I am with you there. This recent job hunt was really a great exercise in re-discovering the kinds of things I love to do. I think there are more opportunities

I am with you there. This recent job hunt was really a great exercise in re-discovering the kinds of things I love to do. I think there are more opportunities to hack on system software than we may realize, what with all the emphasis on web this and mobile that. That's part of what got me thinking, "do I need to be in a "software" company or a "web" company?" And found that the answer was no! After all, there's software of one kind or another in just about everything now. Of course there would be a lot of system hacking jobs I would not enjoy much - like where it's just system level work in one language and one environment, following a closely defined specification and with no contact with the customer. Not so fun. But I think there really are a lot of jobs out there for low level full stack developers who are fearless about tackling difficult problems.