<p><pre><code>    &gt; I want to get away from coding for you and code for me.
    &gt; I don&#x27;t like coding for you. I don&#x27;t think any of us do.
</code></pre>
I&#x27;m sorry you haven&#x27;t found anything to like and be excited by, but i assure you it is out there. I personally have never worked in a company with much process, so i haven&#x27;t experienced that kind of hell. But do keep in mind, there&#x27;s also another kind of hell: Where everybody is a cowboy coder and walks all over anybody&#x27;s changes; where everybody codes 9-5 and then doesn&#x27;t think about code ever, never improves, coding the same as when they started, 15 years after they start.<p>I&#x27;ve found my enjoyment in taking such companies and teaching them how to produce quality code without compromising on speed. I&#x27;ve found my enjoyment in encouraging such companies to take on young coders who i can then teach, and see flower into excellence they could otherwise only reach with years of investment.<p>And occasionally there is the one or two projects that are just for fun, or really touch many many customers.<p>Don&#x27;t give up and blame the world. Look harder. Maybe even change your language. I mainly do Perl, which gets a bit of a bad rap by people who don&#x27;t use it. But compared to companies doing e.g. Java or PHP i find a marked difference in culture. Maybe you&#x27;re just stuck with the wrong focus in your skill set?<p>Or, if you feel brave: Maybe your problem is that you keep getting into the kind of company that wants an employee. Maybe you can change your situation by becoming a freelancer. Keep in mind that as a freelancer, you eventually, if you&#x27;re good enough, end up in the position where you may fire clients. You also tend to see a lot more projects of much more variety.