[yeukhon]

> If you lack confidence and need frameworks, abstractions, and other bullshit to write a couple lines of code you will be a weaker programmer

So you like to reinvent everything? Do you reinvent HTML & CSS because they are FRAMEWORKS, one of the foundational frameworks of today's web.

If your job only ask you to fix a bug, there here is how to make yourself valuable AND technically challenging:

* go through the bugs and analyze if you can extract any correlations

* propose better process with other fellow engineers and product owners

* implement changes

For example, someone might be duplicating some code to write tests, how about you write a test harness or adopt some open-source harness? How about work with your fellow engineers to begin start collecting some metrics.

Otherwise, time to look for a new opportunity. The absolute worst kind of programmers are the ones who don't don't take care of their health.

[austincheney]

Perhaps if you wrote software in addition to doing that which is strictly assigned to you your question would answer itself. This isn't rocket science.

[yeukhon]

But there is creativity. You don't have to go an extra mile though, but you can. My response is to this:

> If you aren't independently finding new problems to solve then you will be a weaker programmer than somebody who is constantly stepping up their game.