I used to be like that years ago but as you get more experience you start thinking about why you get paid so you can get paid more and/or keep your job. Which m

I used to be like that years ago but as you get more experience you start thinking about why you get paid so you can get paid more and/or keep your job. Which means the "quality" of my work is only meaningful if that in some way (even indirect) benefits my employer. There's a lot of fun things I can do, I use to take weeks writing something in C because I like the language and it is fast where there is already a python module that lets me do that in 20 lines. But when it comes to work, the slower python code is ideal because less technical burden and the speed benefit of C is marginal, it provides no competitive advantage in those specific scenarios. I am not one but I believe staff and principal SWEs start thinking more like this for comparison. (I am not a developer).