To those of you who are professional developers and/or are currently working in a field where you write code...

Question

What does a normal day look like for you? What problems do you focus on solving each day? Do you work mostly by yourself, or with a team of developers? When working among other developers, is there much competition as to who is “better” at what they do, or do people acknowledge and take advantage of each other’s abilities when necessary? Does your job inspire you to learn more outside the workspace, or do you need a break from coding at the end of the day?

Thanks!

( Sorry if this post seems convoluted )

Answer 1

I think there many comics available in people's personal feeds (or xkcd) that would give you an idea of what a normal day looks like (eyes glued to a monitor, posture rapidly deteriorating, etc.).

The kinds of problems depend on the industry, the team, and the role. The size of the team also depend on these things. Some teams trust me to work mostly independently and other teams have micromanagers trying very hard to justify their paychecks.

Competitiveness between coworkers (or even with bosses who are feeling insecure about themselves) differs between companies and departments. Something to pay attention to when you're interviewing for positions. I prefer a work environment/culture where everyone is self aware and respectful of each other's abilities and areas of expertise (i.e. don't break my code, then blame me for the code not working when it was working fine before you touched it, etc.)

I'm inspired to learn more outside work when the problem is interesting, but not when I'm beating my head [...tbc]

Answer 2

[cfa...] against an inefficient implementation choice.