What Keeps YOU Motivated As A Developer To Get Better?

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all right it's Friday morning I'm just leaving CrossFit here um I saw an interesting question on Reddit I figured we'd try out I'm just going to get the windows clear a little bit cuz it's raining and everything in the car is foggy try to back out of this spot it's really difficult to see anything at these parking spots um okay so the question I readit it's a little philosophical I got to clear these this windshield too my god um but I think it's an interesting one and probably something that people need to try I don't know like I think it's important to answer this for yourself in your career and the idea of the question is like as a software engineer and you can probably apply this to any industry right but like in your career what motivates you to keep being better and I

think it's an interesting question especially considering uh past few videos that I put out on code commute have been around like you know when you're looking for different jobs like how are you evaluating companies or um you know work life balance oh man I got to get gas ah we'll make it home it's okay um you know what I'm going to get gas before I get on the highway so I'm going to have to edit this one uh good thing I saw that anyway um this idea I think we really have to keep coming back to in our careers because it will change uh but I think you can use it sort of as like a like almost like a North this maybe a phrase most people haven't heard I don't know like a North star to kind of guide you uh in the decisions

that you're making for yourself so um I think some people haven't done this exercise before and you know it's like I know I wanted to get into software engineering because there's good money okay and like already you kind of have one thing that that you value and that's money and I said this in the last video I recorded but like there's nothing wrong with like wanting to make money I think even for myself like in my upbringing there's kind of like a almost like a frowned upon thing like hey it's not all about money and just because there's a motivation including money does not imply that everything is 100% money just for the record but trying to act like it's not important I think is also kind of misleading and perhaps like negligent so that's one example of just even if you're not aware of

the things that you're valuing like consciously I mean I gave you one example already where probably for most people getting into it like maybe money was a motivating factor so I I do think it's important that we start to try and dive into this so uh before I pull on the gas station here I'll share like just as a heads up I'll be sharing kind of like things that I have looked at in my career um and maybe something's going forward that like I don't know if I can anticipate but um I'll provide some some thoughts on that so give me one sec as I pull into the gas station I actually had a a flat tire here like a couple months ago if you were watching my videos and you saw when I had to go get the laner vehicle not the last time

but one of the times before it's cuz I had a flat tire and I had to pull into this gas station and wait for like 2 hours for Triple A anyway I'll be right back okay let's uh make sure we never come back to this gas station CU that took me like 10 minutes to fill up a gas tank I can't comprehend how was that slow now we got to pull out of here and we'll get back to the highway okay um so before I continue on just a reminder that if you want questions answered leave them in the comments and if you want to write something with a little bit more detail just look for Dev leader on social media um send me a message I'll keep it completely Anonymous happy to answer what you got going on in your software engineering career but

um let's kind of dive into some thoughts around this and um if I go way back for myself kind of like the framing I was saying like for people that maybe are getting into for me it was I think most people were like college or universities like the path for software engineering uh I know there's a lot more boot camps and stuff now not like they didn't exist before but I just feel like it's kind of been a big uh Paradigm Shift over the past uh 10 to 20 years kind of thing but um for me was like okay I remember being in elementary school high school kind of being told like oh you're a smart kid like you should consider being an engineer and I I've told this story a couple times I guess not really a story but like um when I was

little I thought every time someone told me I should be an engineer they meant like a train engineer like a like a conductor and I was like that's really weird that people keep telling me that um like it seems very specific uh but okay and I didn't know like I didn't understand what engineering was right like as a profession uh so that was like a weird thing that I had to uncover over time um obviously by the time I was ready to go to school I had kind of figured this out but um so engineering was kind of constantly put in front of me it was like Hey you seem to be a smart kid you should consider that um I got to get out of this Lane because people are going so dangerously slow in this Lane and hammering the brakes that like someone's

going to get in an accident I don't know if people realize this but there's like obviously if you're flying down the highway and going super fast that's dangerous but but driving like very very slow on a highway is also dangerous you might feel like oh like safe for me um but you're going to have people that are like tailgating you trying to pass you like you're creating a dangerous situation for others if the road is not clear different story but like it's just raining it's okay um no real good excuse right now for that kind of behavior so I was kind of like pushed in this direction cuz I didn't really know but I knew that I liked working with computers ever since I was a kid um I had learned how to program in like grade n so I had you know my grade

