The thing is boring tech is often really just painful tech, where pain manifests in lots of different ways (error-prone repetition, painful manual testing, hard to read spaghetti code, etc). Programmers who are too insensitive to pain will continue to generate pain for themselves and others.

Seems like an invention on your part. I also sense some condescension towards this alleged group of people that you insist exists.

The reality is that people who like coding and thus trying new things are limited by the stack their job uses. Simple as that.

I don't really understand your hypothetical scenario where this alleged person is working on the new FooQux framework instead of getting work done. That's just someone who isn't doing their job. That they enjoying writing code seems irrelevant. Like trying to say people who like water skiing are awful employees because they're on the lake all day.

We need a word for this kind of HN trope. Condescension roleplaying?

My last phone screen, I emphasized that I like solving business problems, rather than tech for its own sake. They decided I "wasn't technical enough"...without asking me a single technical question.

That's the culture clash people frequently reference, and it's very real. If you don't perceive it, it's because you're swimming in it.

And I emphasize that the attitude, that the only good coders have tunnel vision and just want to play obsessively with tech, but only the cool stuff, goes far, far beyond the stereotypical SF startup environment or whatever. Because a large number of companies have a vague idea that to be cool, they should imitate what the trendy companies do, so even if you question the stereotype, the stereotype influences reality.