Most of it is actually less boring than the saying seems to imply if you choose to actually look at the problem in a complete full stack manner. The issue is t

Most of it is actually less boring than the saying seems to imply if you choose to actually look at the problem in a complete full stack manner. The issue is that much of it needs a craftsman not a scientist or engineer. Virtually all of the value I have added to software in my career has involved doing the equivalent of a "This old house" renovation and bringing things up to code. I go in and untangle years of small hacks so that the data path is clear and special cases happen in the same place. I get things onto boring technology rather than bleeding edge or high availability stuff. Most mid-size companies, even serving the enterprise don't need "scalability" in the sense that Google does or a startup hopes for.