So what? If you made it to the desk interview, you had something worth talking about.
And what if you were the guy that found a bug in a Mars rover? Sure, maintenance programming, but you still did something worth talking about.
And even maintenance programmers with a bit of initiative can do something interesting. "Well, I had to dynamically change the name of 20,000 functions in a project so I wrote a tool to do it automatically and went home early while the tool did the work". That's the quality the interviewer is looking for.
Most of the maintenance programming I have done has involved fixing bugs and adding pretty minor features. Not the sort of thing you would be proud to talk about at an interview. Not saying it is any easier a job, but its not like I created anything great.
And what if you were the guy that found a bug in a Mars rover? Sure, maintenance programming, but you still did something worth talking about.
And even maintenance programmers with a bit of initiative can do something interesting. "Well, I had to dynamically change the name of 20,000 functions in a project so I wrote a tool to do it automatically and went home early while the tool did the work". That's the quality the interviewer is looking for.