The short answer is "Yes absolutely it can just be a job!!!"

Earlier in your career you may have to immerse yourself that extra amount in order to learn everything you need to learn, but as you go, it will become far more optional.

Of course it's alright for coding to just be a job. It's always ok for you to do what is best for your life.

That said, I do miss the olden days where coding was a way of life and not just a means to earn a paycheck. I can't help but think the world is losing something beautiful by coding becoming just another profession instead of a niche for passionate nerds to express their love of software.

You can make it just a job or a passion. Once starting out you’re going to feel like you’ve got to constantly be learning something new, in theory yes you’ll always learn something new. Do you want to spend 24/7 on learn that’s up to you but also a way to get burnt out. Once you get your first job and after a few months you’ll start to learn tips and tricks to better your self and learn new syntax more effectively.

It definitely can be just a job, but I don't think your fears about falling behind are entirely unfounded. Things change fast around here. If your continuing education is limited to what you do in your current job, then you may struggle to switch jobs or to get a competitive edge over your coworkers when angling for a promotion.

To be clear, I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Aggressively pursuing career advancement is deeply unhealthy for many (most?) people who try it. If your career advances a little more slowly but it gives you a much better work/life balance and more time with your family or community, good for you!

If you do want to aggressively pursue a career but don't want to per-se write code in your spare time, there are also some good options:

• pursue advancement into something more people-heavy like management or project management. Consider backing it with an MBA or a business certificate or something. We certainly need more people in tech who are good with people.
• pursue advancement into something more academic and specialized like data science or human-computer interaction. The idea here is that if you go deep into one subject in-demand subject as opposed to something generalized like "full stack" or "web" you can learn almost everything up front and not have to spend so much time keeping up to date with the whole software stack.
• stay up to date with podcasts on your commute or working around the house. Shows like Coding Blocks, Hanselminutes, the MS Dev Show, or Corecursive can give you the benefits of being conversant in a lot of different technologies but it feels more like listening to NPR interview shows than doing actual software work. Just a little can go a long way.

The last thing I'll say is that there's a pretty big difference between coding as a job and as a hobby and coding every waking hour and having it be your whole lifestyle. I think most people have more than one hobby. I'm a full-time software developer and a Secular Franciscan and an orchid enthusiast and a cyclist--and I also try to make at least one commit to my hobby software project every day. Lots of people do code as a hobby, but I don't think many of us make it their whole lifestyle.

It can definitely only be a job. I find myself doing much less side projects than I used to when I was younger. But I think thats also because of life and family :)

For me it was the other way around. I always loved dabbling around with code. It was my hobby since I was about 10 years old. I grew up and became much better in coding and one day I found someone who would be willing to pay me money for following my hobby. I think thats extreme luck.

Today I am a team leader in a big software company and when I look around, I see many developers who are not like me. Who would not spend their free time thinking about computer problems. Or reading books aboud software design or buildprocesses. They prefer doing sports, barbecues or whatever. And its fine!

I try to enable them in their work time by sharing my knowledge. I assist and help out where I can. I reserve some of their work time for digging into new topics, trying out technologies and maybe simply read a book about software design.

If you feel like you want to get better - see if your workplace can support you with that. Its only fair, because you will become a more valuable member for your team.

I was an engineering intern and I needed to code because of many calculations we needed to do on Excel to create a new sales proposal for each and every customer. At that time my focus was never on the coding, but only on the business. This knowledge of excel + coding helped me a lot. At that time, I was just an occasional and talented guitar player.

Then, when I was finishing my electrical engineering course, I notice that there were not so many secure/stable jobs for engineers here in Brazil. So I took the decision to move and become a professional developer.

It was a good and early career shift. I am very well employed and it's very difficult to find an engineer with the same salaries we have on development jobs. But there is a cost. Many many times I need to code only boring, complex, risky things and there is a clock watching me. The coding "science" itself has become a cornerstone of my career and to be honest, I have always wanted to use code as a power user / business analyst / process engineer that could bring a lot of impact to the company. Not what we have today - the "do the correct and well engineered code" instead of the "engineering mentality" of focusing solely on the problem, regardless of the code quality/standards. I have become a guitarist working on a professional and famous band, with deadlines and subject to approval/rejection of the customers and employers.

