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> I am equally suspicious of those excited by hard computing problems. Debugging memory leaks is a hard problem. Deducing the cause of periodic load spikes on ec2 instances in the middle of the night is a hard problem. I must admit, however, that these tasks does not excite me.

Those are not hard computing problems. They're just hard problems. Solving hard computing problems involves developing new algorithms and heuristics, building elegant solutions to complex issues, working around hard constraints, optimizing for massive scale, etc. Creating a system that quickly sorts and ranks flights by different criteria could be a hard computing problem. Figuring out why that system crashes on Tuesday mornings at 2:37am is just a hard problem.

Very little of what most software engineers do on a daily basis is actually about solving hard computing problems. It's mostly just work, which is why we get paid. The hard computing problems are generally fun. The rest is what earns a living.

You are right. It is exciting to solve those problems. I wish I had more opportunities to do that.

Pretty much agree with you. I would classify between tedious and hard (where both would take the same amount of effort). Beyond that, some borderline tedious/hard problems can be fun (and you can/will get paid for it.) For example, I've to date spent untold hours of my own time trying to squeeze as much performance as possible from a concurrent pipelined noSQL driver. The tedious part is the trial and error of trying n different variations, running effective benchmarks, etc. The thrill :) is in seeing throughput increase 3 fold. It is a rush.

I think you missed the OP's point. The point isn't to say "languages" or "problems" specifically, those are just examples of responses from the "A" list candidates.

The point is the "D" list candidates respond with "I want to work for $company because their $product is $adjective", where it is painfully obvious to the interviewer that $company, $product, and $adjective are variables adjusted for every interview.

P.S. There are people who live to make sausages. Read "How I Learned to Let My Workers Lead" http://people.wku.edu/rich.patterson/CFS-452/Readings/stayer...

It's too bad that so many career-advice books, essays, and blogs tell job searchers to answer like "D" list candidates.

Something that bothers me is the feeling of expectation that software engineers (hackers) are supposed to be tech-heads without looking outside at the business, when really, the business pays the bills. Programming is my job and my hobby, but there's a big world out there where programming is only embedded into the general landscape, not the dominant thing.

Is it not okay to go home at 5 and focus on other things beside your work?

In my experience, much of the time when a company says they're looking for people who are "excited" and "enthusiastic" about the job, it's because they want to pay less money, and think that if they find someone "excited" that they'll be more likely to get away with it. If it's coming from technical people who want to hire other technical people, they may not be thinking that, but you can bet that's how the manager types view it.

Another way to put it is that they want to get more value, whether the company pays under market or well over. All other things being equal, you wouldn't hire the person who's more excited and enthusiastic about programming?

Honestly, if when describing the way you spend perhaps the majority of your waking hours, you have to put excited and enthusiastic in finger-quotes... then I'd suggest a career change.

... to what?

Not everyone has an obvious way to make money doing what excites them. The most exciting thing I do most days is climbing, but even the best climbers barely make money.

I don't mind programming... I certainly don't dread it, and occasionally I particularly enjoy a problem I'm working on. But I wouldn't say I walk to work each day "excited and enthusiastic."

Sorry, getting to this late. The best climbers may barely make money, but I think it's fair to guess that they're excited and enthusiastic about climbing. That's my point. Most people want to hire the best that they're able to.. and there's a high correlation between being really great at something, and loving it.

I think the point is that people who don't enjoy what they actually spend time doing are fundamentally different employees than those that do. If you are in it for the cash instead of the technology, if the company falls on hard times you'll be out the door. If a hard problem comes up you might begrudgingly come up with a solution, but some people would be excited and invigorated by solving it.

There are many jobs out there for people who are willing to program for money. Those top companies, though, when they aren't desperate for talent, can afford to wait for people who will be enthused by the work, rather than enthused outside of it. Even being motivated by success doesn't mean people will dig in and be motivated to get the day-to-day work done the way people who are motivated by the work itself.

Side note: at least home sausage making is quite fun. Squeezing tubes of oatmeal-constancy meat product is awesome in a kindergardener sort of way. Even if I didn't get to eat the product, I would still be entertained. People who aren't? They buy sausage at a store.