusProfit #CareerChoices
🤔 Have you ever wondered why it’s so frowned upon to pursue a career purely for the money? 💰 It seems like society expects us to be passionate about our work, to dedicate our lives to it, and to never prioritize financial stability. But is it really wrong to want to work solely for the paycheck? Let’s delve into this topic and explore the reasons why it’s okay to prioritize money in your career.
The Pressure to Follow Your Passion
In today’s society, there is a lot of emphasis on finding your passion and pursuing it as a career. We’re often told that if we love what we do, we’ll never work a day in our lives. While this may be true for some people, it’s not the reality for everyone. Here are a few reasons why the pressure to follow your passion can be detrimental:
1. Not everyone has a singular passion: Some people have multiple interests and don’t want to be tied down to just one career path.
2. Financial stability is important: For many people, the primary motivation for work is to provide for themselves and their families. It’s not always feasible to prioritize passion over financial security.
3. A job is just a job: Not everyone wants their career to define their identity. Some people want to work a 9-5 job and then leave it behind at the end of the day.
Career vs. Passion: Finding Balance
It’s essential to strike a balance between pursuing your passion and prioritizing financial stability. Here’s how you can achieve this balance:
1. Identify your values: What is most important to you in a career? Is it passion, money, or a combination of both? Understanding your values can help you make informed career decisions.
2. Explore flexible career options: Look for career paths that allow you to pursue your passions outside of work hours. This could be freelancing, part-time work, or finding a job with flexible hours.
3. Financial planning: If financial stability is your priority, it’s crucial to have a clear financial plan in place. This might involve saving, investing, and making strategic career choices.
Breaking the Stigma
The stigma surrounding working for money needs to be challenged. Here are a few ways we can shift the narrative:
1. Recognize different motivations: Not everyone is driven by passion, and that’s okay. People have different priorities and motivations, and we should respect that.
2. Embrace diversity in career choices: Society should celebrate a diverse range of career paths, including those pursued for financial gain.
3. Encourage work-life balance: It’s essential to promote the idea that work is just one aspect of a fulfilling life. People should feel free to pursue their passions and hobbies outside of work.
In conclusion, there’s nothing wrong with pursuing a career solely for the money. Everyone has different priorities and motivations, and it’s vital to acknowledge and respect these differences. Whether you’re driven by passion or financial stability, the most important thing is to find a career that aligns with your values and provides fulfillment in your life. Let’s break the stigma and embrace the diversity of career choices. 🌟 #CareerChoices #PassionVersusProfit #WorkForMoney
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get into CS for the money. The money is good, it’s a job that won’t destroy your body like other physical jobs, and some places let you work from home, among many other benefits.
>I dont need to eat sleep and breathe this or any career for that…It seems like the industry really wants this to be the only thing i do with myself
However, this isn’t accurate. I’d say most people in the industry aren’t like this, and don’t expect people to be like this either. There may be some exceptions, but they’re probably the edge case.
Ideally though you do work hard, continue to grow, and push yourself. But all that can be done on the job. You can be paid really well for this job, so there are higher expectations. You can’t realistically coast on using PHP 4.x in 2024, but no one is realistically saying you need to only live for this career either. You just need to find a balance.
I don’t think it’s looked down upon, but especially with how competitive this industry is, I think it’s probably worth the reality check on who you’re competing with for jobs.
It’s a completely reasonable thing to get into tech because of the solid earning potential. I’ll just add it can be a tough industry to last in if you don’t have a passion for it because you’re basically always having to upskill and learn more. That can get pretty tiring if it isn’t driven by passion.
I think it’s fine to do it for the money and there are definitely successful people with that mindset. But programming is a craft and a lot of your competition for good jobs will be people who are passionate about it. Unless you’re very smart, you’ll be at a constant disadvantage. But even a bad SWE job is a pretty good job so it still might make sense.
You can’t ignore the money these days since things are getting more expensive (continuously so, but recently there was a spike). Anyone telling you to not do it for the money is being an idiot and has done no future planning, or just wants to convince you to work for as little as possible.
There’s still plenty of plain 9-5 programming jobs paying above $100k that will give you a decent living. You need to be able to qualify for those, but the investment to do that is very small with low barriers compared to other fields.
