I don't think that the curious developer is gone, very much like I don't think that the organic, non-corporate Web is not gone. But the curious and passionate developer is hard to notice in the crowd of developers who learned the craft just for the money it was bringing. Similarly, an indie Web site built as a passion project is hard to come by among the numerous Web sites built to extract money.

There was time when being a software developer was not a particularly prestigious or well-paying job in corporations, or maybe a weird hobby of developing games for the toy 8-bit entertainment computers of the day. It was mostly attracting people who enjoyed interacting with computers, were highly curious, etc.

Then there was a glorious time when the profession of software engineering was growing in importance by the day, hackers became heroes, some made fortunes (see e.g. Carmack or, well, Zuckerberg). But this very wave was the harbinger of the demise: the field became a magnet for people who primarily wanted money. These people definitely can be competent engineers! But the structure of their motivation is different, so the culture was shifting, too. Now programming is a well-paid skilled trade, like being a carpenter or a nurse.

If you want hacker ethos again, look for an obscure field which is considered weird, is not particularly well-paid, but attracts you.

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DarkNova6 a day ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, the author reveals implicitly that he is a web developer. As far as I am concerned, not having a new JS framework innovation neither impacts innovation nor creativity.

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varispeed a day ago | parent | prev [-]

If you don't own the company you work at, you shouldn't be curious, at least not for their benefit if they don't compensate you accordingly.

In the past I did many mistakes like pulling all nighters to because I found a way to make checkout experience more pleasant. That resulted in massive increase of revenue and none of that benefitted me. Or unblocked other team, they couldn't find a reason why their app would randomly crash. Board was panicking as client was going to pull out. I saved the day. Multi-million contract gone through. "Thank yous" didn't help me pay off debts.

Only be curious for your own stuff. For corporations? Do bare minimum.

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nine_k a day ago | parent | next [-]

You should be curious if you wan to progress within the company, or when changing jobs. Knowing significantly more than a job requires was propelling me quite effectively when I was younger. This slowed down when I started to spend less time on lateral research (aka "curiosity").

	▲	raw_anon_1111 a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Look at the leveling guidelines of every major tech company. You don’t get promoted based on “knowing more”. You get promoted based on your ability to handle a larger scope of work, your “impact” and “dealing with ambiguity”. Different companies state it differently. But it all boils down to this. As far as knowing more, the best way to get promotions raises and job opportunities is via networking, the ability to market yourself inside and outside of the company and soft skills. Well the best way to make more money is to work for companies that pay more money - ie BigTech and adjacent [1] - and then learn the politics of promotions. [1] Yes “grind leetCode and work for a FAANG” (tm r/cscareerquestions)
	▲	nodar86 a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		You can be curious and learn without gifting your energy to an uncaring entity

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tyg13 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I weep for a world that is increasingly dominated by corporations, filled with people who are insistent (probably correctly) that they are being taken advantage of, doing the bare minimum, all resulting in an awful experience for everyone. Behind every support ticket that you just can't seem to get resolved, every horrible experience trying to use some product seemingly designed to drive you insane, behind every hare-brained decision that makes your life miserable for seemingly no reason, there's an apathetic worker who's taken your mindset. The impact of your efforts doesn't just affect your employer. We all work together to create the world. What kind of world do you want to live in?

I would hope there to be a healthy medium between "pulling all nighters" and "Do bare minimum" -- perhaps somewhere where we all try to do our best, but don't push ourselves too hard for no reason? I mean, that's more reasonable than imagining we'll one day overthrow our corporate overlords. Probably, I'm naive and idealistic. But I can't help but feel like the result of apathy is not satisfaction.

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red_rech a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Eh idk, there are certainly wage-labor jobs I’ve seen that I could get really excited for and fall for it all.

Luckily though, none of those places would ever even look at my resume.