My day-to-day job consists of maintaining large volume websites and this has given me exposure to developing better methods to develop and maintain the code. This has also given me a large body of knowledge in the code base in terms of troubleshooting that is beneficial to the company. I'm also the maintainer of an IDE plug in I created to help navigate and generate code that is used.

Operationally though, my job is to handle any client requests that come in of that are emergencies and make any enhancements and additions to the code base required. This work, along with the daily managing and feeding of the the project managers will take up my entire day.

How does one manage the time between the tactical day job and the strategic initiatives? How does one get and ask for recognition for taking strategic initiatives? Is the 8-9 hour day just not going to cut it? Is there even a job out there for programmers to develop strategic initiatives and solutions for a company?

I want to also point out that this isn't a problem with the company at all. I think this is more of a personal-improvement decision. Nobody will say no to the improvements at all. I believe in making the things happen but I don't think I'm going to get time from the company to do it...