It's not "more" work; it's "different" work. I quite enjoy low-level optimizations, and all I have to do to work on that all day instead of coordination, meetings, and drudgery is convince people a few levels up the chain that the cost savings are huge and that the extra speed enables cool new features.
It's corporate America, so I'm going to be unceremoniously fired eventually anyway, but in the meantime I might as well enjoy myself, impress my coworkers, snag a promotion or two, and get a "made a cool new thing increasing profits $XX million/yr" line item on my resume.
> start your own business
Probably eventually, but starting a business is very different from being at a place big enough that I can profit my salary many times over just from faster code. If I start one, I'll write fast code there too, but "fast" isn't a business idea by itself, and I don't see anything wrong with doing a good job for whoever happens to be writing my paycheck.
> the cost savings are huge and that the extra speed enables cool new features.
Been there. The savings were never passed down, but you could always enjoy photos of boss's new sports car or their month's trip to Borneo to "recharge" and think of new challenges. Ah sorry! I got an iPod once as a thank you.
> "made a cool new thing increasing profits $XX million/yr"
That may backfire. Nobody likes a new kid on the block that has tricks up his sleeve that could jeopardise someone senior's career.
Sure, that's the game. I get an extra bonus or raise or something with promotions, and more when I switch jobs, but nearly all the profit goes elsewhere. If you want to leave the upper-middle class you'll need to set out on your own eventually.
If you don't have a solid plan and life circumstances for building your own business yet though, why would you not do things the business likes, especially when it means your day-to-day is more palettable, it doesn't actually require any more work, and it has some moderate career impacts in case you never set out on your own?
> this may backfire
That's the same sort of logic that leads people to have asphalt roofs instead of white roofs in southern climates. You do, absolutely, alienate a significant fraction of buyers (employers). You command a premium at every place that's left though because they want you _because_ of the things that make you different. So long as you don't shrink the pool too much, each individual job is more lucrative.
It's corporate America, so I'm going to be unceremoniously fired eventually anyway, but in the meantime I might as well enjoy myself, impress my coworkers, snag a promotion or two, and get a "made a cool new thing increasing profits $XX million/yr" line item on my resume.
> start your own business
Probably eventually, but starting a business is very different from being at a place big enough that I can profit my salary many times over just from faster code. If I start one, I'll write fast code there too, but "fast" isn't a business idea by itself, and I don't see anything wrong with doing a good job for whoever happens to be writing my paycheck.