I feel your pain. I've been working in IT for several decades but not in SV nor NY. For the most part what you describe is the REALITY. With the exception of

I feel your pain. I've been working in IT for several decades but not in SV nor NY. For the most part what you describe is the REALITY. With the exception of startups and personal projects, programming is about getting business goals met. The PMs are just as burnt out as you are. They are getting masses of user requests, management demands and other "inputs". They are running interference and doing their best to ensure that at least some demands are satisfied. 95% of programming work is maintenance - bug fixing, feature additions, interfaces for new data sources, etc. In large corporations it is mostly about fixing what the vendors and highly-paid-consultants promised and failed to deliver. Working for the global consulting firms is the same grind, but wearing more expensive suits - unless you are working in an off-shore sweatshop.