> I'm rarely given the time or resources to do any engineering.
Are you sure it is that you are not given the time rather than your artisan ways consumes your time 'unnecessary'?
Failure in (most) software isn't going to harm anyone, so there isn't much technical need for engineering in software. As I am sure you can attest, artisans are fully capable of delivering great software. Some of the best software out there was created by artisans!
The software industry is headed towards engineering anyway because engineers can build software faster, which is considered a virtue in business. That was true even before LLMs, but has become especially pronounced in this next era.
> It has become very clear to me over the years that I would much rather be an artisan than an engineer though.
Understandable. I suspect a lot of engineers would rather be artisans—not just in software but in general. Artisans get to run at the forefront of new technologies and ideas before rigour is able to be established so it is, on balance, naturally more exciting.
That doesn't mean your artisan ways aren't consuming time 'unnecessarily', even of it is an employer request that is driving the 'unnecessary' work. It's a bit like the employer asking you to clean the office for half the day. Your available working time is the same, giving you time, but it is being squandered on 'unnecessary' work.
However, it seems like both you and your employer both want artisans anyway, so it sounds like you have found a good fit. The software industry is putting more and more emphasis on engineers, but that is far from being universal yet (and will likely never be 100%).
Are you sure it is that you are not given the time rather than your artisan ways consumes your time 'unnecessary'?
Failure in (most) software isn't going to harm anyone, so there isn't much technical need for engineering in software. As I am sure you can attest, artisans are fully capable of delivering great software. Some of the best software out there was created by artisans!
The software industry is headed towards engineering anyway because engineers can build software faster, which is considered a virtue in business. That was true even before LLMs, but has become especially pronounced in this next era.
> It has become very clear to me over the years that I would much rather be an artisan than an engineer though.
Understandable. I suspect a lot of engineers would rather be artisans—not just in software but in general. Artisans get to run at the forefront of new technologies and ideas before rigour is able to be established so it is, on balance, naturally more exciting.