> Do the engineers not derive enjoyment in their jobs from making the customer experience better?

Quite a few don't, no.

Different people derive enjoyment in different things and some of the best engineers do not find satisfaction in "delivering better customer experience" but in working with, and improving, cool technology. Its up to management to find areas of the business where they can deploy these people in a way that dove-tails with business success.

Its also the case that only working on projects that "deliver customer value", and having to justify every single endeavor through that lense, is how you end up in a local maxima in your tech stack, get mired in technical debt, and then get lapped by your competitors who have the foresight to work on foundational technology that enables future velocity.

To be frank, its endlessly frustrating that your median Hacker News poster doesn't get this, and instead prefer to brow-beat people about how they're caring about the wrong things.