It's debatable who actually does read large amounts of code; see: http://www.gigamonkeys.com/code-reading/ http://www.gigamonkeys.com/code-reading/ I personall

It's debatable who actually does read large amounts of code; see: http://www.gigamonkeys.com/code-reading/ http://www.gigamonkeys.com/code-reading/ I personally only read large amounts of code when trying to grasp the overall structure of a large application. But I'd rather not read large amounts of code; I'd rather read a design document! But not everyone writes them... :-( I would opine (based on experience!) that work like bug-fixing can be so monotonous that your mind starts getting a little mushy as you do it day after day after year after year. It doesn't tend to be the kind of work that promotes great engineering thought. It's . . . a job. Which is okay, as far as it goes. But if you want to grow as an engineer, you need to design and build things. I would suggest reading: http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/ http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/ and especially: http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/writeup http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/writeup which talks about professionalism for software engineers. You might find some inspiration there. (And the whole book, even if you don't build web applications, is still a worthwhile read to gain some insight into how a professional software engineer thinks.)