I spent a few years at Apple writing internal tools.
IMHO, this is the way to have an effect on a company completely disproportionate to any other activity I know of. The tools I wrote at Apple have enabled projects which, AFAIK, are completely unheard-of at any other tech company.
That said, don't expect a payoff proportionate to the effect of the tool.
From a company owner's perspective, however, excellent tools can provide an advantage that is difficult for competitors to match. That's worth an awful lot.
Yup, I've done this as well at current and past jobs. I'll usually just invent a new project, it gets the boss's attention and they like it, so I get to work on that rather than the normal boring stuff.
IMHO, this is the way to have an effect on a company completely disproportionate to any other activity I know of. The tools I wrote at Apple have enabled projects which, AFAIK, are completely unheard-of at any other tech company.
That said, don't expect a payoff proportionate to the effect of the tool.
From a company owner's perspective, however, excellent tools can provide an advantage that is difficult for competitors to match. That's worth an awful lot.