"Take problem from one domain you know and make a business by being really good at solving it with something from another domain you know" is a pretty tried and true business strategy.
Which is what makes me sad being primarily a programmer. I often wish I had another career first so that I could use the programming skills to solve something there. As it is, I often feel like a loaded gun without a direction to aim in.
You should pick up the domain you're programming in. Like when I was working on a product for the construction industry, I knew all about how certain parts of it worked. I knew all the terms and insider slang and quite a few of the problems they face because I built those things for them. There were plenty of problems I heard about that our product wasn't aimed at.
When I was working for the credit industry, and that was only for 2 months, again I picked up a lot of the terms, asked questions about how the debt buying companies works, how were the banks using the information we gave them, how the debt relief system in the uk works, looked up our clients to find out what they do, ask the customer support team what they do, etc.
Now I'm working making tools for the restaurant business, etc., etc.
One of the things I've noticed is that most other programmers don't. Because they don't talk to the sales people. They don't talk to customers. They don't talk to the consultants. They don't ask questions about why they're implementing something. They don't ask how their product is used.
You have to ask yourself, if you're not picking up problems in the domain you're presently working on, why would you if you'd worked anywhere else?
Oh yeah, there's huge value in building a relationship with other parts of the business at a large company.
A lot of people loathe talking to Sales & Marketing but I always try to have a good understanding of their areas. If you build the right relationship it also gives you great trust and authority when cross-department decisions are made since you can (reasonably) speak to both sides.
I too want to work in tooling. Sadly, we are just animals and want features faster rather than having a low memory footprint (don't know how I'd do it to be honest but I'm sure desktop apps should be leaner than they are now). I mean even gnome feels pretty bloated to be honest.
I think the problem is we are too accepting. We should put our foot down and say no. No to two clipboards on the same system. No to Eudora or whatever running in the background even though you haven't set up an email account with it. No to apps having ability to access the Internet or run at boot or run in background by default.
The problem is if I try to implement this, my best hope is to fracture everything further and realistically I will fail and have no users.
Don't go to your local "I want to build a startup!" meetup as those are almost always useless. 99% of the people there have an idea and "just need someone to build it!"
Instead, check out events, meetups, conferences, trainings outside your core field. I went to a few game developer events and then music+tech meetups and learned a bunch but the most valuable were construction technology. Project management is project management. Accounting is accounting. The industry/situation changes some of the specifics but it's many of the same principles and concepts.
The vast majority are free, you just have to show up.
Would you be interested in a service that aggregated startup/product ideas from people with deep industry experience but a lack of technical skills? It's something I've been thinking should exist.
When people take a look at my "computer" skills, they ask me why I didn't become a IT/programmer instead and make lots of money. I always respond "IT people don't need IT people. Everyone else needs IT people."
My skills are a product of the needs of my environment.
