I'm definitely at a point in my career where I don't generally see new things in my work. Sure, the tools change, but the people and process problems really don't that much. Even the technical problems, they haven't changed that much, not even with AI.
As I understand it, it's not unusual for people with autism to observe a situation and instinctively say, "You're doing it wrong." My kid is like that, too. The difference between us is that he will blurt out obscenities at poor drivers, whereas I'll take one of those work situations and say, "How can I help make this better?" The underlying sentiment is not that different.
Oddly enough, when I've been in a position to have more influence and responsibility, I didn't have the experience that I do now. I also realized at one point that I like being closer to the makers, getting into technical design and having real accountability in shipping stuff. Being a line manager is far more satisfying than trying to be a CTO. Still, I have this strong urge to fix things that I know could be better. But if I can get beyond the instinct to correct that which is wrong (in my perception at least), I still have the moral dilemma of whether or not I'm being professionally negligent.
At my last job, for example, there was an opportunity to greatly simplify system architecture by consolidating API's instead of having a ton of one-off things to maintain. One gateway to rule them all, without the complexity of dependencies and coordinated releases. This was not my problem to own, but it felt like an obvious thing to make life easier for many folks, and shut down a lot of redundant compute. However, the more involved that I got in trying to make it happen, the more distracted I got from my core responsibilities. Getting nowhere in building consensus and priority, this time I eventually walked away from it.
I think there are two things to think about. The first is that we rarely understand the depth of experience for any given individual. Sometimes we'll remember something on a person's resume from their interview, but most of the time, we just don't know. The second thing is that it's too easy to get sucked into the idea that we can solve all of the problems. It's not that we shouldn't leverage our experience, but changing lanes means you might not be as good at your primary thing.
The bottom line is that I need to learn to let go of some of the things that aren't mine. The idea that I can fix all the things may be hubris.
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