[devin_lane]

At the same time, a maintenance position can offer benefits as well. With the exception of emergency bug fixes, maintenance is likely to have a more stable work load which might appeal to those who want more work-life balance. Some engineers may prefer to spend their time on lower level tasks that aren't showy but are nevertheless important to get right. Working on threads/locking/synchronization may not be glamorous, but it's critical for the operation of everything else and difficult to do right.

I think we should be putting more effort into recognizing/compensating those involved in maintenance work rather than steering folks away from it. The raw technology invention is important, but the maintenance work is what makes it ship and continue to work for customers. There are also plenty of widely-used projects remain relevant only due to maintenance. Projects like OpenSSL or the Linux Kernel come to mind here.