an interesting essay on programmers and psychology brought to my attention by Grant Killian.  I agreed with the majority of the article, in spite of a bit of anti microsoft sentiment (seems to be saying open source coders ala python are more elite than java/microsoft).

I particularily liked the productivity comments where the more elite coders pound out many times the volume of work that other coders do.  I experienced this recently when working on a government project.  I was told by some of the other developers to “pace myself” so as not to make them look bad.  By the end of the project I was literally doing 5-10 hours of real work in a 40 hour week and was getting heaps of praise by management as someone who gets the job done!

How about you guys out there in blog land?  How “hard” do you have to work to meet the expectations set by your employers?  I've always found the expectations to be rather low, but I don't consider myself an elite coder by any means either.

Also, what would you say would be the #1 benefit that would entice you away from your current position?  Anytime I've changed jobs in the past it was about technical growth.  I've started to feel pretty confident with my technical skills though and now I find that interesting projects and money (now that I got married and am planning a family) are more attractive.