I'd hate to be the engineer who has to talk to all people and ask them about how they are processing user data, where are they storing logs, what happens to it.... it's the most boring work you can imagine for a programmer.
At the same time it's great that people can learn about these things.
I am biased of course as I work on various aspects of GDPR compliance, data retention and deletion, encryption compliance, etc. I used to think this stuff was really boring compared to high scalability, graphics, schedulers etc. (all of which I have worked on in past lives); lately I think it is both interesting and crucially important hence my comment.
But I doubt that it can be as interesting as working on the game engine where you get visual feedback.
If you look at the software market, there are lots of stories about game programmers being underpayed compared to other programmers even when they have better knowledge about the inner workings of the computer hardware. There is a valid reason for it.
Also if you are using the data to help the user, and it's explained to the user, it is legal. But I'm not a GDPR expert, others here on HN know much more about it.
If the model aggregates the data of multiple people and is disconnected from the individual it does not constitute PII and can be kept.
But yeah there are no quick scripts in corporate software, even though Blizzard claims to use agile development I doubt the effectiveness of it. I remember some small vital features/fixes in world of warcraft would be delayed to next expension because "they already had a road map in place" - agile my ass lol.
That might just be their polite way of saying "lol bugger off, I'm busy".
But what about reading law, understanding if your company is compliant to the law or not, making those compliance changes, and knowing that if you made a mistake the company takes a huge financial responsibility?
My girlfriend was doing these things for her 2 person software company, and she was more scared about making a mistake than having fun.