It is also possible that this is just the way companies in our industry work today. I keep seeing junior developers who somehow think that their job is to write beautiful, elegant software with well designed architectures etc., while in reality the goal that matters is to get product out the door. When they get yelled at for going 2x over time because they ended up refactoring many times more code than necessary they get discouraged. I think it's just a matter of arriving at the right expectations, which sometimes takes time and experience.

There are certainly roles where software can be an end itself. Academic paths focused specifically on software, open source, perhaps some R&D shops (think Guava guys). But in most companies it's a means to an end.

This article makes some good related points on the topic of technical debt and what amount of it is optimal for enterprises.

http://bigeng.io/post/118399425343/why-the-way-we-look-at-te...