Embrace the Rules of the Game

Remember, we operate in a capitalist system. This means money is the primary driver. Don't be ashamed to discuss your salary, bonuses, or compensation for overtime. It’s not a 'dirty' topic; it's as fundamental as any other term of your employment.

Understand Your Employer's Motivation

Your employer doesn't love or respect you in a personal sense; you are there to help them generate revenue. Perks like a fancy office, a gym membership, and free snacks are designed to boost morale and retention while keeping salaries competitive, not excessive. Don't fall for vague promises about professional growth or a family-like team. Instead, focus on two things:

Your genuine interest in the work
Your base salary

Everything else is secondary. And if you encounter genuinely unpleasant colleagues, remember you can always find a better environment elsewhere.

Trust the Contract, Not the Promises

Performance reviews, salary adjustments, and promises of advancement are often just talk. Verbal commitments are free and non-binding. The company's immediate goal is to get you in the door; the office perks are there to keep you from leaving.

The fastest way to increase your income is almost always by switching jobs

This isn't to say employers are deceptive if they don't offer annual raises or shower you with bonuses. Those things are never guaranteed, no matter what was said. The only document that matters is your employment contract — read it carefully.

Corporations Aren't Evil, They're Machines

This doesn't mean corporations are evil. They are simply machines designed to achieve their primary goal: making money. Paying a programmer more doesn't magically make them smarter or more productive. From a purely business perspective, increasing salaries reduces profits. If you can help that machine run better and generate more revenue, you might get a share of the profits. But that path often leads toward management and finance — a world where you're laying off 500 people instead of writing C++.

True Professionalism is Meeting Deadlines

Professionalism in software development isn't about writing perfect code; it's about delivering a functional product on time. Your boss has made a commitment to a client, and that client needs the result by a specific date to stay competitive. A professional delivers on schedule. All other qualities are secondary.

A flawed result delivered on time is more valuable than a perfect one delivered late

An artisan who delivers pristine code after the deadline is just an artist, not a professional. A true pro knows how to version their work, save improvements for the next iteration, and stick to the agreed-upon plan, even when they see a 'better' way.

Appreciate the Magic of Instant Creation

One of the best psychological perks of programming is the incredibly short feedback loop between an idea and its execution. Unlike building a skyscraper or designing a circuit board, you can have a working result in minutes. A quick recompile, and your vision comes to life. Cherish this unique power — few other fields offer such immediate gratification.

The Myth of the Management Career Path

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that the only career path for a developer leads to management. Becoming a team lead often means endless meetings and a slow decay of your technical skills. The world remembers great developers like Linus Torvalds, Fabrice Bellard and many others as not great team leads. While we remember figures like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, they were visionary founders, not middle managers.

Stay Curious: The Power of Pet Projects

If you've chosen to remain a developer, it's likely because you genuinely love programming. Embrace that passion! Build personal projects that truly interest you, not just what's trending. The goal is to learn and understand things more deeply. Most importantly: finish them. A pet project should end with a working result, whether it's a private tool or a public GitHub repo. An unfinished project is a disservice to your own time and effort.

There are no shortcuts to genius. Great work isn't coded overnight in a caffeine-fueled haze. The real superpower is the ability to break down a massive problem into small, manageable steps and execute them methodically.

Reinvent the Wheel. Relentlessly.

Ignore the naysayers who cry, You're just reinventing the wheel! These critics rarely create anything themselves. Learn to distinguish between constructive feedback and baseless negativity. Constructive feedback comes from people who have built things. The phrase 'show me what you've built first' is not just trolling; it’s a valid filter.

The dirty secret is that most successful startups are just better-built wheels. A successful new business is often an old one that saves the customer time or money. Building something in a field with no competitors is often a sign that there's no demand. So, embrace the wheel! Build your own programming languages, encryption algorithms, and game engines. The market, not armchair critics, will ultimately decide what is valuable. The world has enough commentators; it needs more creators.

Never Stop Building

Even if you do end up in management, never stop building. Your side projects might evolve into business ventures, but the principle remains the same: always be creating. Your employer is not responsible for your personal development. You owe it to yourself to find your own path and keep growing.

Good luck.