We Have a Marketing Problem

The problem? Few others outside our relatively small tribe realize how rewarding software development can be. Even many among us don’t fully realize it. That’s why I cringe when admitting I am a web-software-application-developer-guy. It all reeks of someone sufficiently intelligent just settling for something. Perhaps it has a lot to do with the nature of our work.

At our worst, we are disgruntled and unhappy, hopping from one job to the next. Our plight is no different from it is in any other industry. But the stigma comes because of how we exist when we’re most passionate.

When we’re really into our work, we live inside our heads far more than most. We stare at screens in a typing trance. We look out the window, seemingly longingly, when in reality we aren’t seeing anything but pseudocode running through our heads. We aren’t smiling or talking, and we seek no reciprocation. We simply want to be left alone, to our own thoughts, while the world does whatever it does around us. This is the passionate developer who’s completely escaped the world around her.

When we are least excited, we are also quiet. We aren’t smiling, and we don’t want to talk with others. The only difference is, we type with less vigor and look out the window noticing the world around us and wanting to get out. When encouraged, we will in fact sigh, bang a fist, and mutter how much we disagree with the work we are doing. The disgruntled software developer looks just like the most fulfilled one, just with a noticeable sigh.

So, we have a marketing problem. The rest of the world sees programmers as a breed of recluse headphone geeks rather than what we really are: passionate craftspeople and thinkers. Why is this?