What Is A Programmer’s Life Like?

I was listening to Fredrik Christenson’s podcast “My Life As A Programmer” and he was answering the question “What is a programmer’s life like?”.

I did wonder what the person who asked the question expected to hear. Did he expect a millionaire lifestyle or something?

Fredrik began by answering the question by describing a simple day: Stand Up update (progress update with your team); picking up new work; helping coworkers; maybe some meetings scattered throughout the day; but rest of the time coding. He then mentioned how programmers are just normal people and live normal lives and most people wouldn’t be able to tell a programmer by talking to them.

I do recall a time where I’d finished playing 5-a-side football and my friend then said how I must be really different compared to the rest of my colleagues. I looked at him a bit confused and said “what do you mean?” and he said “well, you play sports, I bet everyone else doesn’t”.

It seems he was just thinking in stereotypes. There’s loads of developers that I work with that are into fitness. There’s some weightlifting enthusiasts, some play Badminton, some play Football, one plays American Football, a couple of people play Field Hockey. There’s plenty of people that are into jogging, and a group of people routinely went jogging every lunch time.

There are definitely a few people that do conform to stereotypes but I reckon there’s more Software Testers that conform to that than Software Developers. So you do get socially awkward types, but there’s plenty of people that are just ordinary people.