9 through 12 was kind of like discovering programming and that was a lot of fun but um I didn't really know exactly like what I wanted to do when I grew up um so when it came time to go figure out like what do I want to do for my career if I'm going to be going to college University it was like I remember thinking okay I like like programming and I could go into like software development I still don't really fully understand what that's going to mean when I'm all grown up um but I remember my father was kind of recommending he's like hey like you know anyone can I don't know he didn't say it exactly like this but it kind of felt like the message was like anyone could be a programmer but like the the money isn't Hardware so like it's

a better investment for your future if you get into hardware and me like being kind of naive about this like I didn't really gr like consider this is just his bias right like he had uh when I was a lot younger he had a hardware company uh that was like making uh circuit boards so this is like that's what he thought right um so I said okay like I'll I'll go into Computer Engineering and I can get that exposure that way and again back to the motivation that way I'll be set up to have a good career and by my definition that was like you're going to make money right at least I know I'm interested in computers like that was important it had to be something I was interested in and on top of that you'll make money so that was my starting point

now I've talked about this before too but when I was in university and I had I had six internships because it was like a a co-op program at the University of Waterloo um if I were to think during that time what was motivating for me I I don't it certainly wasn't to like to work hard uh if that makes sense it sounds kind of funny and it's like kind of embarrassing for me to say at this point cuz my sort of Outlook is much different but uh maybe this was like a a good thing I don't know but like I wasn't interested in working hard so it was like do good work but like I'm going to do the good work for the the time I'm supposed to and then sort of the the least amount of good work I have to do to to

do good work that's what I'm getting done and um part of me like I'm laughing at this because part of me is thinking like okay that's probably uh like air quotes like working smart right like not just doing extra work because it's it's extra um and part of me is laughing because a lot of my career beyond that point was quite the opposite which was like doing extra uh work work work right um so in terms of what motivated me though it's a good question I think for me at that time I was just motivated to get out of school and it's kind of a shame because I feel like during my time at school I wasn't like I didn't feel motivated to get better if that makes sense or else I would have been taking advantage of a lot of the things that the

school was offering different like programs in terms of like clubs or things like extracurricular things the fact that I'm at a university like one of the top engineering schools in Canada surrounded by other you know software developers engineers and stuff like why did I not take advantage of that situation more so it's a I mean mild regret I guess but kind of feels like silly that you know there was that opportunity to lean into that more and truthfully my motivation was not aligned with that it was just how do I get done here um but I enjoyed my internships right like that to me was motivating and I think what I was realizing uh like money aside right because I mentioned that's kind of one of the driving factors for getting into it money aside the I realized I was really enjoying it which might

sound funny to some people I don't know but like I I actually just enjoy writing code we got switch lanes again cuz we got another person that's going way below the speed limit um so yeah like I had on the internships I was getting exposed to things and I was like this is actually like really fun but the the thing is like clearly not fun enough compared to other things that I wanted to do as more of a kid right I don't know when I can call myself a kid up to like what age but you know I want to play video games I want to go hang out with my friends like even in my I don't know like early 20s and stuff so like let me go do that like programming is fun yes but like if I'm going to program for fun

it's going to be my stuff and then I want to hang out with my friends or play video games so it it was at least enough where I was like hey I definitely know I want to be doing this when I'm done School CU like I do enjoy it now an interesting thing when you start getting your first jobs and stuff or maybe this happens for other people depending on the type of uh side projects and things are doing but you start getting exposed to different domains right because software engineering is one of these fields that you can pick any domain that you can think of and probably write software for it right you could take gardening like okay like how do you go program microcontrollers to go read different uh I don't know environmental things for your Gardens like uh inventorying for uh places

