> Reading through your responses, I'm not sure I can give you great advice because the two large software companies I've worked at welcomed moves out of what you call sustaining engineering

I've heard this is what they do at MS, possibly others. It sounds great. My first job was like this but we got acquired by cisco.

I really do like programming even if I'm terrible at it and other engineers think I'm terrible. If I try to work on my own stuff I feel like less of a loser even if it's shit. Other engineers just said that I took too long to understand stuff, asked too many questions. I do panic when I can't figure stuff out and google doesn't produce results.

Thanks for the advice.