To be honest I've just never really liked programming for work, and have felt kind of trapped in it as my only source of good money for a few years. So there's probably some bitterness there that I don't mean to offend anyone with. Even at what on paper seemed to be a great job - fully remote, annual retreats, great teammates, etc - I just couldn't resist the desire to work on something that was actually mine, in some fundamental way. So maybe "has no effect on the world" isn't the right way to put it - but that's how it feels. I guess it's in the sense of, if it wasn't me doing it, it would get done anyway, or something. And at all the companies I've worked at at least, my job as a programmer has been totally interchangeable with other people. I think my main skill as a programmer is writing really clear, solid code - line managers/clients have said this so it's not just my own bias - and you get a little kick of dopamine whenever you check some code in and someone goes "great!". But then they go "OK, now do that again, forever". The Jira tickets never end. You never get a big payout. That's been my experience anyway. Maybe having equity would significantly change the calculus.