If I were a better developer, would I have worked on more products people love? No. Even granting that good software always makes a well-loved product, big-company software is made by teams, and teams are shaped by incentives.
If I were a better developer, would I have worked on more products people love? No. Even granting that good software always makes a well-loved product, big-company software is made by teams, and teams are shaped by incentives.
Your entire comment nailed it for me. Thank you for reading between the lines of my snarky annoyance and expressing it more eloquently.
I also love internal tooling and worked at shitty, bizarre places (General Dynamics, for one. Speaking of “places you’ve never heard of,” right?), and literally the entire reason to work there is to try make it better for the people who use the thing. Not doing that is preposterous to me!
Somehow the original author ignored the only thing I would care about. Or it’s there and I missed it.