Writing tests and documentation or diving deep into debugging hard issues is what I consider part of "good work" (and that I have also enjoyed doing), and I can't wait to do good work. It just has to be compatible with the rest of life. It's mostly the way we work that has to change rather than the content of the work.

First, the author says interesting OR meaningful work. So even if it’s true that the developer won’t be interested in, say, writing documentation for a legacy steel manufacturer, this developer might be happy to do so for a good non-profit.

Second, the author never said documentation and the like weren’t interesting. Perhaps that’s true, but Francesco merely wrote that he prefers Python over PHP and had a few industries he thought were interesting.

We all have skills and industries were interested/not interested in. And I think we and Francesco generally recognize some unpleasant work must be done in any field.

well, he just slid down to "more unreasonable" with that clarification :) I can understand a "great coder doesn't want to write documentation" broadcast message, but if you want meaningful work to your standards, it's really on you to find the companies doing it and apply to them.

I would extend the common good advice to employees to this applicant: Offer to your manager solutions to problems, rather than just complaining about problems; managers have enough headaches, what they ache for are helpful employees; this also applies to hiring managers, so find a hiring manager who will want you, don't make him find you.