"What we do is a craft." Nobody except you cares about your craft though. They care if you can accomplish the things they need accomplished. If your craft is

"What we do is a craft." Nobody except you cares about your craft though. They care if you can accomplish the things they need accomplished. If your craft is 'building quality decks' - and they want a 'quality deck' - then great. But if your craft is 'building byzantine window structures with 4 plane glass imported from Italy', well then, it's going to be hard to work on a house if that's all you care about. Software Development is a skilled trade, it's more like Carpentry than it is academic, it just has some elements that can be very academic.