toolsmith

toolsmith n.  The software equivalent of a tool-and-die
   specialist; one who specializes in making the {tool}s 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".