I can't speak for the author, but in my own case it's being so far removed from the actual end user that the problems being solved start to look less like probl

I can't speak for the author, but in my own case it's being so far removed from the actual end user that the problems being solved start to look less like problems and more like glorified yak shaving. The size of the company also starts to affect the size of the feedback loop - the sheer amount of people involved drastically increases the time to market, so to speak, for a given feature or 'deliverable', which can cause frustration. Over time this frustration builds up into a sort of 'death by a thousand paper cuts' situation. I will soon be going down the route of leaving a rather large company in favor of a start-up and I am largely driven by wanting to feel that what I am doing matters to someone other than my manager or manager's manager. Here's a quote that I haven't seen in this post so far: "Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying." ― Studs Terkel