Building Passion As A Software Engineer

This is part one of an eight part series where I dive deeper into the concept of building passion with the intention of becoming a better software engineer.

Passion is a fundamental starting point for motivation. With all things being equal amongst eight traits for success, start with passion. The best software engineers generally love what they do. Software engineers pull from a variety of scientific disciplines and principles to design and build software. The more difficult the design constraints or the more difficult the problem, the more creative the engineer has to be to find a solution.

Finding passion to be able to love what you do as a software engineer can be very challenging. For me, I drew inspiration from Steve Wozniak while reading his book iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It. He was the type of engineer who loved improving upon existing things and I found that quality within myself as well. Everytime I successfully improved existing software I get a really unique satisfaction that can't be replicated elsewhere in life. Everyone is very different so it is a good idea to explore many paths or try out different things until you find your calling as a software engineer.

Some really good advice that I believe in when it comes to building passion is to "follow your heart, not your wallet" and "do it for love, money comes anyways." When a person looks at the monetary value of a particular path, it's common to try to fit oneself into that path whether it be natural or unnatural. Monetary value is good when evaluating what to explore, but most of the time it's not a good idea to force it when it is clearly not meant to be.