Why Programmers need creativity

Pen Magnet
The Startup
Published in
10 min readJul 5, 2019

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Image by Karin Henseler, Pixabay

One of my tech friends transformed his software career from manual testing to big data 2 years ago. Everything was great: Salary got 2x, mortgages got relaxed due to quick liquidity of stock options.

But the cherry on top of the cream was extremely liberating work culture — compared to sweatshops he worked before.

He deserved it. His struggle involved sleepless nights and weekends going through certification videos, practicing assignments and updating CV. He sensed the demand in time, grew anxious with preparations, and had extremely difficult time juggling interviews with his job.

But in the end, it all paid off. And I was happy for him.

Six months later, he messages: “Looking for a change…”

“ You just entered a hot industry…has the boss changed?”

“No — everything is cool as before. It’s just me. Don’t enjoy the work. Plus, just look at how much cloud developers earn.”

While I couldn’t understand his motivation, there was no sin wishing to earn best bucks for one’s talent. “OK, what now?”

“I will get a cloud certification.”

“Agree that cloud is hot and evergreen. But it’s not exactly in the certification gold rush era that you are looking for. That time is over. You need to show real

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Pen Magnet
The Startup

Author of Comprehensive Approach to Senior Developer Interview), Startup writer, Programmer, Tech Career Blogger, Education Engagement Enthusiast