I’m a senior engineer (web full-stack) at a bank. I’ve been doing this for about 5 years.
When I write code, I find it similar to authoring a book or even writing a poem. I love trying to write code that reads really well, has beautifully designed boundaries between dependencies, great structure and so on. I also find that I write code with a big focus on making it a joy to work with for developers that touch it later on.
I struggle with the emphasis on collaboration and quick iteration approach in this field. “Co-authoring a book” with 6 other “authors” in two week chunks just seems crazy to me. And what I’ve seen that passes as shippable code is also crazy to me – but hey, “it works”.
I also have never been a guy that gets overly excited about using technology to solve problems or using software to satisfy business needs. I really just like writing code, setting up development environments or CI/CD pipelines, cloud infrastructure or whatever…just for those things themselves. (Again it’s like an art form to me. And I really really like reading other’s well thought out code and appreciate for just that rather than the use-case or problem that the code is actually solving)
Anyone else out there like me? (Not arguing the merits one way or the other…just curious if I’m a weirdo)
Hey, don’t be discouraged.
You are a treasure and rare. There are places for folks like you. I hope you can find one where the culture fits you and knows your value.
Until then. You can try to change the culture. But if that’s possible depends on more than I know for your context.
With small teams it’s easier. Demonstrate competence, gain trust of everyone around you, then sell a better tomorrow where … Stuff just works. Faster velocity, more features, fewer bugs, etc.
This is a very valued message in some places, and totally not in others.
I have a feeling that infrastructure/platform/core teams – those making tools for other engs – are probably more naturally aligned to quality and lower defect rates. That may be a direction for you if you aren’t sure where to start aiming towards.