I’m passionate. A lot of developers are. When I hear people say they struggle to find passionate developers I get annoyed. It’s trivially easy to find passionate developers.

First, find out where passionate developers hang out. It’s really not changing rapidly. When it does change, there are usually big names involved. Find some developers on Google through generic queries for open source software or just really good companies. See what they’re talking about and look at the community. This shouldn’t take more than 15-30 minutes. If it takes more than that, it’s a good idea to put someone in charge of technology.

Second, spend an hour browsing whatever social coding site is liked the most. Maybe StackOverflow or GitHub, it doesn’t matter. Spend at least an hour on the site just exploring people (not projects). Clicking around to find something interesting but always be moving. See what names pop out. It is usually very apparent who is active and what their demeanor is. Look at the bug reports on their projects. How they respond to bugs is very important to how they will be in a job.

Finally, don’t email asking if they want a job. This is perceived as spam. Period. Passionate developers get job opportunities frequently. Most passionate developers know other passionate developers. There are always jobs for quality developers and there is competition for these developers. Don’t ask if they want an interview, they don’t need an interview. Instead, ask for a phone call. If they’re local ask them to meet at their favorite coffee shop. If not, pay them for their time in the form of a wishlist purchase.

I had a good conversation. It is easy to summarize.

Certain people are like rocket boosters, launching developers and giving them an impressive burst of speed. Depending upon the environment, this momentum is kept for inordinate amounts of time or it is absorbed and halted entirely too quickly.

I believe, essentially, when people talk about “synergy” this is what they mean. There are people I work very well with. However, that on its own isn’t sufficient to accomplish great things. We must also be in the correct environment. That means both parties must be in a frictionless environment (as much as possible, anyway.)

A while ago I had a friend stay with us and we’ve been having a good time. He’s been displaced because of the Japan disaster and was living quite rough for a few weeks (no power, no water). Then in the US he’s enjoying the civilized world with running water, electricity and stocked liquor cabinets again.

His first day in, my son ceremoniously clogs the toilet and causes an overflow. I was not home, but came back in time to see the disinfecting. My wife comments about how my friend jumped in, grabbed a bucket and without regard or thought to the “ick” factor admirably stopped the continued flooding and began clean up.

This is committing to the moment.

“My job is harder than typing, and I don’t make that much!” she said. This acquaintance overheard a discussion she shouldn’t have heard. It was about my salary at a new job. She was a nurse. I agree that her job is probably more stressful and physically more demanding. Harder? That’s subjective.

It’s unfortunate that to write and build software products its required to type so much. This is 2011. We shouldn’t type this much. Not just because it is inefficient but because it makes us look like typists. There isn’t anything wrong with typists or the data entry professions but it is just not what we do. At all. I was trying to think of some other profession where it looks like you’re doing something completely different but can’t really come up with anything. Building a credit card processing system is not about typing, but anybody doing that just appears to be typing.

This maybe started for the wrong reasons. I’m not doing it for myself. I’m doing it because James Altucher told me to. I don’t have a reason to not, and I’ve generally lived my life with the philosophy that if I don’t have a reason to say no, I say yes.

So I am writing because he told me to. It took me a while to figure out what to write about. What am I passionate about? This took me days to answer. I thought about things that were pretty common. I’m passionate about building software. I’m passionate about my family.