Disconnection from the end product, specialization, bureaucracy... it sounds like this guy really just needs to work at a startup.

I mean, there are a ton of good reasons not to work at an early-stage company (not the least of which is pay), but:

- You want to be connected to the end product? At a 5-10 person company, you'll be seeing customers (and customer complains) pretty frequently.

- You want to own more of the stack? The "ops team" will be your left arm. Everyone will wear a ton of hats and you can be as full-stack as you want, up to and including non-coding roles like Product or Project Manager if you want to.

- You want to avoid bureaucracy? Hard to have much of that when there's only 1 or 2 other engineers.

I agree with other commenters here - it sounds like the real fix is to just work for a company that fits his preferences better. And given the recent surge in remote work, that's never been easier.