OF COURSE all the code quality and software engineering stuff is very important. But the thing is that I am really tired. For example: if we want to test a new idea or do some refactoring, usually the PR will receive comments deciding against that change because of the risk and of course, you would be punished by having to update/rewrite/recreate a lot of tests just to support this experimental feature.

I would say that becoming a full-time coder is good to build your family and buy house/car/pay schools etc., but this is rarely a pure creative occupation where you could truly have the pleasure of experiment, test, retry and get user feedback very fast. Becoming a full-time developer usually requires that you be a guitarist, not only play the guitar when you want. You will have to go full-time on learning, training, studying, rehearsal, etc. Not easy and yes, it will take all of your energy for the day.

It's a job for me.

I'm deeply passionate about software and writing code. However, I kinda suck at managing things. I have a lot of interests, some fleeting, some permanent. Recent obsessions would be sim racing, sciFi, writing, working out (in that, I'm experimenting with rock climbing, wrestling and such), badminton, 8 ball - and this is from just the last month or two.

I'm unfocused with things in general, but I feel this is how I like to experience things. Breadth first, depth later. This is working for me, it doesn't have to be for everyone like that. Some people figure out early what they like and can stick to it. Even then, I was born in a densely populated country with high degree of classism - couldn't try out woodworking or car repair early on, things I might enjoy.

That said, I do find a lot of time on the weekends to code and learn outside of the job. I love it, but I don't think of myself as just a programmer. :)

I 100% relate to this, especially when I started my career and even now sometimes. I work with some incredible developers and when you ask what they’ve done with their evenings or weekends is always they’ve coded something or learnt something new and there’s me, I read a book or something 👀 I felt like I wasn’t dedicated enough to coding and I wouldn’t get anywhere because I wasn’t doing what they was doing but PLEASE do not compare yourself to others.

It can 100% be a job and you leave it behind when you clock off if you want to, or it can be something you also do in your spare time but it is completely up to you. You will find a balance that works for you. When you finish work make sure you’re doing things you enjoy, even if that’s watching tv or playing games, it’s absolutely ok. Please try not to stress over this, it will pass in time the less you compare yourself to others

Actually I was thinking the same thing too. It is just a normal job but the industry leaders, for their own benefit, sell it as if it should be a life philosophy for the employees. This is so unhealthy.
Plus, the industry is full of hypes but in reality you get a job in whatever field you do properly and with passion. So, try to be overly critical and selfish when learning because if you give benefit of doubt, you will be just stuck in the loop.

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It's totally fine and no you should absolutely not spend your entire time thinking about code, this causes only more stress (it will freak you out more) which will affect your health and your productivity in your job as well. Especially the latter may sound counterintuitive to some who think "the more I spend time coding the better I get", there is way more nuance to that and its often more about how we spend our time that gets us further. I can recommend this article about human factors and how they influence the quality of our work - from a software engineering perspective.

I don’t know if this is the right answer but here you go.
In general, creating anything from nothing is what excites me. The very skill of bringing something that everyone can use, that was just an idea moments ago, is addictive for me. That pushes me to write code even if it’s not for a job or for academic purposes. It may not be for all.
You can still have a programming job and work on your hobbies in your free time. You don’t have to force yourself to write code seeing how others are doing.

Nah, you're good just doing you in your non-working time. I suspect you already knew this, but it's easy to lose that train of thought when so many employers and hiring practices seemingly skip past this to assume every dev has a multitude of open source projects they've worked on to show in a GitHub profile as portfolio.

Some people are all on all the time. I used to be closer to this description, blogging, speaking at user groups and occasionally larger events, building a new prototype web app seemingly weekly. As I've become a more senior developer and had to make more work through multiple years of pandemic while already being a fully remote worker, I've discovered a passion for offline hobbies when I have time for them.

My suggestion to you is, as a new developer it may be worthwhile to selectively and in a deliberate fashion, build a couple of things that show off you, your skills, and your ability to learn and adapt by chipping away at a couple of things to keep in a portfolio. This should make things easier when talking to a recruiter when they ask what you can show you've worked on; my day job code work is not something I like to sling around, as that's the company's code and is usually closed source.

