I asked Software Engineers on Threads about how they stay motivated
I’ve started to use Threads more over the last few weeks, and I have found a great community of tech workers and software engineers. The community is very engaged, so I was able to get quite a few responses when I posted the following question:
Software engineers, what is the most important factor for you to stay motivated in your role?
For me, I think it is working with other passionate people and feeding off their energy.
I found the responses to be very interesting, so I thought I would share some of them here!
Problem solving, iteration, and creativity. There’s something almost meditative about constantly refining and improving my work.
This response was particularly interesting to me because it referred to the work as “meditative.” That word got me thinking about times I have found myself in the “flow state.” I like to think about the flow state as when I get so focused on what I am working on I don’t even hear the music in my headphones. I am someone who prides myself on being productive. Days when I am able to get into the flow state are some of my most productive days, so they also feel very rewarding and motivating to me.
Knowing that what I am building will matter to users.
I liked this answer a lot. When I was working at a telehealth startup at the beginning of COVID, we got a lot of positive feedback regarding how much we were helping patients get the care and information they needed. I was also putting in really long hours at the time. Even though long working hours typically tire me out, I was able to stay energized because I knew I was helping people.
Being allowed to ship the features I build.
I honestly didn’t even consider this factor when I posed the question. I am lucky enough to have never had to work on a large project that has been scrapped and never saw the light of day. I can totally see how that would be very demoralizing and demotivating.
The problem space needs to be ambiguous enough that I am allowed to experiment/iterate with bold ideas.
I found this interesting because it rings true for a lot of software engineers. Many of us actually like ambiguity. We want to eb the ones using our own creativity to some up with solutions to problems. I know for me, it can feel limiting to be giving an exact solution to a problem that I just need to turn into code. I like when I can draw from my knowledge of the overall system to come up with an optimized solution.
Hopefully you found these responses as enlightening as I did. Thanks for reading!