that are selling flowers like you you pick any industry and there's probably software that you can build for it so for me at least my internships were this first sort of exposure to like hey like you actually could be going to to work in all sorts of different places so I had uh an internship that was making uh bank machine software like the ATMs that you go to to uh withdraw and deposit money um I worked at a startup that did uh like literally uh it was a contractor but we we had a contract for doing um basically like animal immunization so we were doing embedded development for uh helping you know admin medicine to animals um there was an internship for doing like operating room uh audio video setups which is like super cool so the the point I'm trying to get at here

is like for me that was my first exposure to like maybe there's a domain that I'm very passionate about and don't even realize it yet which is going to be a nice segue into um my first like full-time role as a software developer which is at a company called magnet forensics that's where I was for 8 years before Microsoft and I think this is where there was for me like a lot of uh sort of like fundamental formation of things that I value uh over that 8year period U but one thing just to to finish the segue one thing that I realized was like being able to work in digital forensics meant that we had this opportunity to help with uh with saving kids right and we we created software for like law enforcement for examiners investigators and a lot of uh a lot of

the times as as unfortunate as it is uh our software was being used to help basically catch pedophiles and it's not something that people talk about a lot because it's like a a pretty taboo topic and obviously uh it's triggering um but the reality is like this kind of stuff happens a lot and it's like super dark and super like I said super unfortunate um but so it's not something I ever like kind of growing up was like Hey I I can't wait to help with that because I just like didn't really think that it existed at least to the degree that it does sorry I got to turn right here but this intersections kind of funky um so I I learned for myself like that being able to help with that and have uh an impact that way was like one of the most

motivating uh things that I I I feel like when I'm on my deathbed I will still say I that's probably something that was able to top anything else in my life um which is huge right like that was kind of the first job I had being able to help in that way first full-time job sorry um where I was realizing that like we can have such an impact on other parts of the world so that was really interesting uh to find something that was pardon me like that motivating that um yeah just like you can have such a big impact but the um the other thing I realized in the teams that I was running is like something that motivates me is um and this again it's not for everyone but I really liked being the underdog and it's kind of funny because I'm at

Microsoft now Microsoft is not the underdog of things maybe edge browser is the underdog of of browsers but like um Microsoft's not an underdog right it's a behemoth it's huge tons of Industries it's just it's monstrous um but what was really cool where I was working before was that I managed very small teams uh the before I left I was managing two teams that were probably five or six people each and what was super cool was that it was like we are underdogs right we have these ridiculous constraints on us because we're so we're so small and our goals are so big and there's other people doing this stuff and it was like but we're going to do it better and that was like again I didn't realize this about myself but that was really motivating for me um so now like these days at

Microsoft uh and kind of at the tail end of my career at uh at Magnet forensics I I talk about my like I was a manager for basically the eight years that I was at Magnet fic I started managing very early there very early um in my professional career which is kind of a unusual uh just because of a startup kind of setup but I was also an IC at the same time like I was programming and managing uh for that my tenure there and um at the end of that I started to realize like I like having a bigger impact by uh by being more hands off it took me a long time to realize that so in terms of motivators now I am very motivated by being able to have more broad impact by managing and and helping coordinate teams so if I

can Empower my teams to do more effective work like to me that's really rewarding now um but it took a long time to kind of feel that kind of reward moving through uh software engineering right because for a long time like being like as someone who's a I I feel confident I can say that I'm a strong coder um being able to lean on that and being like that's the thing that's going to carry me and having to move away from that and saying no like what's going to carry me as being a good leader um and that's going to be more rewarding just took a long time to figure out so um I think kind of going forward for me though if I compare with my career trajectory prior to Microsoft to currently um and this is kind of like a personal note for

myself right like my my career trajectory now to be able to have a a broader impact on organizations uh I'm extremely far behind where I was headed Microsoft is huge don't get me wrong um the space I work in is like planetary scale so I'm not talking about that uh I'm talking about the fact from like an organizational perspective and the impact that I'm able to have within an organization I'm many years behind now where I would have been um and that's not a knock on on Microsoft or anything like that it's more like okay for me if the thing that motivates me to do better in my career is going to be having more broad impact across an organization uh I was basically getting prepared to move into a director position that they were creating CU our or before like before Microsoft I mean

