Imaginary problems make software bad and keep programmers sane

I think companies themselves would benefit from having employees dedicate some percentage of their time to exciting stuff, new attempts at solving problems etc. (I currently do this with side projects)

It works for managing the engineer appetite to playing with new tech, learn and be up to date, and in the end not over engineer the main product that is probably the main income for the company and most likely benefits from being boring and stable.

Banking and finance industry in general is a nightmare to work on. Chock full of company politics, shit project management, shit work hours, although the pay is good but it isn't worth it for my sanity.

We had a crunch time where the devs basically need to live in the office, only going home to get new clothes. Even after all that work, the management decided to switch focus and we had to scrap all the work done for the past 3 months.

One project basically got delayed for multiple years and ended when the PM died of heart attack.

Thankfully I'm out of that industry and now working in a consulting company that's managed by engineers from top to bottom. Although there's still some politics, at least it's on the client side.