Doing it for the money is valid. But, from my 15yr career so far, people that only do it for the money get burnt out insanely fast. It is hard to do it for the money long term from what I’ve seen. It hard to want to continue to grind leetcode just to switch jobs. It’s hard to want to learn new frameworks and new stacks all the time. It’s hard to want to dig really deep into a bunch of codebases at work more for fun and to learn what people are working on.
This is all stuff that gives you alot better chance at being successful in this industry and getting promoted higher up to take on bigger projects. I’m sure there has been quite a few people who made it to where I am only for the money, but almost all the people I interact with at higher level engineers all seem to have the similar passion.
liking what you do is a competitive advantage (that will lead to more money). in general liking what you do will be correlated with more initiative, creativity, engagement, and interest.
Generally speaking people are more successful when they pursue work they enjoy.
If you are pursuing a career that has a steep learning curve just to get an entry level role it’s hard to get over that hump if the only motivating factor is money.
Once you have 5-10 years of experience it becomes much easier to do it just for the money because you have enough tools in your toolbox to coast.
I’ve been doing this 14 years. I don’t code side projects, I only do anything extra when I’m preparing to do interviews. I don’t think about code when I’m not coding. I like my job well-enough to do it. I’ve had some super-shitty employers make me wish I wasn’t in the industry, but then I realize it was more them than me.
I’ll say this, there are people out there that think if you do this you should make it your existence. If that’s what makes them happy, they are free to live that way. But I’d personally rather not.
It’s only ultra-nerds and workaholics who think about writing code all the time. There’s a public perception that you have to be this in order to be a successful software person.
Most people choose jobs in order to pay the bills. Software is no different.
I will say, if you hate writing code/thinking about code then don’t do it as a career. That’s setting yourself up for a miserable life.
There’s nothing wrong with getting into this industry for money. You just need to remember you’re competing with nerds who make writing code their entire personality. It’s a cushy industry, but it’s also tough. There’s a reason salaries are so high.
It’s funny how the same people who shit on others for pursuing “useless degrees” will turn around and call you a greedy bandwagoner for learning marketable skills.
OMG you want to work in order to live, not live for work? Move to Europe you communist! /s
Nobody’s going to care unless you totally suck. And if you do you’re not going to be making great money regardless of your motivations.
All jobs suck. If it’s your passion, the job will destroy it.
The pay to suck ratio for this field is top notch. The work life balance is great, the pay is great, etc.
No one actually cares.
It’s just a few loud randos with “opinions”. Taking it any further than that is projection.
Everything is constantly changing, and if you don’t have more than a casual interest in it, it is very difficult to keep up. I am not aware of many (any?) other fields where things change as fast as this.
Very few of the tools I used 10 years ago are things I still use today. A pile of new technologies get attention every year, most will flop, but others will become the mainstay for the next 5 years until they get dethroned by another technology that’s better.
Depending on what you are doing with your career, you will need to stay on top of these things. You need to be aware of them to steer your career, to understand where you need to spend time learning things if you want to stay relevant. If you spend too much time in any particular technology that goes out of favor, your opportunities will shrink. It’s a giant hamster wheel. It’s a fun wheel to run on if you like the work. If you are in it just for the money, you will tire quickly or fall behind.
You may find a job where things don’t change, and it may be a good job, with good work-life balance, until it goes away. Then, you realize the tech you’ve been using is a challenge for finding new jobs, then you have some existential paranoia kick in while you desperately find a way to market yourself to sound relevant.
It is not only for this industry. This is capitalism trying to make you want to work very hard without expecting a bigger salary. We are brainwashed so that working hard is an important value for us. Same goes for loyalty to your employer. All that while the company main goal is to generate more profit.
A company will prefer someone who does not seem to care about salary because they have better odds to see you work hard without asking for better pay. If you clearly state that you are there for the money, they will think that you won’t put extra effort and work time without wanting a better pay. I don’t think they are wrong though. It is just a consequence of capitalism. They want more work done without salary discussions.