we didn't we didn't have a a career path for technical manager into directorship uh so they're trying to create that um and if you fast forward five years I'm still like a mid-level manager at Microsoft which means like my direct reports are individual contributors I'm not a manager of managers um so it's not that I haven't learn new skills or had different experiences like all of that's very good I'm not I'm not complaining about that but in terms of like my career progression I am I've actually taken a step back from being closer to manager of managers and moving uh up in that direction so um that's something for me that's like an interesting motivator like how to move in that direction but um as this light's about to turn green and I get closer to being home to kind of like bring it all

back these things change over time right like I I hope that by kind of walking you through some different parts of my career which includes Engineering Management right I realize not everyone that's watching is like that's not on you might not ever want to do that and you certainly should not feel forced to if it's not an interest but like maybe it is one day maybe maybe it is right now for you and you're starting out and you're like that's what I want to do and then you spend some time in the industry and you're like absolutely not I don't want to have to work with people on that level and like then you learn about those things but I think it's really important to find the things that are going to drive you because to the original question about what motivates you to be

better it's going to be a huge struggle or a ton of friction if you're trying to get better and you're not motivated to do so and you can kind of think about this in like if you're at a company and they have like prescribed training and you're like why the hell am I stuck doing this like I don't care about it like that feeling if you have to have that the entire time that you're trying to get better you're not going to be motivated to do it right like so you're probably going to find yourself stagnating but if you can find those motivations I wanted to say motivators and I said it kind of funny but if you can find those motivators or the right motivations for you I think that that really can help you like untap some potential um like I said for

me things lined up really well uh at Magnet forensics uh and not not that I'm encouraging this I'm just using it as an example but um because I had so many things that lined up there for me in terms of like being motivating it meant that I could just work like I could work nonstop and it felt good um so I'm not suggesting ing you do that but my point is that when it doesn't feel like there's friction that's when you can kind of pour yourself into something obviously do it within reason understand your boundaries and stuff like that but um finding that motivation can can make a huge difference so if you're getting into your career just to kind of wrap this up and you're like I'm here for the money like like I said nothing wrong with that I don't think so personally

um so maybe that's how it starts right but I'm hopeful that if you're if you start that way and you're like hey I'm here to I'm here to make some money I don't want you to go through your whole career like hating it because if you go on some of the previous videos right if you're going to be spending a majority of your life at work so majority of you're waking life let's uh you're going to sleep 8 hours let's let's assume we have to make some generalizations here so 24 minus 8 what have we got left got 16 hours left you have an eight hour work day let's uh okay there's weekends in there too but um you got you know eight hours at work and eight hours to yourself outside of work or with your family right so and odds are you're probably

going to have some days that are longer than eight hours at work so you're spending a huge chunk of your life of your adult life at work if you hate it and it's just to make money it better be so much money that the other time outside of work those other eight hours are ridiculously good and I suspect that for most people that's not the case so the reason I'm saying this is that in order for you to keep your sanity and have a long happy career I would strongly encourage you to like yes if you're if you want to make money please like keep that in mind but don't just take a job because the number on paper is higher try to make sure that you're balancing that out uh and that way that way you'll be happier at work you'll be more motivated

and you'll hopefully find those things that keep you um engaged in learning and that way you'll keep getting better so that's my take on that um I thought it'd be an interesting one to walk through uh maybe not because of what I have to say but hopefully as you were watching this you got thinking about the things that that motivate you and if you haven't figured them out spend some extra time on that I think it'll help so that's it for today um I'm not driving to the office so no more videos today unless I come up with something creative later so I'll see you next time thanks so much remember look for Dev leader on social media if you want to send me questions anonymously happy to help and the Dev leader live stream that I do weekly Mondays 700 p.m.

Pacific very much like these conversations except it's actually live and there is a chat I know that there's folks from code commute that are coming over and checking out the live stream super cool to see you there and I hope to see more of you so take care have a good weekend