If you're in the (to me, enviable) position of never building a user-facing feature in a piece of software -- if you purely get to think algorithms all day, and you never draw on any knowledge or experience you've gained outside a classroom or a book -- then who knows. Maybe it doesn't matter what life experiences you've had. I personally have never had a job like that. My interests, personality, experience, and wisdom gained outside of work have always made a difference to what I do.