You want to provide value to your customers and anything getting in the way of that should be a frustration, not something we just accept. Stagnation will lead to decline that is very difficult to reverse. I don’t know what you do, but thank you for your perspective and disposition and for admonishing the above attitude.
What about those who are not able to? Because your argument falls flat on tis face once if you remove that part.
I don’t like that people just work for a paycheck. I understand why and it’s very hard to argue against people doing it and not caring when their managers or the companies they work for don’t care about them in return. The Cambrian Explosion of solved problems will lead to an deluge of catastrophes when a large percentage of those systems fail unless people take care to transmit the “why” to the future stewards of these systems.
That's why I also said "international tech hubs" because that's were it's easier to find non-MS jobs outside the US. But it seems that passed over your head and you spent 3 sentences to go on a tangent on how much you hate the US even if the US wasn't my point.
>an emerging pattern of MS-shops being the kind of place incompatible with wanting to take pride in your work
There's plenty of non MS-shops that make SW just as bad, if not much more worse and evil than MS-shops (nefarious Facebook and Google spy-/ad-ware isn't done in a Microsoft shop). SW stack is just a tool and a tool does not define one's character just how whether you use DeWalt or Makita doesn't. Which is why I dislike your binary/black-or-white view on this topic as it screams ideological zealotry, short sightedness or even borderline discriminatory.
Taking "pride in your work" in the context of working for someone else's SW corporation, is mostly a luxury belief of privileged people who have the luxury of choice in the labor market, while for most folk, labor is done just as a way to pay bills, while taking pride is reserved for activities with hobbies, family, children and friends.
You don't need to "take pride in your work" to be a kind person and functioning member of society, but it seems it's just a virtue signaling purity test by the "holier than though" crowd of tech workers.
I'm not saying that you cannot work in an MS-shop. I am just saying that the attitudes I see reflected in the comments supporting MS-shops explain why MS-shop output looks the way it does.
Ultimately, it comes down to company culture not individual developers. I wouldn't hold devs accountable for what is a systemic issue, in fact I am grateful there are those devs who don't care about taking pride in their work who can survive in an MS-shop without it draining their reason for being. If not for them, positions in places where taking pride in your work doesn't come at personal cost would be far more competitive.
However, that doesn't mean it isn't worth calling out an emerging pattern of MS-shops being the kind of place incompatible with wanting to take pride in your work.