I find myself writing about programmer motivation a lot. I think it’s because my career is at somewhat of a crossroads. I just got done reading a wonderful post at foundread.com by Carleen Hawn about motivation, and it was great to reflect on how it related to my situation.

At my previous job, I was rockstar superman-go-to-guy for the wireless billing system that I was working on. I know that this sounds arrogant and boastful as hell. Admittedly, I was a bit of a programmer prima donna. But when it came to knowledge of the inner-workings of our particular product, it at least felt like I was the man. Part of that was not only understanding the software, but understanding the business as well.

When that gig started to dry up, it became time to find new work, and I found myself at a local financial services company. In doing so, I fell from my position of glory to “just another programmer.” I was promised that I would someday get to the more prestigious position of architect again. But that takes time – a lot of it. Grokking the system that the guys here have spent years working has been more difficult than I thought it would be. Understanding the business that we’re in is just as difficult, and it’s clear to me that understanding the business is what’s important to ascend the ranks to an architects’ role.

At my “new” job (I’ve been here for months, it’s hardly new anymore), I struggle sometimes with motivating myself. After reading the aforementioned “The Motif of Employee Motivations,” I think I understand why. The role I crave is to be the guy that understands the business, and how the entire system meets that need. I like being the guy who gets asked questions by the business analysts and the other engineers. At my current job, I haven’t yet achieved that. Being an impatient person by nature, it’s frustrating to see how far away the day will be that I attain that role. And I’m not sure how to get there from here.

The thing that I find the most insightful is that this motivates me beyond just my career – it motivates me to blog, and it motivates me to work on my “side projects.” I think it’s also what makes me dream of being an entrepreneur.

But actually knowing what motivates me now helps a lot. Perhaps now I’m on my way to getting there.

Photo credit: Paal Leveraas

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 7:45 am and is filed under career, motivation, programming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.