Alternatively I'd recommend building a "show off" library, whether those are one-off utility functions or individual components you're especially proud of (or some slice of code), that can fulfill that purpose without being a whole application. You don't have to over complicate it, you can just check them into a private GitHub repo with folders so you can have separate readme files to describe what they are if you want to. This should be code that's abstracted enough from whatever you work on to not carry with it any company/team/project specifics and keep the focus on your work effort.

If you can't budget more than 30 minutes per week (or some number of minutes) to put into that sort of thing, then slowly poke away at it now and it should grow nicely over a few months. Ultimately find what works for you and do enjoy being unplugged when you need to be. You're right to treat work as work and not require it as part of your every waking moment. Best of luck.

I would say it depends. On yourself definitely. I have colleagues for whom it’s just a job. Some are good at it some are bad. People operate at different speed i.e. understand faster or slower, have different learning styles etc. For me personally a working day is too short to get deeper into certain topics. That’s why I read books about coding in my spare time or solve some katas or work on an own project. Find your balance. Don’t look too much at what others do but at the same time stay up to date. And try to become good at what you are doing. Ask for feedback and listen carefully.

The hard truth is, yeah to some extent it's true. Because this field is evolving every second. This is most probably the fastest paced sector in this world. To keep yourself up to date with the new technologies many people spend lots of time coding or learning. But, some choose not to degrade their health by sitting in front of computers all day and not to run along with all the tech hypes.

I think about code while working, I think about code while not working, I think about code while I'm trying to sleep.

Since learning to code everything I do from simply sorting items (I now use binary search algorithms when looking at lists) to thinking about how I can organize things in life with an object oriented approach is based on programming. When I see some technology in the wild I'm thinking, "How did they do that?" Other times when something is broken I start debugging it and trying to guess what's wrong without even realizing it.

You can go home and not work but you might never be able to turn off the problem solving/logic skills you need as a developer. I sometimes catch myself using programming terms and syntax in my writing/speech. When you train yourself to see problems differently it's not something that only goes with you to work.

Being a developer isn't like some jobs where you just have to show up, do your job, then go home. You have to develop a certain way of thinking and never stop leveling up your skills (often on your own time).

As someone who whole heartidly lived my previous career as a chef, I can tell you that no form of employment is worth sacrificing your family, other passions, or leisure time. Be warey of "true believers", who preach coding after hours and demand that you are constantly "keeping up with tech" on your own time. True leaders will ensure that you're doing that on the job, not when you should be deloading or spending time with your family.

No, please, no - it's a job, not a lifestyle ...

Why do we devs feel the need to be somehow "special" or "different"?

Does a plumber, or a teacher, or an architect (not a software architect, but one who designs buildings) see what they do as anything else than an occupation? They love what they do (I hope), but they're just professionals, not "chosen ones" who are part of some sort of cult ...

I really wouldn't want to do something every day that was "just a job". I also wouldn't want to spend all my waking hours doing just one thing.

As others have said, when starting out or when changing development area, there is a lot to learn and you will need to put in more time. While I think development (or other engineering work) is seldom strictly 9 to 5, I think you will be a better developer if you spend time doing other things.

Software development can be somewhat solitary, and it can be very sedentary. Outside interests involving other people and physical activity can be very beneficial to your physical and mental health, and it can help you be a better developer. I have always found that happy and energetic developers can accomplish more than those that are tired and burned out.

Remember, software development is about a lot more than coding. Getting started, you might be spending all your time on fairly routine coding tasks. As you gain experience, you will need to spend your time thinking about alternate ways to solve a problem. I have found that good problem solving skills in both the technical domain and in the organizational domain can be more important than coding skills.

Yes, it can be “just a job”. To me, being a dev also consists of time to rest, relax and focus on things that don’t require any brain work. As for the feeling you should know everything: I’ve been doing this for 20+ years and still google the most basic things. It’s not about knowledge, it’s about knowing how to find the right knowledge and asking the right questions.

I work as a developer, but in free time I make japanese bamboo flutes and practice zen. As human being I identify more as a latter.

