This is exactly how it goes and it's clear you've worked at a large company. At the end of the day you have to accept that, yes, you are a cog in a machine. Yo

This is exactly how it goes and it's clear you've worked at a large company. At the end of the day you have to accept that, yes, you are a cog in a machine. You have to morally reckon with the fact that the company is making millions or billions of dollars and sometimes you're not giving 100% of your mental effort because there's a lot of bureaucratic crap in the way. That's how it is. You either accept that and make peace or leave and go to a small company and try to make an impact that way (with way less pay). Being super efficient at your job is not a "moral goal" when working at a big company. It's too big and complicated to draw clear lines about what is right and what is wrong when doing your work there. Even if you become more efficient at your job and make better product, often the thing holding back your product is something else entirely. You could improve the product by 1% by working harder but maybe your marketing department sucks or your senior leadership doesn't know what they're doing. The people in those positions could make different decisions and make your product 5x better, so it doesn't even matter. Work long enough at a big company and you realize even if you do a bang up job, it won't make a huge difference in most cases. (Sometimes the product you're working on gets cancelled or fails in the market, so what was the point of stressing anyway??)