The form is paper-based, because it requires a number of signatures to make it legally binding. They brought in a consultancy to move the whole thing online. They've been at it for a year and a half. I started wondering what it was that's so difficult.
The consultancy created a form in which fields, guidance and rules were hard-coded. Part of what took them 18+ months is that the client kept making changes to form guidance.
I got myself a printed version of the form and used it to create a form-builder, which simply generates HTML. A non-technical business admin can change field sequences, guidance, and business rules using a simple UI, and publish those in real time. That took just 3 days.
When I demonstrated my proof of concept I got those 10x comments. Guess what. I'm a festering pile of shit as a programmer. But I've been doing this for 20 years, and have solved this little problem many times in those 20 years. I didn't write much code. I just copied and pasted stuff I had lying around, renamed some entities and methods, and put it onto a server.
It really is just experience.
Programming isn't just about writing great code, it's about solving problems. Sure, one problem to solve is having code be extensible/maintainable, but it isn't the only one.
I don't care what shiny new code is written with the latest framework; if it doesn't solve a business problem, it's bad code.
Well, we're all standing on the shoulders of giants, so that last part might be framed very pessimistically. But I just don't want to be programmer that either brings a comparatively little to the table or even a net negative of contribution on bad days, who has to have some mythical 10X programmer in my vicinity (on, say, my team) in order for me to get anything remotely useful done.
It's only partly about self-esteem: if I don't have a talent for this gig, I want to find out about that so that I can get out gracefully. So it's not just a question of thinking positive and getting better self-esteem, it's also a question that has practical implications.