Well, the glory may depend on your specific industry. One of the (few) problems with working in engineering is that while you may invent something cool, you have less power over the ways that invention is used. You know, that old movie theme—the relentless progress of science versus the potential moral consequences.

 

That mushroom cloud, it's your handiwork. Now where's your gold medal? (Source)

So if you design a new kind of suture that can be used in artificial skin grafts, that seems like a win for just about everyone. Give yourself a pat on the back. But maybe you design a new ballistics modeling program and it's used by the next up-and-coming terrorist cell to cause some serious harm to innocent people. The moral gray-area can get murky in a hurry.

The bottom line is, if you deserve glory for your efforts you'll know it. Glory really is mostly a personal feeling, anyway. Even if the general populace has no idea who made their super-duper, itty-bitty, fingernail-sized iPod Nano possible, you can still feel good about it.

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