I have been asked this question by different people at different times, enough to write about it here. Not necessarily as an answer, but to build my own thoughts about it, because I do not have a crisp and to-the-point answer. Many times the intent is to find out about my favorite technologies or programming languages or environments. Yes, I do have favorites, but they do not affect my choice of work anymore. In fact I remember, my first project in my first job was in Algol, and I did get disappointed because others got to work on cool languages like VC++ and VB. However after the project I was one of the happiest because I got to learn a lot, got to work a lot and understand that software is neither about programming languages nor about platforms - it is about problems and solutions.
I have been told before that the big picture is none of my business, or that it is a secret. And I have done work at times in such scenarios, but then I have only churned out code, not really built a solution. Why? Because the big picture helps me understand the problem. Without the problem, there is no solution. Heck, I do not even want to select a programming language without understanding the problem and the constraints at hand.
My choice of work is more motivated by the value that the output can provide, and the value that I can provide in building it. For whatever reasons, I cannot take technical decisions, unless I understand the purpose and value we are trying to provide. I keep saying that the technical decisions should be based on the business decisions, because finally that is where it will be used.
In some other cases, I have seen managers take decisions without consulting the team or even informing them. Indirectly, they are controlling the value that the team can provide. I think if we ask our team to do a job, we need to explain certain decisions. Maybe not all, but at least the ones that directly affect them.
The work that I like to do is where I am given a chance to understand the problem, and where reason prevails over forced control. These together motivate me to do my best, and I sure want to do that everytime.
