I am a web developer, and we could be the most complicated and strange people you have or ever will interact with.
We grew up building LEGO models asking ourselves the question, "How can I make this bigger?" We played videos games thinking, "How can I build this?" We were fans of both Star Trek and Star Wars, because we knew the only thing they remotely had in common was the word Star. We wore bow ties before the Doctor said they were cool.
Now we work in the dark corners of our offices, ruling over the kingdom that is our code. We take other people’s ideas, bring them to life and at times lack the ability to explain how it works. We find it difficult to integrate with our co-workers because our interests are typically polar opposites. We try socialize, but it usually ends in awkward situations.
We use different web browsers and read news from different sources. We see viral videos before they went viral; we bought the latest tech gadgets before they were announced (and we never show it off); and we already know which console will be the best in the next generation.
We frequently fix bugs with descriptions of "It’s broken," and we still somehow manage to find and fix it. We work off general ideas and play the guessing game instead of working with structured documents telling us what to build. We are left off the ending credits, and we don’t mention it. We celebrate with other developers and brag amongst ourselves.
We thrive off complex problem solving and we do not have an off switch. We go to sleeping thinking about what problems we left at work and wake up eager to get back to make it better. We fight internal struggles to throw our work out the window and start from scratch to make it perfect. We don’t ask, "How can this make more money?" Instead, we ask, “How can we make this better?” We don’t ask, "Why?" We ask, "Why not?"
We don’t get always along with other developers. Our code is our art and we think our own art is perfect. Our brains are answering the same questions with different paths to the solution. Some of us code for scale, some for maintainability, and some for complexity. We always feel that our way is the right way. We will bang our heads on our desks for hours and not ask for help because we are too proud. We will say "Oh yeah" or "How did I miss that?" when someone walks over to us and bravely asks us "What's up?" or "Can I help?"
Some of us try to get ahead by boasting abilities and using the terms "Ninja", "Guru" and other technology buzz words. The humble among us know that our work speaks volumes above the words on our LinkedIn profiles. None of us know everything, but all of us are eager to learn as much as we can.
United, developers can do anything. They will build a global e-commerce platform and then build you a social network capable of handling millions of users. We don’t care if it reaches that number, but we do care that it can.
We are here to build what you need, and we patiently wait for the next challenge.
Disclaimer: My right eye was swollen shut when writing this. Please be sympathetic on spelling and grammar