> When you pull this off people will tell stories about you and brag about you when you are not around.
True!
> None of them will know anything about the code engineering.
Not true. In environments where it's very easy to fuck up (hyperconnected codebases, lots of legacy tech debt, fragile systems generally), programmers who create tools/libraries that let other engineers get work done without blowing their feet off or spending huge amounts of time on silly things do get praised. Maybe the praise comes from different people than in your example, but it definitely is rewarded.
Two caveats: this only happens in certain environments; some gigs are just culturally unable to care about quality tools (death march feature factories and the like). Also, you actually have to save time and reduce defect rates with your engineering work; starting an architecture-astronaut rewrite that isn't actually useful for other programmers' day-to-day work doesn't count. Making "one tool to rule them all" that requires a Ph. D or pairing session with the author doesn't count either.
True!
> None of them will know anything about the code engineering.
Not true. In environments where it's very easy to fuck up (hyperconnected codebases, lots of legacy tech debt, fragile systems generally), programmers who create tools/libraries that let other engineers get work done without blowing their feet off or spending huge amounts of time on silly things do get praised. Maybe the praise comes from different people than in your example, but it definitely is rewarded.
Two caveats: this only happens in certain environments; some gigs are just culturally unable to care about quality tools (death march feature factories and the like). Also, you actually have to save time and reduce defect rates with your engineering work; starting an architecture-astronaut rewrite that isn't actually useful for other programmers' day-to-day work doesn't count. Making "one tool to rule them all" that requires a Ph. D or pairing session with the author doesn't count either.