There also companies (like the one I moved to recently) that are old, established SME (small/medium enterprises - more medium in my case) who are in niches that

There also companies (like the one I moved to recently) that are old, established SME (small/medium enterprises - more medium in my case) who are in niches that just aren't large enough for off the shelf to work but not small enough to do without. I was talking to my boss the other day and he said that I was pretty modest compared to some of the programmers he'd dealt with at out sourcing firms over the years (they tried that first, it didn't end well), I think my response tickled him "I'm just a negative plumber with a keyboard, if I do my job right at this end shit doesn't come out the other". I think the hubris of "We must do world changing things/disrupt everything" to provide tangible value is a by-product of the hype around the startup scene and 'entrepreneurs' (that is people who set out to be an entrepreneur first and figure out at what later). I've never wanted that, I've only ever wanted to be compensated decently and work at a job where I can see measurable value in what I do, in my case that's writing production/factory management software that saves more money than it costs and makes the life of the end users more pleasant, it's also not particularly stressful and I go in at 9 and leave at 5 every day with complete technical freedom and time for that rarest of rare things, documentation. After spending the last 5 years in high pressure, insane demand environments I'm never going back, I'll go do something else before I go back to that, it's simply not worth it (to me).