As the year winds down, I always find myself looking back. Not just at projects or achievements, but at why I started doing the things I do in the first place.

So let me ask you something that sounds simple, but really isn't.

Imagine that starting tomorrow, the tech job market disappears. No high salaries. No fancy titles. No "career in IT." Coding exists only as a hobby.

Would you still write code?

Or would you quietly close your editor and say, "That's enough"?

I've been sitting with that question for a while now — and my own answer surprised me

I've been coding for what feels like forever. I built my first website when I was around 15 years old, back when HTML felt like magic and every page load was an achievement. But even then, coding wasn't about money or jobs. It was a way to create. A way to make ideas visible on a screen.

Over time, that relationship with code changed. A lot.

It all started with curiosity. The pure kind. The kind that asks, "How does this work?" without expecting anything in return. Why does a button respond to a click? How does the internet move information so fast? How can I build something that exists beyond my computer?

That curiosity never fully disappeared. Even today, I still enjoy opening new tools, experimenting, breaking things just to understand them better. But let's be honest — curiosity alone doesn't pay rent.

Then reality kicked in, and money entered the picture. At some point, I realized that this skill could actually become a profession. So I leaned into it. I aimed for my first developer role and got it.

I still remember a manager asking me about my long-term plans after an internship. My answer was painfully honest: I didn't have any. I just wanted to become a junior developer — and I had already achieved that. Thankfully, he helped me think beyond the next step.

After that came the "tech-first" phase. New frameworks were everything. Fresh stacks felt exciting. I wanted modern tools, clean codebases, and zero legacy headaches. It didn't matter what the product did — what mattered was how it was built.

I never fully reached the point of not caring at all, but once I had experience, I definitely started negotiating harder. Skill brings leverage, whether we like it or not.

And then I hit the quiet question: "What now?" I wasn't building something revolutionary. I wasn't inventing a new language or launching a startup. I was doing solid work — but it all started to feel familiar. Same problems, different tickets. Expectations kept rising, pressure increased, and the excitement faded.

That's usually where burnout quietly waits.

So I had to make a decision. I knew I didn't want to leave tech. I actually enjoy programming. But I also knew that if I was spending most of my waking hours coding, those hours needed to mean something more than just delivery dates.

From that point on, when choosing work, I focused less on titles and more on purpose. I looked for projects that offered at least one of two things — ideally both: interesting technology, or real-world impact.

Is it perfect? Of course not. Work is still work. We joke around, complain about deadlines, talk about fitness, drink too much coffee. Nothing magical there.

But when most jobs start to feel structurally similar, having the freedom to choose what you contribute to suddenly matters a lot more.

So now I'll turn the question back to you.

Why do you code?

What keeps you going today? And if programming stopped being a career — would you still open your editor tomorrow?

I'd genuinely love to hear your story.