That's probably true for any creative work. It's difficult to imagine that, say, working on a large graphical design concept would not feel similar. But the po

That's probably true for any creative work. It's difficult to imagine that, say, working on a large graphical design concept would not feel similar. But the point I want to make is that while I agree that many software engineering jobs are like this, they don't have to be: A well-structured agile project where tasks are properly broken down into sufficiently small units, you can generally achieve a kind of closure at the end of the day (tests are green, code is pushed, task is marked complete) that would allow you to reduce the memory load significantly. It's no small feat to successfully structure a process like this, and it definitely requires the support of the wider org, but know it can be done, because I worked on one. It was super-pleasant and rewarding.