Some examples: - DHT protocols as used in bittorrent - SMR protocols, used in all kinds of distributed systems, from blockchains to cloud computing systems - Cloud computing systems, such as Spark, Mesos, MapReduce
This doesn't even cover work on networks, databases, systems, security, etc.
I think person is now, in fact, getting paid to redo the firmware as desired, but while commonplace firmware might be uniquely disgusting, the bigger monoliths with even less competition are still the operating systems. Something still needs to be done there.
I also think PL innovations are going to usher in a new revolution at the bottom of the stack, just by making systems programming more accessible. I mean, Rust has already made inroads into existing OSes, and the increased accessibility will inevitably lead to more exciting experiments soon.
I fear some of the accidental complexity is more indicative than economic problems than CS ones. E.g. it feels like 1000s of bad abstraction dependencies is mirroring https://homesignalblog.wordpress.com/2020/12/25/industrial-s... in the real world. (I am not against larger numbers of dependencies, just the bloat that comes from a gazillion square pegs in round holes, and conway's law preventing anyone from trying to do anything about it.)