What I find impactful and valuable professionally has changed over the years — much to my surprise. What I find impactful and valuable as a hobbyist hasn’t changed. They used to be aligned!
At work: I value, care, and have strong feelings about, how we approach work. What are the systems, the culture, the way we work? Are we being honest with what we’re trying to get done? Do they let us focus on the problems to be solved? Specifically: the problems the customer wants solved? These can be technical, but don't end up in the nitty gritty of ‘which specific design pattern should we use’, or ‘which library should we use’, or even ‘how should these components specifically fit together’. The most impactful, and durable decisions are about the guiding principles that we use to make decisions — what cultural values do we embrace to make decisions (both formally, and informally).
It’s not process, it’s aligning on the shared value. It’s about communicating.
Technical roles often advertise the criticality of technical decisions — but often they are uninteresting, low-impact considerations. The decisions are, in isolation, arbitrary. They’re just one of many ways to skin the proverbial cat. What is more interesting to me is how it fits in to the context of our culture — is this the right way for us?
However, in personal projects: I’m focused on those technical choices — that specific component relationship, the uniqueness of my use case. I enjoy it — because it’s for me. I’m not making it for someone else, whose goals are different from mine. I don’t have to walk a mile in someone else's shoes.
Is this because I’m less technical these days? Or is it because I see those fine details as ephemeral, and actually the why & how we decided is the truly durable artefact?