I am sad for the guys at SUN - there is not a lot of work in the area; Motorola closed down completely a few years back. But then the company I worked for before SUN was bought over while I was there and has changed beyond recognition, and the one after doesn't seem to be doing much on their website anymore either and is part of a whole group of software that is being phased out. It seems to be the way of the branch of engineering I am in. I think I like the idea the all the code I have ever written has, or will be shortly, thrown away.
It's probably quite sad in a way that there is not a lot to show for my hours of work. But then the alternative - tweaking the same piece of COBOL written 30 years ago sounds miserable to me and I wouldn't want to wish it on anybody.
It doesn't stop me trying my best to write maintainable code of course, but I always thought the benefit of doing so would be that the next person would feel comfortable throwing bits of it away, rather than writing a "Here be dragons!" comment at the top and going no further.
