Hi! Is it important for you as an engineer how much of your code gets to production? Do you often keep watching over what happend to the features and projects you deliver in production if it's not your direct responsibility?

Sports analogy! My job is to help move the ball down the field. Sometimes I make a goal, sometimes I assist, sometimes I'm on the field but don't see action, sometimes I am out there just in case as an option, sometimes I'm substituted out for another. Sometimes I make a great play but the whistle was blown on someone else so it doesn't count. Sometimes the whistle is blown on me. If the coach decides they don't like the play or to go with a different play, that' is not my call and I am okay with it. It isn't a personal attack if the coach doesn't pick me for every play. Sometimes the coach pulls players from the game because players give better results after a break.

My paycheck is the same no matter what, and as long as my boss is happy with my work, it's fine.

I recommend you get rid of the ego. It will not help your career.

My job is certainly to do what is needed for the project and that is more important than how many lines of code I write that actually end up in the final executable.

However:

• If I write something that then gets thrown away, that's frustrating because my work didn't help the project, and usually suggests that someone else's failure to plan properly is affecting the quality of the final product.
• I'm also in games because I like creating things that people enjoy. If I just wanted a job where I type code for money and didn't care about anything other than doing what my employer requires, I could work in finance or similar for a lot more money. So, as a creative worker, it is demoralizing to not see my work in the hands of players.

The sports analogy is good in that it highlights that development is a team game. But it's also true that professional sportspeople will seek to move teams if they are struggling to get picked for the team, or constantly being played out of position, or seeing their effort is not matched by their teammates.

Having an ego about your code is not a great thing but feeling pride in your work and being unhappy if it goes to waste is not something you should be feel bad about. I've seen people say that they don't care if their code gets deleted, but I've seen the same people talk proudly about the features they worked on that players got to enjoy. Would they be so sanguine about their wasted work if none of their features had shipped? Maybe, maybe not.

Each person will have a different personal perspective on where they fall on the “my paycheck is the same no matter what” to “I'm here to create things and express myself” continuum and it may take a bit of self-reflection, and maybe a few different employers, to find the right fit for each individual.

If nobody uses your code, why are you writing it?

Your code has some user. That may be an end user, who sees it in production, or it may be some internal user, if you're building tools code, build system code, or something in that vein.

When I write code for myself, at home, just for fun and learning, no, it doesn't matter at all whether that code is used “in production” or not. It's almost certainly not going into production.

When i write code for work (which I may also do at home,) it absolutely 100% matters that the code is useful to real humans. Else I'm wasting my time.

Somewhat related: If I care whether my code keeps working in production in a week, month, or year from now, I defend that functionality with a comprehensive automated test. And if I don't care whether the code keeps working, then why am I writing it in the first place? :-D