I feel like you are talking up two different things in your post and comments: 1. Making an impact 2. Solving challenging technical problems These seem like

I feel like you are talking up two different things in your post and comments: 1. Making an impact 2. Solving challenging technical problems These seem like separate problems that have little to do with one another (there may actually be an inverse correlation, see below). If you want to make an impact then create a product that solves a big problem for humanity. Programming has essentially nothing to do with this, other than the fact software happens to be at the core of most, but not all, products these days. You can make an impact by understanding people's needs, coming up with a great solution, marketing it, convincing others to join you, and creating it. Programming will likely be a part of the above, but not the most important. And its importance will decrease with your product/company getting bigger (as will the impact any single programmer makes). If you want to solve difficult technical problems then you can find lots of those in Computer Science research, either academic or industrial research labs. These are seriously challenging and can be fun to work on. However, I believe there is an inverse correlation between things that make an impact and things are are challenging research projects. Research projects are often so narrow that not enough people care about the results, and implementation in the industry is usually delayed by 5-10 years (less for industry research within the company).