Capitalism demands that you sacrifice yourself for the shareholders. Walmart employees are getting tattoos to show their loyalty- just be glad that’s not trending in tech
Strong unions would solve a lot of these issues, but that’ll never happen
It’s not. Who gives a flying fuck what other people think. Get your bag, friend
Sorry if that’s crass. I’ve only heard this take from a few people, and they are usually people who already make a shit load of money in tech. It sounds wrong for someone who works at Netflix to say don’t do it for the money. Like yeah OK guy who has the highest salary in the entire fucking industry
Some combination of the revenge of the nerds and creating barriers to entry to preserve the labor market
For the first, it’s a way for people who were traditionally outcasts or have more trouble socially to finally find a respected and well-paid place for themselves. People who come just for the money bring a different aesthetic (think bros), and it feels like a violation. This is probably a controversial take but 🤷♂️
Then, for the second, it’s a general unease around the longevity of the field and the concern that something you care about is becoming saturated and no longer what it was.
Man, companies just want you to drink the cool-aid so you’ll work like a zombie. Everyone knows it’s just a job. They all just lie to “pump up those numbers”.
Some of my favorite interviewees were guys who were like… “dude, I have bills to pay”. I just wanted to fist bump them through the camera. I will say those guys tend to not work quite as hard though, so maybe there is something to wanting that feverish crack head code zealot.
After 15 years, the money/hour is the only thing that keeps me doing it.
This is just standard gatekeeping. People who worked hard to get into the industry and gave up on other aspects of life (that they want to believe they could have enjoyed had they tried) feel threatened by people who have normal interests and social skills entering their previously exclusive community. It probably even stemmed from the days when men took over computer science from women, so the gatekeeping has historical sexist roots, too.
In the real world, lots of people program for the money. It is admittedly of limited appeal to a hiring manager to hear that a candidate is just interested in money (in tech, that means they’ll definitely search for new opportunities and leave as soon as they can), but I know plenty of coworkers who don’t code outside of work. It’s a good thing.
You’ll be fine OP. I’m literally only in this field for money. I couldn’t care less about coding. I have no passion for this field at all. I’m not burned out at all after 10 years of this (incl internship). You just have to find the right groups to work with.
That’s the pretentiousness of academia you are feeling my friend.
The real world is not like that.
Im only in this for the money and I’ve ALWAYS been that way. It’s the reason I switched to CS, when I was initially on the path to become a doctor.
I get paid extremely high for my YOE and location. I actually work for one of the highest paid companies in the industry. Higher than FANG or whatever bull shit everybody in this sub is impressed with.
Dudes in my office make over 1M TC.
All my friends who had that eat breath sleep pretentiousness are struggling in the real world if I’m keeping it a stack.
I enjoy coding. Probably wouldn’t do it that much if the comp wasn’t so good.
Leaving aside the inevitable gatekeeping peeps,
I think the concern is *only* getting into it only for money, instead of love plus money. Just a theory with no practical application, since no one is hiring for entry level just yet.
I did it for the money. It’s been 8 years and I’m in a staff role in a well known tech company. If I won the lottery I’d probably still tinker because of what I can create, but not because I’m passionate about it per se. You know what I am absolutely passionate about? Not being poor.
I don’t need to be passionate about tech to know that it’s a helluva opportunity for someone who’s been living on my own since 14, a few months in high school, no college and over 10 years in dead end sales jobs barely scraping by.
What I think people are trying to convey is that it’s hard to get yourself to a point where you’re a solid contributor on a competent team, and maintaining that. And the fact of the matter is this will be more work than many people are willing to put into it. It’ll be true for enough people that “don’t do it for the money” will be solid advice generally speaking.
But for me, it’s like, people think this is hard? Be on an auto-dialer making up to 800 calls a day, where your employer randomly checks in on calls to make sure no time is wasted. Or be in a job where everyone you work with knows your careers aren’t going anywhere. Where people back stab and disrespect for a little power and everyone is making barely above minimum wage. You look next to you to see a 60+ year old who won’t be able to retire and viscerally feel that you’re looking at your future. Feel the shame of not having a career and dealing with the “So what do you do?” any time you’re trying to impress a potential partner. Or spending all of your money just to pay rent with little left over. Or not having medical insurance or even if you do, not having any extra money to pay for deductibles so you just avoid going to the doctor or dentist. Or barely paying for necessities while having no clue how you’ll ever save for retirement