Man, you nailed it. I finished EE degree in 1992 and was having so much fun by 1994 writing C for a small software company. That led to a job with a FANNG (actually a MAMAA) where I've been ever since. I'm still lucky to be writing the kind of code I like writing, but the process is way more frustrating than ever due to what you've described. There are way too many people involved now who picked the field because it was high-paying, not because they were inspired by the Apollo program, or tinkered on a TRS-80 when they were 12 and were hooked.

I'm also lucky I went full time remote in 2014, and had managers who supported me taking a part-time side gig as a paid-on-call firefighter/EMT for my local small community. This has transitioned into a great opportunity to "retire" from software and still have something very fulfilling to direct my energy towards. It's just that I'm not ready to ditch the code-writing habit.