Writing applications (web apps, jobs, desktop apps, occasionally something worse) that basically act like a front end to a database. By that I don’t mean frontend as in the frontend web stack but the backend is mostly just a series of API endpoints or screens that call an associated database procedure. Often times there’s some light massaging or transforming of the data to be more presentable. Usually with mildly legacy technology (think older .NET, Java, jQuery. Shit I just got finished pumping out a greenfield Access project).

I’d like to do other things, but this is the only sort of thing I think I’ve ever gotten an interview for.

> I'm just trying to understand: are you guys really spending your whole days changing button colours?

Not quite like that, but it isn’t uncommon for me to spend time making minor changes because the business area helping with requirements can’t remember what they wanted one day to the next. I wouldn’t like if I said there are many days I spend mostly doing nothing, just waiting for some process or for someone’s calendar to free up before anything can continue. This has been common at all jobs I’ve had except one, where I was a contractor hired to do an extremely specific task for a very small company.

I’ve started working in other things in my (abundant) spare time, hoping they’ll help me get somewhere, but I’ll see.