I do design and development at a very large electrical wholesalers. Very small team, and internal politics works in our favour, giving us quite a lot of control over that web part of the business. It gives us time as well; the company is slow moving. The nature of the business means I'll hit a wall in terms of where I can go in, I guess, the next year or so, which makes me a little sad; I've learned a great deal, and the team is very close. I can speak several computer languages fairly fluently now, make real things that actually constructively help people, make their jobs easier. Eg, outside of work, I just built a graphic UI interface/API backend for a very time consuming data entry task my (very work-stressed) girlfriend has to do every few months, going from photocopied pland and spreadsheets to a webapp, cutting the total time it takes her from days to minutes; she was really happy, I was happy she was happy. It took me an afternoon, and I couldn't really have done that a couple of years ago without serious effort. That's due to my work environment, mentors etc. Small things.

As an aside, programming knowledge has made me a far, far better designer; vice versa maybe as well, maybe