Coding For A Living Is More Performance Than Code
30 Apr 2026 #coding #career80% of the time, coding is a performance. The other 20% is doing real coding.
Performance means Scrum ceremonies, meetings, and JIRA:
- A meeting to present tickets for the next two weeks
- A meeting to answer questions from the previous meeting
- A meeting to watch someone enter a number in a text box. Read: poker planning and story points
- Meetings to watch someone move a ticket between JIRA lanes. Read: daily meetings
- A meeting about all the other meetings. Read: retrospective
And when things go sideways, the performance intensifies with more frequent meetings. Sometimes a team member’s only job is running ceremonies and writing reports.
That kills the fun of coding and can make you hate it.
This happens everywhere. Sylwia Laskowska asked in a dev.to post if that’s something that only happens at her place. Nope! Even in the best families, as we say in our hometown.
Showing progress matters more than real work. Coding is often just a side quest. A hard truth nobody tells us about.
To succeed as a coder, you need to master the ceremonies as much as the code. That’s why Street-Smart Coding covers communication and collaboration. Because coding is more than typing symbols.