> follow your curiosity. Admittedly, I am still a young programmer (shy of 30), but so far this has not yet failed me.
Unfortunately this failed me hard. I realized this after recently getting several rejection (at the screening level, not even the interview level) for reasons I can reasonably extrapolate “other candidates have much more relevant “experience” than you, quotations denoting professional experience, as opposed to some shit I put together on my own.
It kinda dawned on me, that instead of wasting time working on things I was curious about or that interested me, I should have instead been working on things I’m not particularly interested in, but are in demand.
I think it might depend on what you're curious about and if that interest is valued.
For me it's multiplayer games, game engine architecture, computer architecture (built my own 8-bit computer). Learning Rust recently too. I get really excited about solving hard problems and bugs.
If I have to work for a boss to get paid, there is no way I would also spend my free time on projects just to impress some people. I got a little money buffer and no family though. So this attitude might not work for others.
"Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn't stop you from doing anything at all." - Richard P. Feynman
I've never understood why "just doing it anyway" was a fair argument when you do not have a choice over the thing you have to work on, but that it isn't when you have a choice in doing something yourself. If what you do is a hobby, you are certainly able to give it up for another one if you aren't happy when doing it, or if it isn't "just your thing." But arguably, it being "not your thing" could just be because of your insecurity and unwillingness to conquer adversity, and thus giving up on something you don't "want" to do but do not stop thinking about regardless would be the wrong decision. That process of getting over your insecurity could take weeks or months or years of time, beyond just trying it a few times before declaring that it's not truly an interest of yours.
For that matter, why do some genetic disorders reliably correlate with having only a set of narrowly defined interests, or no persistent interests at all? What does an "interest" even mean at a biological level? Are we always in control of what we are capable of caring about and acting towards, separate from what we merely tell ourselves we want?
Unfortunately this failed me hard. I realized this after recently getting several rejection (at the screening level, not even the interview level) for reasons I can reasonably extrapolate “other candidates have much more relevant “experience” than you, quotations denoting professional experience, as opposed to some shit I put together on my own.
It kinda dawned on me, that instead of wasting time working on things I was curious about or that interested me, I should have instead been working on things I’m not particularly interested in, but are in demand.