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Discussion on: The Best Way to Advance Your Career

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Marek Zaluski

Caring about your work is a big element of whether you find your work meaningful or not.

I like to think of this as related to Cal Newport's idea that being good at what you do is more important than having passion for it.

It's also a common cause for career frustration: when you want to do great work, but your work environment doesn't allow it or doesn't prioritize it. When pressures and deadlines mean that you have to produce work that isn't the best, but it has to be shipped.

One of the challenges of being a developer is learning how to deal with these kinds of tradeoffs and sacrifices: how to find the middle ground when you're limited by factors outside of your control