These kind of posts always make me think how crappy being a just a coder is and how unsatisfying for many the career actually is. After five or ten years it’s probably downhill and you will have more and more trouble getting new gigs.

Someone earlier wrote they are a “Wolf” but more likely they are the code monkey. That’s usually the gist of the problem, software coders end up being a tool that gets used by the people that actually do the thinking in the organization. If this is you I suggest trying to find a position where you are also the user of your code. To continue with the animal analogy you eat your own dog food.

This, I’ve found is the most satisfying experience one can have writing code. For example, if you own a Tesla, get a job writing code or developing hardware for an electric car startup. Or if you are in finance get a job working on a crypto exchange so you can trade on the code you wrote. If you do your own taxes get a job at Intuit. Etc.

Then maybe you won’t feel so disconnected from the work you do and it will become more satisfying.