Who is paid for working on their passion project and whats it worth?

4 points by mahdireilly 15 years ago | 2 comments

During my first internship working on a niche B2B product I asked the senior developers if they envisioned themselves working on this project when they got their first job.

They answered that when they started work they had aspirations to be on projects that they were personally interested in or develop things that would have a profound effect on the public. Then they went on to say that you get over it quickly, programming is programming and you only hope to get to solve interesting tech problems even if they are on boring products and ultimately the pay check is king.

This bugs me and even with my own side projects, I find losing 60 hours a week to something I am not passionate about disheartening.

My question is: what are you will to trade to get a job working on a project you like?

DanielStraight 15 years ago |

Cal Newport has a lot of really good things to say on this subject. I would strongly encourage you to read some his thoughts:

http://calnewport.com/blog/2010/10/16/the-passion-trap-how-t...

http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/02/14/zen-and-the-art-of-inv...

And especially: http://calnewport.com/blog/2010/11/12/the-pre-med-and-ira-gl... (And within this article, especially the 2 paragraphs starting at "This advice is less sexy than the popular notion that with a little self-reflection you can identify your dream job right away.")

There are probably no legitimate get-rich-quick schemes, and there are probably no legitimate get-perfectly-fulfilling-work-quick schemes either.

HeyLaughingBoy 15 years ago |

Here's a better question: what will you do when the project that you liked when you joined has changed?

New management doesn't see things they way the old did; the project has morphed into something completely different; the users decided they didn't need something quite so world-changing; all the fun stuff is done and only the boring tedious last 5% (that now takes 95% of the time...) is left to do.

How will you respond to that?