It is!

There are some advantages in working for a company none of your (non-industry) friends have heard of. You get to talk about your job and explain it without preconceived notions.

Also, I feel I'm making an honest to god difference at work, I help people solve difficult problems that are critical for the health of broader society (utilities, transportation, government) that would be hard to solve elsewhere.

I work for a utility. We use technologies spanning decades. We don't change our technology stacks to enhance people's EV's. For us new technology is technology that's 5 years old. We call it "leading edge" and actually have a strategy to avoid "bleeding edge." We like to use technologies that have been tested out, worked out, and shown to work and has mindshare and tooling.

Having been developing for nearly 40 years now the technologies don't really excite me - it's what I'm building and the impact that it's having on its users that motivates me. It sounds like you've found something that motivates you, too.

Me too. I’m in telco, which is an industry full of weird legacy stuff, but the notion of working in a similar silo that isn’t as full of hype appeals to me.

Probably great job stability if you do your work well.