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What Makes a Great Software Engineer (Dissertation) (2016) [pdf]

(faculty.washington.edu)
94 points azhenley | 1 comments | 19 Feb 25 23:40 UTC | HN request time: 0.235s | source
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ultra-boss ◴[20 Feb 25 14:05 UTC] No.43114759[source]▶
"At a high level, our informants described great software engineers as people who are passionate about their jobs."

Curious to know this group's thoughts: Do you believe that passion is NECESSARY to be a "great" software engineer?

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1. ktrnka ◴[20 Feb 25 16:13 UTC] No.43116477[source]▶
Yes. Earlier in careers, passion can lead to more time and energy towards growth, which is a strong contributor to becoming a great engineer.

For more experienced engineers, I think about it as skill vs motivation. In theory one doesn't need motivation to do great work. In practice, I haven't seen great work from folks with high skill but low motivation.