[notacoward]

Yes. When you start out, everything is new and the possibilities seem endless. Whether you're starting your own projects or joining other people's, learning about each new domain or style of programming is exciting. But once you move from exploring to building, it gets to be a lot less fun. It's like the difference between being a tourist in a foreign city vs. getting a job there. You start to notice the poor quality of almost everything around you. Making it better is hard work, and only gets harder as you progress further.

Worst of all, once you've gotten a thing to whatever you consider to be a good state, you're faced with a choice. Moving to a new project/domain might help to regain that feeling of wonder ... until you realize it has problems too and you'll be back to digging ditches in a new field. It also means leaving behind some of your accumulated expertise, which affects both comfort and career prospects. So many people decide to stick with what they're doing even though they're no longer passionate about it, and that's draining in its own way.

I don't think there's any one solution. Some people are quite happy endlessly polishing the same apple. Some people are happy flitting about. Some people are in between, working primarily in one area but taking periodic excursions into others. The key, I think, is to recognize which is true for you and consciously strategize about if/when to change projects to maximize your own happiness.

[ElFitz]

Once heard a VP of engineering at Comcast.

One of the key points was that in engineering not everyone enjoys the same thing.

Some people like to begin new things, getting from nowhere to somewhere, to something that's functional enough. The excitement of going where no man has been before.

Others seem to enjoy taking something that's functional but not enough fully-fledged to a fully working product. Iterating on it, improving it. And the comforting knowledge that whatever you are attempting definitely is possible, doable.

And apparently, there even are a few who seem to enjoy the seemingly endless grind of the finishing touches. These elusive "last 10%"

People who truly enjoy going through all three, taking a product, a team, a company, not from 0 to 1 or 1 to 90 but from 0 to 100, do appear to be quite rare.

[notacoward]

Good point. I've seen a few metaphors for this. Commandos, grunts, and MPs. Explorers, settlers, and caretakers. Scientists, engineers, and archivists. No matter what metaphor you choose, the last seems to be the least popular and practically nobody wants to do (or is good at) all three. I've worked three times with a guy who's a fantastic #3, nicely complementing my own #1/#2 tendencies. It's another good axis for people to think about, and understand their own preferences. Thanks.