I actually don't think my life would be seriously 
     negatively impacted by being deaf

Some people can cope with such a disability, but only through tremendous effort. On deafness, that means you won't be able to participate in conversations the way normal people do, so you'll have to read lips and learn how to pronounce sounds by examining how other people move their mouth and tongue.

Many people with deafness since birth can't do that, preferring instead to stay close to other people that know sign language. Imagine how life is for them when they can't communicate with most people they meet.

Viewed from afar it might not seem such a huge disadvantage, but I even stopped being a strict vegetarian because it can be such a hassle sometimes. In theory you can always find vegetarian alternatives, but it can be tiring to always have to explain yourself and go the extra mile. If cutting one group of foods out of my daily intake is too much for me to bear every day, how could I judge what losing speech and hearing would do to me?

You couldn't be more wrong! Deafness is far worse a disability than blindness for most people in terms of integrating into and succeeding in society. The reason for this is that human beings are social creatures and deafness isolates people, while blindness doesn't. This is the reason that there is a whole unique deaf culture that tends to stay separate from mainstream culture. Within deaf culture, deaf people are not isolated.

This is the reason that many deaf people are morally opposed to cochlear implants. They feel that it is an attack on their culture--the culture that allows them to belong somewhere and thrive.

Professionally, you could absolutely live a full life as an individual contributor while deaf with minimal accomodation. It might be hard to be an entrepreneur or senior manager, just due to the large number of in-person meetings required, but even that could be worked around (missing out on the informal communications would be a problem in some places). I would have zero problem working with a deaf engineer where all communication had to be by IM/irc/email/commit, vs. verbal; it would be just like a remote worker, which we have huge experience with as a profession now. I mean, I IRC with people in the same room to avoid distracting other people, to be more clear, and to produce a record. A deaf coworker would basically mean I could wear my HD600 open headphones instead of my DT770 closed headphones, that we'd need a visual paging system and alarm, and not a whole lot more. I've worked with people who spoke such horrible English that it was far preferable to have them write vs. speak, too.

I agree the "growing up deaf" part might be a lot different (and probably worse), but as an adult, if you suddenly went deaf (as has happened to me on several occasions), not a huge problem.

Looking for a workplace with a lot of remote workers is probably the best way to be a first-class team member while deaf.

Some Deaf people enjoy their lifestyle and the community and culture that surrounds them so much that they would choose for their children to be deaf so that they too can be a fully accepted (!) part of that same culture. TBH I've a lot of sympathy with that position.

In short, be cautious. A sign user living amongst a deaf community might well feel offended at your pity and assumption that theirs is a lower quality of life (for some measure of quality).

I think the OPs chosen field must be particularly hard - speakers have difficulty with communicating code/markup too, it requires a mix of communication media to effectively and unambiguously communicate code IMO. Transliterating code in to English can be tricky, I bet it's hard in sign too.

I'm interested whether the OP uses ASL at all (or some other sign language) or only uses Cued Speech. Also whether they've attempted to educate their colleagues in Cued Speech and if that has helped at all?

The irrational optimism on this site is starting to get a bit carried away.