I have never once pretended to be “passionate” about working. Never wrote a single line of code that I haven’t gotten paid for since I graduated from college 30 years ago. I was a hobbyist before college for 6 years.

I’ve gone through the BigTech guantlet successfully. Even then I showed I cared about doing my job well and competently.

I have purposefully thrown nuggets out during interviews letting companies know that I had a life outside of work, I’m not going to work crazy hours and in the latter half of my career, I don’t do on call.