I am starting to consider that maybe the composition of the team is incorrect. I want to give them more interesting projects, but there are really not that many, and the ones that exist involve a lot of digging into and uncovering issues that currently exist.
Ofc the argument to be made here is that they're paid to do a job, but at the end of the day I want them to feel like they're a part of a mission/team and while we do have objectives and we track them, they seem to be pretty unmotivated with the broader problems we have at hand (they're not super interesting to anybody outside of backend).
I was considering letting them leave standup early once we start talking about backend work, and same for sprint plannings. Or maybe just re-shuffling the team a bit. I'm not sure, would appreciate some advice
1 involve them in defining that common mission you mention
2 sounds like you are at least temporarily pretty involved in the backend work. Take some time with the frontend people to understand their world, concerns, things you can do to make their lives easier
3 if the work is that separate, I would not insist on frequent joint planning/ stand ups. But make sure that this doesn’t backfire “we are already unimportant, now they don’t even want us at the stand up”
Or just accept the fact that some jobs are just not very engaging. That's why they call it "work" and people get paid to do it. Otherwise, it would be called "fun" and people would pay for the privilege.