Sorry for getting philosophical on you, but I read more into your posts than just the topic.
10 yrs makes you experienced in my book, unless the 10 yrs wasn't engineering- so you may be "young" but you're not THAT young! There's such a thing as having nearly the same 1 month of experience 120 times, but even that teaches you something! Not that you don't learn more every day throughout your career, but what I heard in your posts was an undercurrent of concern really about contributing at a senior level (by writing software to improve everyone's work, yours included) in return for junior/"staff" level compensation and recognition. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's how it came across to me when reading your posts. I suggest that the solution for that problem is not more humility on your part, as some seem to have suggested, but instead seeking better recognition from an employer whose concept of your ability to contribute matches your own more closely. If, after seeking that opportunity and failing repeatedly to find it, you are forced to stay where you are and eat crow, then you're doing it on an informed basis rather than just sucking up your existing fate as if it were inevitable. Cowering in a job where you feel underappreciated is a recipie for poor self esteem and depression in my book, if you're the kind of person who takes their career seriously and derives much of their self esteem from how they feel about what they do for a living. That describes many engineers and other professionals, but not all- some work only to live, and are able to pack it all away within 30 seconds of getting into the car on the way home.
What others have said here is that you get out of your position what you put into it. In reality you always get less than that- it is inevitable that some of your contributions won't be noticed much less acknowledged or compensated for, but that's part of a job in the real world. I think some people here are finding it a little surprising that it isn't natural for you to just see a need you can fill and jump in there and fill it, assuming it's something the company will actually find useful. Doing that before being asked is one way to get noticed for promotion, if that's your interest.
BTW, dunno if you're a victim of autospell etc., but one doesn't hoe "roads", but "rows", i.e. a using a hoe to weed a row in a garden...hoeing a road would be tough work and with very limited benefit!