Bit of a shortsighted assessment IMO. Systems abstract tons of stuff that you don't see, even being a programmer. And not having to worry about that is VERY con

Bit of a shortsighted assessment IMO. Systems abstract tons of stuff that you don't see, even being a programmer. And not having to worry about that is VERY convenient. It sure is nice to not have to give a rip about how to arrange data on a hard drive, or speak network protocols directly. What you are actually looking for is code that operates in the correct problem domain. That requires abstraction which is done correctly. My guess is that you have worked on codebases with crappy abstractions.