This is exactly what makes the difference between a seasoned and experienced engineer vs "follow the latest nodejs lib kind of guy" ... I learned a lot exactly

This is exactly what makes the difference between a seasoned and experienced engineer vs "follow the latest nodejs lib kind of guy" ... I learned a lot exactly when doing non sexy stuff that nobody else wanted to do. For instance, when it comes to optimizing an obscure query and make the whole system run twice as fast ... you will learn DB internals, and how the DB engine heuristic works when determining whether to use or not and index etc .. All things that are now part of my senior experience and knowledge and for which I am paid much more than a junior :) My best advice would be : do the hard stuff, the stuff that people don't want to do. Make yourself valuable to the company. People will come and ask for you. That's the best way to learn and also have more leverage to ask for increase+stocks. Knowledge is power. Everyone can pickup any new shiny framework in just a couple of days. That's not hard.