I am lucky enough to be in Design Engineering and should be able to create much more for the emerging market needs. (I Hope) :^)
Listen to your customers. They are the ones paying the bills. Scrutinize the rosy projections from the marketing people. Most of it is hot air and wishful thinking. Try to contain your laughter when the Microsoft Project wizards present development schedules and milestones with unwavering authority. Most of them have no idea of the difference between a define process and an empirical process. Software development is the latter.