All of this... so true. Spot on. I'm seeing the same thing now. I'm in my early 30's and the younger developers we're hiring are doing all the shit work, and they are freaking out about following the rules and doing everything on deadlines. I've had the exact same realization about the deadlines being arbitrary, and ever since I realized the engineering talent gets to set the deadlines, I ignore most of what's dictated to me and I set them back. The management at my company can't do much about it because regardless of how long it takes, the work I do is the important technology work in the company and none of the other developers could do it (not now at least, maybe in a few years).

There was a bullshit fake article written by someone at facebook this week, some tongue in cheek thing about how awesome it is to work at facebook as a developer. Reading it made me sick, and right here you have articulated exactly why.