toolsmith (n.)

The software equivalent of a tool-and-die specialist; one who specializes in making the tools with which other programmers create applications. Many hackers consider this more fun than applications per se; to understand why, see uninteresting. Jon Bentley, in the

Bumper-Sticker Computer Science

chapter of his book More Programming Pearls, quotes Dick Sites from DEC as saying

I'd rather write programs to write programs than write programs

.