> I'm growing miserable and finding I dont enjoy this whole CRUD MVC business logic type of work. I'm tired of fixing leaking pipes in mediocre code bases by pe

> I'm growing miserable and finding I dont enjoy this whole CRUD MVC business logic type of work. I'm tired of fixing leaking pipes in mediocre code bases by people who aren't passionate about what they do. I also find app development to be plain uninspiring and am constantly biting my tongue. That's called software engineering (programming + time + money + people + constraints) > I want to develop a JS interpreter, a simple game engine, or even an app of my own interests. That's called programming (plain programming). Obviously, programming is more fun that software engineering (in general). The classic story is: boy receives his first computer, discovers BASIC programming and fells in love with it. That's what he wants to do for the rest of his life. Then boy becomes adult and needs money. So adult does software engineering (instead of programming) for a living. Software engineering could be as you have described (very meaningless), but it can be the other way around. Like in many other aspects in life: Keep searching. This means: search for a better job/company, start your own company, get into better projects, learn how to like more software engineering, do freelancing, etc.