[nickelbob]

Perhaps one solution is to divorce your own self worth from the quality of the software you happen to write and to realize that you are an employee first and a software engineer second - make decisions that increase the amount of money the company makes and look for self worth in that itself or in hobbies/family/friends/something else.

[braza]

That’s was the main reason that I do my pet projects: to detach myself from some corporate persona that is a completely different from my professional self.

I still have a lot of professional pride, but it comes more from my personal projects and sharpening my craft than to some corporate version that could be dragged down by structural issues.

[int_19h]

If one is going to go there, why not make decisions that increase the amount of money you make? Why help companies succeed shipping crappy software?

[nickelbob]

If your self worth is related to how much money you make (not saying that's bad) then go for it!