> meetings, on-sites, and bureaucracy - leaving very little time for actual work which produced any kind of real artifact
All those things are actual work, they just produce different artifacts, eg an aligned team and correct decisions and proper risk assessment diffused through an org. Again, nothing wrong with choosing the career you want, but I think this perspective is simply wrong.
You're absolutely right. I guess those artifacts don't resonate with me - and I did mention there's nothing wrong with enjoying this in the article. Good catch, I'll see if I can't reword it a bit :)