Sure, but the difference is that no-one gives a shit about that unless you are attached to, and high up in, a project with massive, successful PR (e.g. React).

Sure, but the difference is that no-one gives a shit about that unless you are attached to, and high up in, a project with massive, successful PR (e.g. React). Showing up in a meeting with some at-least-competent design mock-ups and getting lots of positive reactions and excitement, meanwhile, is the norm, in my experience, even on fairly mundane parts of mundane projects. Ugly but technically-impressive weekend code projects may impress programmers and gain visibility there. Meanwhile, designs routinely impress non-technical management, stakeholders, product managers, and clients. I mean, the degree to which that's true is so well-known that it's practically a cliché. There's a huge difference in how hard it is to get people who matter (in terms of career advancement, comp, and even just staying off your back about how much work you're doing) to notice your work. It's not at all comparable, and it's entirely to do with how legible one's work is to the rest of an organization. The down side is that where non-UI developers meet confusion and ignorance ("so... what is it you still need to do? Why will it take so long? What do you mean it doesn't work yet? Oh you made the query finish in 3% the time it took before? That's nice, thanks. Moving on...") designers instead get endless suggestions, because every dumb-ass thinks their ideas about UI are good, and some of those dumb-asses really, really want to influence the design (why? Because it's so high-visibility, so it's something they can point to for higher-ups or in a portfolio and say "I did that"—they want to acquire some of that natural designer/UI/UX legibility-of-work for themselves)