I am a software developer at a major American university. I do good work because I am immersed in the culture of higher education, which is nothing at all like

I am a software developer at a major American university. I do good work because I am immersed in the culture of higher education, which is nothing at all like private industry. Both faculty and administrators are significantly different in their needs and ways of doing things than in the private sector. They have always been and always will be. "Running the college like a business" is an oft-repeated punchline used to describe people that just don't understand the system and are bound to fail. My point is that software development requires both the creator and the customer to share an appropriate context in order to produce the desired results without error or miscommunication. You can't simply plug in development like a USB stick and expect the same results every time. One caveat: our college town is in a very rural area, and housing costs outside of town are dirt cheap. I cannot imagine the financial burden to support staff in a horrendously expensive city like San Francisco. Because of this, we can afford a larger headcount, and provide an excellent service.