my profession

I talked to a guy on the phone today, who wants to work at my company. Smart guy. I asked him a bunch of tricky questions, and from this I surmised that he'd be likely to survive an onsite interview. That's great. That's what you want out of every phone screen.

It got me thinking about my profession. A lot of what makes me good at my job is incredibly arbitrary, like knowing what connects to what, and who worked on that. But then again a lot of it is what you might call "intrinsic." I like finding out how stuff works. I like solving hard problems. I hate admitting defeat. I enjoy finding workarounds. That sort of thing.

But there's another category of traits that is in-between. I understand when to comment my methods and when to move on. I have a feeling for what to name my classes and variables. I have a good hunch for when a breakpoint will tell me something, and when a file search will help. Sometimes I can just type out a class or three. I guess this space in the middle is what I call "software engineering." I place a value on this stuff, which is independent of the value that I place on seniority, and different from the value I place on ability.

Maybe it's simply because I realize, the older get and the more I move around, the less I can rely on ability OR seniority to govern my salary. It's in my interest to promote the value of professionalism at this point in my career.

;-)