Is it okay for software development to just be a job

There are consequences to any job "just being a job".

You spend a significant amount of your waking hours (of your life) tending to your employer's priorities.

Ideally you'd like to end up in the "I can't believe I get paid for this, I'd do this for free" position. Some are fortunate but most people will never get there. But perhaps that's not the point.

"Your work" is a pretty large part of your life to write off to support the rest of it. Sure, work won't be rainbows and unicorns all of the time and there will sometimes be significant intervals of drudgery usually spent in the hopes of later arriving at an improved state.

But your job will limit your experiences to what your employer directs you towards. You have to spend your own time to explore other avenues to find pursuits that possibly engage you more which may lead you to change to a direction that doesn't coincide with your current employer's path. And this process is an iterative one and continues throughout your life.

In Cal Newport's "So Good They Can't Ignore You" there is a "Passion is Dangerous" chapter. What it boils down to is that in the majority of cases "passion isn't followed" but "passion is built". At the beginning you try various things that bring value to others that you could be (mildly) interested in.

Eventually you come across something that stands out that is worth putting work into. If you find this work engaging (often enough), you may very well be building your passion. This is how your work can become more than a job.

And keep in mind that people's interests change throughout their lifetime so this is a process that needs constant tending to and it has its own ups and downs; there is no way of always getting it right.

It's not unusual to be at times overwhelmed by what's ahead; at the same time you will never "arrive" and you will never "be done"; software development is a field that is constantly renewing itself which is why I tend to encourage people to focus first on fundamentals, principles and practices which tend to endure in the long term rather than products which tend to have a very short half-life. Ultimately it is your own curiosity that has to keep pushing you forward through the inevitable periods of uncertainty and doubt.

Also most of the time writing things down either privately (personal journal) or for public consumption (blog) is an effective means capturing, processing, and advancing your own experience.

Coding can actually destroy your life and your sanity if you create a whole identity around it. I was there, coding all the day, I became good at it but it doesn’t worth the price. Go out, enjoy reality, just do your job and get paid for it.

Every job will have an impact on you. This is perfectly normal

First, breath.

I feel this is something we all go through when staring out, especially when breaking in. I know that for me I felt exactly the same way when I made my pivot to web development and spent a lot of hours beyond the 9-5 sitting in front of my monitors typing away and always feeling like I was behind or missing something.

Slowly but surely those feelings subsided and I think it came when I stopped worrying about learning the languages and frameworks and returned to why I made the shift in the first place - to solve problems.

Once I did that it was much easier to set aside the work of the day, close the code editor and not worry about it. I do work on code items from time to time when not at my job, but it's because it's something I want to puzzle out. I don't worry about being 'on' or 'off' anymore, my job is to solve problems and sometimes the best way to do that is just walk away and come back later after doing something unrelated.

Everybody here seems to be civil about the topic (and thank the heavens for that!), but this usually is a touchy thing to discuss. Not because of the folks who actually believes that coding can just be a job and not a lifestyle, but because of the other spectrum of the discussion, those people who believe that a "good programmer MUST be programming and learning all the time, even outside of work, otherwise you are just mediocre" - which seems bogus to me, by the way.

So, yes, definitely you can treat it like a job only. No problem with that. The only caveat I see (and that's from personal experience as a not-so-active-programmer) is that you will just take a little longer to learn and be updated about things, but that's that. If you are okay with that factor, then it will be okay.

It just be a job it does not have to be your whole life. Some people like to shut off from work when they are not working there is no obligation to be on 24/7.

Interesting topic! The question of whether coding is just a job or something that influences your entire lifestyle really resonates with me. I think it depends on how you approach it. For some, coding is purely a 9-to-5 profession, and that’s perfectly valid. But for others, it becomes a way of thinking, problem-solving, and even shaping their daily habits—especially in fields like lifestyle app development, where the goal is to create tools that enhance how people live.

Personally, I’ve found that coding often spills over into my lifestyle, not just because of the time it takes, but because it encourages continuous learning and creativity. That said, balance is key. Whether you’re building apps to improve productivity, fitness, or mental health, it’s important to ensure that your own lifestyle doesn’t become overly consumed by work. Great discussion—thanks for sharing!"